Confessions of a Cougar-holic

Hi, my name is James and I'm a Cougar-holic. My story, well, I was raised just outside the San Francisco bay area in a small town called Pleasanton, California. At least it was a small town when I lived there. The Good Guys show would start a few years after I left. My father was a sort of car guy. He loved cars, but just never found a car to get passionate about. At one point or another he's had an Austin Healey, a '65 GTO 'vert, a '67 XKE, and a '67 GTX. He actually was about to buy a 300SL Gull wing but decided on buying the Austin brand new instead. Unfortunately, I got older and the need for family cars interfered. He was still out there every weekend washing, waxing, and keeping ahead of the maintenance on everything he owned.

Fortunately my uncle lived nearby and was always working on one of his Thunderbirds. I learned to drive on his knee in a '64 Thunderbird at age 7 and was cruising the farm roads around his house in a '67 Thunderbird at age 10. Just up the road and back.

By the time I got my license at 16, I had helped my father or my uncle with everything from tune-ups to engine rebuilds, mainly FEs. I even helped rebuild a 1919 Cat and the flathead on an 8N tractor.

Just before my sixteenth birthday, a neighbor was selling his '71 Challenger 340 T/A six pack for $2500.00. My mom thought, "Too much car." My dad thought, "Yuck! Mopar! (He hated the GTX.) My uncle was against anything not Ford blue. So instead I got my dad's '77 Ford Ranchero GT with all the smog minus the cat's and with dual glass-packs. Just think what the T/A is worth today!

Well, the muscle car bug wouldn't leave me alone and I got the first of my Camaros. Of course it wasn't fast enough, so along with my cousin we changed this, added that, and looking back it probably spent more time waiting on more money than time on the road.