I'll be dang, Facebook is good for something after all...finding old hot rod buddies!

I actually gave in to the Facebook stuff and it has sorta been really cool after all. I have found some people in one day I had not seen in years.

These cars belonged to one of these people I am talking about.

When we moved to Plano in 1977 I was a Schwinn Stingray riding goober stuck between kid and preteen. One of the things that pushed me along the curve of growing up was being in awe of the guy that lived behind us...Brad.

(He is the guy sporting the spiffy red trunks above btw)

Brad was a few years older than I was and I though he was the coolest guy on the face of the planet. He introduced me to Monte Python and we would watch it in his bedroom on Sunday nights. I raced slot cars with him (damn that Shadow car!), and I watched him get the idiot kid down the street to do the stupidest stuff ever.

Being the height of the Smokey and the Bandit era we were eat up with Trans Am's big time. We talked about them all the time and my dad called us the TA Twins back in those days.

This brown 1978 Trans Am will always will have a special spot in my memory.

My dad being in the car business led to him helping Brad get into his first car (a mid 70's Monte Carlo) and we were in on the Christmas surprise Brad's parents had lined up for him in the form of this brown Trans Am. He wanted one so bad and his parents decided to hook him up and my dad found the car for them. We stored that car in our garage waiting for Christmas morning to come and it was super hard keeping him from seeing it.

We were invited over on Christmas morning and that was when the fun began. His parents gave him a toy TA and a Pontiac Trans Am key fob with some keys for a car he "would have some day" and everybody had a good laugh about it.

He did not think that was real funny...

Suddenly it dawned on him that we were invited over on Christmas morning (not the norm) and that the keys might actually belong to something.

The dude was in heaven when he hit the alley and saw that car, I will never forget how cool that was.


These pics are from a Saturday morning wash the following summer. The old girl was looking good.

Only time the T-tops were on is if it was raining it seems...



I had a 1977 TA at the same time, and here I am all ready to cruise at 15 (I had a hardship back when it was easy to get one) in my silver TA.

And yes, this is before I discovered Punk and Rockabilly and so on...



Brad had a bunch more cars over the years, (hey Brad, remember the crazy Manta bug kit car you thought about buying?) and this red Mustang GT is the one I think that followed the TA.

Brad is behind the wheel in front of my parents house.


In 1987 he was tearing it up in this yellow Vette.





So Facebook led to me finding a guy that was a big part of my youth...so maybe it ain't so lame after all...