The Megaphone incident

Every now and again while driving the Shelby GT. I get more than just the standard “hey nice car nod” or the really common “I will trade you straight across offer” or the most typical “I wanna see what your car will do against mine”. So for anything OUTSIDE of those I just listed, my good friend Ben and I have named these: Mustang Moments!

The latest Mustang Moment involves a powered megaphone… Oh yeah, it gets better. –So we had some nice weather a couple weekends ago and I thought hey, great time to get out and drive the Shelby. State Street was cleared of snow and mostly dry so I went that route. It also happened to be early evening. You know, just before the late night stuff goes on so I thought I might be safe from all the Younger kids in the Import cars (though they are fun to race against) and other even less interesting folks. I am cruising along and right beside me I notice a large SUV packed with people looking to be about 18 to 25 years old. They take notice of the Shelby GT and proceed to look the car over… No big deal. Right? –Wrong.

What happens next is what makes this post important to my blog. The driver is holding what appears to be a CB radio in his hand. Images of Smokey and the Bandit rush to my head and I think… Who uses CB’s these days? Well turns out it’s no CB. The passenger seated directly behind him has just lifted a HUGE megaphone from the window of the car and is no pointing it out the window for all to hear what the driver has to say. The evening hum of State Street traffic was interrupted by a series of loud squaks and then the following announcement. “Attention driver, of the Shelby Mustang! –That is the sweetest looking car on the road. You win the award for the coolest car tonight. Can you burn the tires for us?”

Half in shock, partly in confusion, and also because I didn’t care to have anymore public service announcements- I dropped the car down from 4th gear at 2,800 rpm and slid the Hurst shifter into 3rd gear, pushed down the gas pedal to wind up the engine and let out the clutch at a little over 4,000 rpms! The Shelby GT responded smartly with a bark of the tires, and the growl of the dual exhaust as I launched ahead of them. I kept pushing till I reached a safe distance ahead of them. By that time I had a few moments to reflect on the situation… A MEGAPHONE! Are you kidding me? Who in the hell goes around town with a megaphone in cars yelling at other drivers. Then it occurred to me that when I was in High School I went on State Street with friends armed with fire extinguishers. So I guess I had my answer. I thought, man I must be getting old to look back and forget that I did stupid stuff like that… But I also just raced my Shelby pushing it 25 miles over the posted limit. –Guess I am not too old