THE SIGN OF THE CAT
THERE’S AN OBVIOUS BENEFIT to arriving at the annual Pure Stock Muscle Car Drags (PSMCD) a day before the action starts. At this event, held at Mid-Michigan Motorplex in Stanton, Michigan, spectators can leisurely walk the staging lanes—before the cacophony of high-revving engines and tire-shredding burnouts rattle the otherwise peaceful rural atmosphere — to watch a steady stream of muscle cars go through tech. It’s when tales about the gathering greats of yore are conveyed by proud owners: How long they’ve owned their respective rides, where they found them, how long each has been raced, what it took to restore, and so on. The backstories of these cars are often compelling.
Some of the machines gathered for competition are ultra-rare collector gems, while others are more common specimens, but all are bound by a common thread: Someone, somewhere, just to have that car when it was new. An example is this 1968 Mercury Cougar XR-7 GT-E, which packs a wallop courtesy of
