Johnny Hirtle and the 500hp Super Bee

Johnny, may he rest in peace, bought a 1969 Dodge Super Bee at Weiland Motors in Kitchener. They were strictly used cars then, and it was a few years before they got the Ford franchise, so the Bee had a few miles on it already. She was a box-stock stripper with column shift Torqueflite, bench seats, and the 335hp 383. Didn't take long to grenade that motor, given the extravagant smoke shows that erupted all over town. Johnny had a conundrum; rebuild that motor or swap in something new. Turns out he found a '68 Road Runner for sale that had been heavily modified for drag racing, hence the 500hp. The problem was that motors built for drag racing are designed to absolutely peak out at a quarter mile, whereas a stock Bee geared for the street is just getting warmed up at the quarter mile mark. In addition to even more spectacular smoke shows, we now got stories about "burying the speedometer." Given that the Super Bee speedo goes to 150mph, I found that rather alarming. Fortunately, the lifespan of that race motor was even shorter than that of the original, which probably extended the lifespans of anybody who ever took a ride. Johnny took a decidedly mellow turn after that. Couple of years later, he was tooling around in an Econoline van. By then a ride with Johnny was still an adventure, because you never knew if it was gonna be three hours or three days, but at least you were reasonably confident you'd eventually arrive alive!