Blackie: The Mouse That Roared

By Kitt Foxx

Little did the automotive world know or realize that with the release of the 1955 Chevrolet, this little new V8 engine developed by Ed Cole at General Motors Corp. was going to have such an impact on the automotive history all over the world. And with the skill of an unknown automotive engineer, Arkus Duntov, who created the famous Duntov 30-30 camshaft for that little engine, already nicknamed the Mouse Motor, it was going to create the famous horsepower race of the ’60s and ’70s. Mighty Mouse was born.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984563323

Kitt Foxx

RETIRED FORMER TRADE SCHOOL TEACHER AND HEATING AND AIR CONDITIONING TECH. FOR 30 YEARS, ORIGINALLY FROM ROSWELL GEORGIA. NOW. RESIDING IN THE BEAUTIFUL VILLAGE OF PINE ARIZONA. IN THE FOOTHILLS OF THE NORTHERN ARIZONA MOUNTAINS. GOD’S SPECIAL PLACE FOR WEARY WARRIORS.

Book preview

BLACKIE

The Mouse That Roared

KITT FOXX

Copyright © 2018 by KITT FOXX.

ISBN:        Softcover         978-1-9845-6333-0

                   eBook              978-1-9845-6332-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10 /29/2018

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

787476

Contents

Prolouge

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

PROLOUGE

THINKING BACK IN TIME, ABOUT THE CARS YOU OWNED FROM THE BEST TO THE WORST, YOUR FAVORITE ONES AND HOW THEY BECAME YOUR FAVORITES, THATS WHAT THIS STORY ABOUT. THE MOUSE THAT ROARED MY FAVORITE. CAR––-, MY 57 CORVETTE -–-IT HAD THE GM SMALL BLOCK ENGINE KNOWN AS A MOUSE MOTOR, IN ITS DAY. BECAUSE OF ITS SIZE RANGEING FROM 262 CUBIC INCHES TO 400 CUBIC INCHES. THERE HAVE BEEN OVER 200 MILLION OF THEM PRODUCED BELIEVE IT OR NOT, ENOUGH TO GO ARROUND THE EARTH TWICE IF LAYED END TO END, THATS MILLIONS OF THEM, MIGHTY MOUSE WAS BORN IN 1955 AND IS STILL THE BOSS. AND HAS BEEN TRANSPLANTED INTO THOUSANDS OF OTHER BRANDS OF AUTOS AND HOT RODS ARROUND THE WORLD. THIS MOUSE HAS TRUELY ROARED. THANK YOU MR. COLE, MR. DUNTOV, AND GENERAL MOTORS. .U.S.A. FOR PRODUCEING ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS OF ALL AUTOMOTIVE ENGINES IN THE WORLD–—THE MOUSE MOTOR–––— THE MOUSE THAT ROARED!!!!!!!!.ITS NO LONGER IN PRODUCTION, BUT IT WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN AS LONG AS ONE OF THOSE HOT RODS EXISTS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.

CHAPTER 1

It’s December twenty first 1953, in Roswell Ga. and my trusty old 41 Chevy Coupe is way beyond tired, it just flat refuses to start again this cold, cold, morning, and naturally I’m late for work already too cold this morning, come on babe, just one more time Please!!, after all I’ve got to go to work this morning, we need the money. Jean honey, come out here and help me push 41 out to the driveway please. my drive way was a gravel and down hill. kind of driveway about 40 yards down to the main paved road, and I’m already late, and getting later, getting on my way to work, and he still. didn’t fire up and now I’m running out of driveway, Dammit!!! 41 That’s It.!!!! I’m sick of this crap, I’m already late, and you acting up again Dammit!!— I’m back in the house, on the phone, yeah chief, my damn Car won’t start again and I can’t make it to work today. . I’m sorry, yes, yes, I know you are right. I’m going to do that today soon as I can get This Piece Of Junk going. .So, About noon it had warmed up some, and I’m back down in the road with 41 That’s when I see another car approaching I stepped out in the road and flagged it. down and ask for a push, he was glad to help, the bumpers lined up ok and away we went.

41 Coughed, hissed, popped, whizzed and spit and as a last resort he fired up and started running, I waved the guy off and pulled over, i waved a thank you., and sat there until he warmed up a bit and then, drove back to the house turned him around, headed down the driveway, and shut him down, went back into the house.to warm up some more. Then I had breakfast at almost noon and ask Jean if she wanted to go for a little ride, where to she ask, Tradeing cars I said, No thank you she answered!!! but would you Please get something I can drive, I’m sick of this junk you drive, I want an automatic shift car, you know I can’t drive these other things. God, they make me nervous. OK. I’ll see what I can find hon. I got yesterday’s newspaper ad section and started looking., the section that caught my eye was the local Chevy dealer here in town his ad said that they were haveing a close out on the 53s. Wow, i wonder if i could get a new one on credit, So i ask Jean if she would like a new one, O yes that would be wonderful, we would have to make payments every month you realize don’t you, Yes, she said, I know!!, I know!! Now, she wants to go see.some new cars. .Well it is almost Christmas and I guess we do need one.im thinking.

We got there about 2 pm, and looked at the new 54 models, and if I traded 41 in and two hundred in cash–—, well Jean shot that down right quick, What else you got I ask, well he had a super clean 53 trade in on a 54 with 8,000 miles thats just almost like new and would fit our budget he said, We went out and drove it, Jean loved it. I hated it, it was two tone green, and I hated green, 41 was green when I got him, but he’s blue now, and this 53 was a Power Glide transmission, a gutless wonder I called it, an hour later and 24 payments to go Jean drove us home, I knew better than to take her along, but it’s over, now maybe she can go to the grocery store by herself. She was jumping up and down happy, Took me in to the bedroom about 4;30 that afternoon and rewarded me very well for getting HER a car. We had been married since 51 and we were still on our honeymoon at times like this. I was not too happy about Driving a car that won’t get out of its own way on take off from red lights. 41 was fine when we were dating, never let me down like this before, but that was some time ago and lots of miles ago.i wish I had the 53 engine in 41, with no car payments, I should have thought of That sooner, now 41 is gone, traded in as down payment on 53. Too late. And too cold to change engines now, but it always started and ran good last summer, 41 never liked winter time at all.and truthfully neither do I. I should have moved to Florida before getting married, Now I’m really stuck because her Mom and Dad live here locally also, and I’m not exactly their favorite son in law, and it’s not getting better real fast.

We drove the 53 until 55 when the slush box tore up, (Transmission) and having that thing rebuilt was just something I could not even start to think about, I had silently been hoping for that to happen since we bought it. Well Jean we can get it fixed and be 2 months behind on payments, or I can put in a standard transmission out of the junk yard for about $50.00 My self. THAT $400.dollar transmission overhaul just flew out the window. My Dad and I had it done the next weekend for about $80 dollars total, now it was my turn to like the 53. We kept it until 56, it had about fifty thousand miles or so on it. I had changed jobs now and I made about twice the money that I was making before, plus there was a credit union also there at my new job, and we had over a thousand dollars saved by the early fall of 56, another new car for Christmas. A new 56 two door V8 stick shift. Jean had perfected her ability to drive a stick shift transmission and loved it. A regular hot rodder now. We had the 56 just a little over 3 months, when she wrecked it late one afternoon, Or rather a Marietta Cop late for shift change, was in too much of a hurry and wiped off the complete left side of my new car. And scared the crap out of Jean. THAT really messed things up, the car was totaled, after only 3 payments, That’s when I first noticed Blackie over at the Chevy dealer, the car I had heard about, sitting on the show room floor was my dream car. .A black 57 sting ray Chevrolet Corvette!!!

THAT 57 CORVETTE was. Black and it had my name all over it. Even though it cost $4510 dollars, that was almost twice the price of a 56 Bel air sport coupe, it was a.3 speed Stick shift both tops and fuel injected, 283 engine that produced 283 horse power, only 1,040 of the fuel injection models were produced in 57 and this one was number 886, and that thing has been keeping me wide awake now for two nights, trying to figure out some way for me to own this thing. My auto insurance paid off my loan on the totaled 56, and while I was there in the credit union office I ask the lady if perhaps I put down my existing thousand plus dollars that we had on the Corvette. if they would finance the balance for me, No problem at all she said, Hot Damn!!!! Get outta my way, Corvette here i come. Monday morning, I drove my new Black Vett.to work, and the only problem I had with all this was JEAN!!! She pitched a Royal 7 day full blown Bitch!!!!!!!. That’s all I heard for months, and every time I took her for a ride her blood pressure went crazy, she was not the Hot Rod Sport I thought she was, in fact she wasn’t any kind of sport. One Sunday afternoon about 5 o’clock we were headed home from the lake, I’m fishing, she’s swimming, I got a little nutty and showed her 110 on the Speedo. She said she was only passing gas from the food we had for lunch that day, but while I was putting the hard top back on she changed out from those white shorts into jeans and was very quiet about our day at the lake. I wonder??? Naw she couldn’t have!! I don’t think she was THAT scared at least i hope not. She was cool with speeding a little I think although she was awfully.quiet. 0, well. What the hell.!! She will get over it eventually.i guess. Maybe, Who knows?? Anyways………….

As time went by, I learned by trial and error exactly what Blackie could and could not do, he loved 85—95 MPH and I felt comfortable with that also. the cars suspension was a little stiff but. it was a factory hot rod and many hours of design testing had determined this to be the best all all around system to use, however I found out that those boys driving those. Silver and blue Highway Patrol Pontiacs with the bubble gum machine on top spent way too much time looking at Blackie just going down the road at a normal speed, they followed me at times wherever we went and we were good, but Blackie wanted to play Catch me if you can but I was pushing the petals so we stayed nice. In the fall of 59 the last payment was taken from my check and he was Mine Mine, all Mine!!!!. We had adapted to having car payments for the last few years, so i made Jean happy. I bought her a fantastic little low millage used 51 Ford Victoria stick shift with overdrive on a one year credit union loan, that over drive option and white side wall tires were just what made that little coupe, I had to demonstrate the over drive system to her several times, we had never had an overdrive transmission car before, and I don’t think she ever used it, but again, maybe she did she loved that car, Black with green interior, I put twin glass pack exhaust system on it and that really put a smile on her face, my Vett.already had dual exhaust, all i had to do was change the mufflers one Saturday morning to get the sound I wanted. Now we were both cooking with gas.and hauling ass.!!!! She was a different girl when we were far, far, away from her parents. I never did figure that one out………..

I made a few extra bucks up on the freeway on most Saturday nights and Sunday mornings on different bets with guys that had never seen a Corvette fully turned loose like I did mine, I had done a few things to the engine, like Cam and lifters, traction bars Schaffer flywheel and a Velva-touch clutch assembly. I did a lot more to the engine when i pulled it out to overhaul it, over $800 dollars just in parts, It was a very radical change in horsepower from stock, A 300 dollar Saturday night was not unusual for me and.the Vett. One night it was a thousand dollar night, the bad boys bet a 100 bucks each that I could not give all ten of them a lined up and gone 45 second head start, and pass them all in five miles or less, some of these guys were fast, but most were set up for drag racing different gear ratio in the differential ratios, those were not good for high speed racing. My 3.0 was made for high speed.

I passed 6 of them on the first mile or so and the other four in just over two miles later, and im doing about 140 MPH as i went by them. At one A.M theres.no traffic at that hour, we had the highway all to ourselves… I was done for the night i collected my cash and went home, before the shock wore off and the fight began., That special Velva-touch clutch and that Schaffer. flywheel that i got from California took care of my clutch problem, all the way up to about ten thousand RPM. I did that a few times, I had to buy another tach that read that high, but that kind of R P.M. always scared me, I sure didn’t want to blow him all to hell at that RPM.and blow some big holes in my hood.that would be very expensive to fix, I loved ole Blackie too much to even think about doing that. We had lots of good runs at the local drag strip, I never had much competition for there were not too many Corvettes sold they were few and far between, in those days, Sport cars were just beginning to become popular most people just wanted transportation, not factory hot rods, money was hard to save, and most people had house payments and not a lot of money to spare. 4500 dollars for a sports car was ridiculous at that time. I didn’t need this car, I just Wanted it. kinda like breathing for me…………

CHAPTER 2

The third year I owned Blackie I spent a lot of money on an all ready fantastic car it was a money Pit. Jean said I loved that DAMN car more than her, because I wanted it to be always quicker and faster, than anything anywhere, I bought anything that improved it even just a little bit, I had to have it, And. I kept it for 5 years until the Judge in Atlanta separated us, but that’s another story you will learn later if you keep reading. Blackie was a good boy, he didn’t, bump or crash into things, I tried to help him out all I could. No dings, dents, or scratches, but seems like he was always dirty, if I washed him ten times a week, he’s still dirty, fresh wax job about ever 60 days, and Jean was no help, I just gave up on trying to keep white wall tires, i always ask the tire guy to put them on backwards, Black side out a lot easier to keep them clean then.and my favorite fuel was Pure Oil 105 if I could find it. It always got hand washed, the brushes in the car washes, really scratched that midnight Black paint down each side, Took me hours to compound them out again. I went to school with a guy who after four years in the Marines became the personal body guard and driver for the Governor, And then later the head of the Highway Patrol, we both lived in the same town and occasionally got together on the road to work, in the mornings him in front and me pushing at 110 MPH with his blue light flashing, we got to work early on those days. Just having a little fun. Nothing serious…………..

I was employed by a guy in Atlanta for a while that owned a liquor warehouse and owned six liquor stores, had money to burn, and paid me very, very, well there were six large trucks that hauled imported booze from the ports of entry to the warehouse down the road about a half mile away. There were also six white Chev.Impalas that ran booze to the dry county’s and to houses of Ill repute state wide in those county’s, I kept all of them in good repair, and tune.as best i could, they were out in the nights almost every night on their runs. But one weekend one of them was lost to the local police down state, the driver tried to out run them but couldn’t do it, afterward I was ask how could this could have been avoided,