Hair Hippies and Hot Rods: THE RAT KILLER

WEDNESDAY MORNING: The Sixties was not only about the Beatles, long hair, hippies, campus protest, Haight and Ashbury, race-riots, anti-war demonstrations BUT it was also about "CUBIC INCHES"  Hot rods, street races and cruising Van Nuys Boulevard.  I couldn't leave this out of what was taking place in my first week of 5th grade. And the story I'm about to tell you is strictly off the record and totally confidential, but I think you need to know the truth.

Last time we left off as the Dahlin Clan of Viking-Hippies were pushing a broken down fleet of cars from one side of the street to the other in a Tow-War with the city.  7:00 am, Mr. D had wakened the brood of wild animals that occupied 2 and a half rooms of the third floor. Two were packed full of junk, but that didn't stop Kleghorn from burrowing in and nesting like a rat on top of one of the other two junk filled rooms.

Tony came barreling down Woodlawn peeling rubber from both rear tires, all the way from Venice Blvd through first and second gear. Tony didn't dare pull a stunt like that down Harding Avenue. Not after the lesson Bill Lennon taught Leland, uh uh...Tony wasn't about to invite a well placed golf ball through a side window of his precious hot rod.

Thank you Mr. Lennon.

The agitated crew of car pushers and tire-taker-off/ers-and-put'em-back-on/ers... jack slinging and lug wrench carrying tribe who had resorted to passing gas and rubbing boogers in each others hair - froze as Tony's legendary RAT KILLER came skidding to a stop inches away from the clan and belched steam into Erick's face as though it were alive. A fire breathing dragon of 750 horsepower.





Tony had been out again to Van Nuys Boulevard sucking the doors off of rich kids who thought they buy a turn key hot rod from a high-Performance pro-shop.  Tony stepped out of the car and emerged from the black cloud of tire smoke and held up a thick wad of cash that he had won that even impressed dad.

Tony is a story teller and everything he says must be scrutinized carefully. I have since learned from eyewitnesses that the racing stories of mythological proportions about Tony and his dreaded RAT KILLER in the 60's are absolutely true.

The part of this story that would be unbelievable (had the Dahlin's not been involved) is how Tony surreptitiously came in possession of the famed motor that stumped the engineers at Ford motor company, when he was finished with his creation.

Tony and dad went for a test ride in a 65 Galaxy at Wright Ford on Lincoln Blvd. They only had one in stock at the time, a red convertible with a 427 that came factory with dual quads (that's 2, four barrel carburetors - for you non-car-people) and a four speed.

With Tony's giddy insistence and squealing like a girl, dad relented and signed a lease.

It was dad's real estate car by day and Tony's off the showroom floor hot rod by night.

Dad, however, complained that the motor ran rough and sucked gas. Tony said, "I could I could fix that for you."

Tony Purchased a '58 station wagon for a hundred bucks from someone who lived behind us in the pink apartments. He took the old 352 from that ancient old Ford, dropped it in the Galaxy and now had the 427 on a engine stand in the little garage he had rented in a ally, on Glyndon, across the street from the Downey's house. Dad was happy...Tony was happier and the next owner of the Ford Galaxy was non-the wiser as he drove his second-owner beautiful car with a tired old 352 off the resale floor of Wright Ford.

Tony was Dr. Frankenstein and the motor on that stand like was his monster, waiting to come alive.  

I tell you more about the car later when we finally get around to Saturday and how me and my bestest Saint Mark's buddy, "Ghering the Great" crawled into the trunk and ended up in a police chase doing 157 miles an hour down Venice Boulevard.

Oh, and please don't tell the guy who owns the Galaxy! This is all top secret stuff! 

Happy 4th of July. (p.s. I know the Steppenwolf song is from 1969, but it just kind of sums it all up - the crazy Dahlin boys were "Born to be wild") And there just might be a little bit of that adventure and wild heart in all of us... maybe that's what drew the normal families to the Dahlin House which was the center of the Universe... at least it was the center of my universe and I was still trying to find my fit and my connection to the Universe!