The sweet machine pictured here is my first car. I purchased it 20 years ago from my then algebra teacher in high school for the price of $100.00. The car looks best when it’s in the shadows. I can see you are jealous.

In high school I could quote the horsepower ratings for any early 70’s Torino. The ’74 pictured here with a 351 Windsor and two-barrel carburetor are rated at 163 horsepower. Not neck snapping, but enough to keep things interesting.

From a 17-year-old perspective, the first thing you needed to do was get mag wheels. Sure the quarter panels were rusted out and the door handle would stick from time to time, but you needed mags ASAP. I will admit rear mags are different from the front. When a project like this is self-financed, you did what you could.

The engine was stock when I bought the GT (nick name the car got for being a Gran Torino). With some help from a good friend who had a talent for engines, the GT was tuned to perfection. After a long life of day to day commuting, the car was awakened and we started down the long path of first car ownership.

One day while driving with some friends out of Milwaukee during a major rainstorm we faced our first battle. As we started down an on ramp leading to highway 45 it became obvious there was a fair amount of standing water between us and the highway. Natural reaction of a 17 year old, firmly depress the right vertical pedal.

The trajectory was set and Mr. Scott had engaged warp drive. The only oversight was Mr. Sulu forgot to tell the Captain the on ramp had a rather deep depression between the start of the ramp and where it joined the highway.

The GT hit what turned out to be a small pond and all I saw was water pouring over the hood. My right foot stayed planted and thanks to the laws of physics the GT powered through. The only assets casualty was the removal of the exhaust system. A levelheaded adult would call this a problem. A teenaged motor head calls this an opportunity. 

Why go with the grocery getter single exhaust when you can open things up with dual exhaust. A local shop professionally installed a custom bent dual system for around $250.00. Now the $100.00 car was worth $350.00. I just tripled the value of the car!

The GT became my classroom on car control and vehicle dynamics. What was my favorite road sign? Loose gravel.

If Prost could handle his McLaren in the streets of Detroit and make it look easy, I could surly control the GT. Real world assessment, I’m not Prost and the GT was nothing like the McLaren. But that didn’t stop me from trying.

I spent more time studied the turns in my hometown and the surrounding roads of the kettle moraine area then any sane person would deem prudent. On occasion the bounds of physics would be crossed, but the GT held me safe.  

Over time, a bond developed between the GT and I. The type of bond that only happens with your first car. An understanding between man and machine.

Through the heat, sun, rain, fog, or snow, we were unstoppable. The longer I had the GT, the better it performed. Han Solo summed it up this way, “She don’t look like much, but she has got it where it counts.”

There are secrets that rest only between the GT and me. I can still hear the mellow rumble of the exhaust, as I would roll out of town. How the mellow rumble would change to a howel after the second stop sign as I turned left.

Following graduation, my future included a commute to college.  I purchased another car with fewer miles, no rust and better mileage. My plan was to storing the GT, so I could rebuild it after college. When you are 18 it makes perfect sense to store a rusty ’74 Gran Torino. You never turn you back on a true friend.

That summer I had just finished replacing a battery cable on the GT and was on the phone with my mom. It was at that moment the GT decided it was time to take care of me one last time. The conversation on the phone was pretty normal until I looked outside. The last thing I said was “I have to go, my car is on fire!”

I ran to the garage and grabbed a fire extinguisher, then broke the land speed record to the GT, which was sitting in a parking lot next to our house. The fire was contained to the engine compartment, but the extinguisher wasn’t enough. In time the fire department arrived.

The GT, knew the last thing a young kid headed to college needed was the expense of an extra car in storage. As the first firemen jumped from the truck he fell face first to the pavement. The GT knew she had to go, and wasn’t going to allow herself to be saved.

I parted out what I could salvage and then she was pulled to the junkyard. One last goodbye and she was gone forever.

I’ve owned a variety of cars and motorcycles over the years. May of them out perform the GT with ease. I’ve spent time at professional racing schools, learning the things the GT tried to teach me, but at 17 I didn’t have the patients to learn. 

I’ve enjoyed a variety of machines over the years, but you never forget your first.

I still have the original keys to the GT.