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SOWERBY'S ROAD
There's no power like horsepower
Memories of muscle cars and heart pounding performance
By Garry Sowerby
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Scott Boyd, a local television personality, looked the part in full leathers as he proudly showed me his new Harley-Davidson motorcycle. It was the first time I had ever talked to him outside a television studio and I was trying to get used to his look in biker garb. The blue bandanna tied over his head gave him a mischievous, bad boy look.
"My girlfriend, Leah Croft, and I have been having a ball cruising the back roads on this thing. We bought it last year," he commented, pointing out some of the features of Harley-Davidson's 100th anniversary Road King model.
"What are you driving?" he eventually asked, probably expecting something unusual.
"That 405 horsepower Z06 parked over there." I pointed to a bright blue 2003 Vette. "Want to go for a short spin up the highway?"
I didn't have to ask twice. Scott had never been in a Corvette before and was keen to check one out. And after a week behind the wheel, I knew how to demonstrate one of the car's many superlative features without breaking the speed limit.
We strapped in and I pulled onto the highway gradually forcing the throttle down in first gear. Scott's bandanna-covered head snapped back against the headrest. In a split second, the tachometer red-lined. Wham! Into second gear. In my peripheral vision, I noticed Scott's glasses catapult off his head. A quick shift into third put the speedometer at the 100 kilometres per hour speed limit. The episode had taken about four seconds.
"That was absolutely awesome. But I lost my glasses when you hit second gear." He had a smirk on his face like a kid who had just done something naughty.
"I know where they are. At the back of the storage space behind the seats. Anything that goes missing in this car ends up there." I knew the ferocious acceleration capabilities of the Z06 had a habit of propelling loose cargo, including sunglasses, into the rear compartment of the Corvette.
I have to confess that in my books there is nothing like a reserve of brute horsepower. And when it's pumped out in concert with the growl of a well-nourished V8 engine, it brings me back to the muscle car years when I was a young buck in the late '60s and early '70s. My father, Lee, had performance flowing through his veins, although he never really admitted it. Whenever he ordered a new car his three boys would harass him to go for the high-performance engine option. He would never cave in to us, but when his new Mercury or Buick arrived at the dealership, it rarely had the standard engine. Four-barrel carbs and factory dual exhaust were common ingredients in the Sowerby driveway, even though my father rarely used the extra power.
We didn't have a travel trailer and I could count the times Dad used the "passing gear" on one hand. After the big event, I'd give a play-by-play to my friends and schoolmates. Nerd boy.
My father always claimed he liked the big engine "just to know it was there," which did not make much sense to me at the time. But as I got older, I began to realize what he meant. Just knowing a Tyrannosaurus Rex is stuffed under the hood twitching to get turned loose gives a sense of primal satisfaction.
After leaving Scott, I drove to visit my brother-in-law, Bruce Tuck. Years ago he owned a 1965 Corvette convertible and I knew he would be keen on having his sunglasses hurled into the storage compartment. We went for a quick cruise. Bruce grinned a lot at first but then got the hang-dog, I-deserve-a-car-like-this look I had seen on the faces of so many of my friends during my week of motoring bliss.
I started to think I wasn't being such a good friend by showing the Z06 to them. Just drop by, spin them into a state of car fever and leave them like jilted lovers to daydream about how things would have been if they had 405 horsepower with a new Corvette wrapped around it.
Returning the car after a week left me in a mild state of depression. Everything I drove seemed anemic. I found myself scheming about how I could own one. Yeah, a silver Z06 with a black interior. Just trade the Yukon XL for a 2-seat supercar and let my brood fend for themselves. I heard faint voices telling me that I needed every one of those 405 horsepower.
A few weeks later, after my fever settled, I called Scott Boyd to check what model his Harley-Davidson was. He laughed when he heard my voice and said he would never forget his drive in the Z06.
"How's the bike working?" I asked.
"Good, but it's going into the shop next week."
"Why? Having problems?"
"No, it's working fine," he replied. "I'm just going for a little more horsepower."
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