For anyone who was into street racing back in the day, one name stood out; Jimmy Addison.
Addison operated a Sunoco station in Detroit and his daily driver was a '67 GTX that sooner or later was written up in virtually every car magazine under the sun. Legend had it that he never lost a race.
Addison's GTX ran low tens at 135 through the mufflers, a few tenths off what the top SS/A drag cars were running at the time. That is piss-your-pants fast in my world.
The quickest cars you could buy from a dealer in that era were the heavily prepped Yenko Camaros and Novas that promised five hundred horsepower. Baldwin Chevolet on Long Island offered their Phase III Camaro, also with five hundred horsepower and a guarantee of of a sub-twelve quarter mile with their driver behind the wheel.
To put some perspective on how quick Addison's GTX was, if you lined it up against one of those 500 hp Camaros, Addison would have about fifteen car lengths on it at the top of the quarter. That was one scary strong hemi.
Rumor had it that Addison's street racing endeavors had the financial backing of Chrysler Corporation. If that's true it's probably the only time in history that there was a factory sponsored street racer.
Alas, Addison was out of the game by the mid-seventies. Spent the rest of his life driving a cab around Detroit. Died behind the wheel a few years ago, of complications from an asthma attack, aged 65.
An ignominious end to the most legendary street racer of all time.
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