MOBILING

OK, so the wordplay of the headline isn’t amazingly original, but it does strike the theme for this installment of “Mobiling.”

First, a bit of history. By the end of the 1960s, the performance car era was pretty well over. The GTOs, Road Runners, and Chevy SS396s were done in by sky-high insurance costs, tighter pollution standards, escalating fuel prices, and frowns from state and federal governments on those highperformance road rockets. Some states even levied taxes on horsepower. Not to mention the continuing attention of local law enforcement, which seemed keenly interested in frequently examining my license and registration documents, well, just because.

So if you can flash back to the ’70s, what replaced them? Yes, there were the compact Pintos, Vegas, Darts, Dusters, and Mavericks, to forget the Gremlin. They may have been cheap to buy and operate, but they sure weren’t sexy. Compared to the 426 Hemi and Olds 442 weekend boulevard cruisers, the econo cars of the early ’70s just didn’t excite the libido. The babes didn’t seem motivated to sidle up next to you style, as you limped away from a traffic light in your wheezing four-cylinder Mustang II. Nor did the owners of the time feel motivated to spring for a set of wheels, modify the engines, or endlessly polish those forgettable road rocks.