Here's a test for all you guys out there who think their car is the greatest. Get a piece of paper and a pencil and tally your points. Let's see if your's will hold up to mine!
1. If your car's overall design represents the vision of just one man who is now dead, once struck terror, dread and/or awe into the hearts of his employees, give yourself 50 points.
2. If you feel compelled to buy a 300-page Official Factory Shop Manual to go with your car, give yourself 25 points.
3. 50 points if you keep a tool kit in your car. 20 points more if the tools are ever actually needed to fix the car; 10 more if it's raining or snowing when this happens.
4. 100 points if your car's model name has existed for more then 15 years. 25 more points if it has the name of an animal.
5. If your car can be loaned out to another person with less than 10 minutes of careful instruction on its peculiarities, deduct 20 points.
6. If you died suddenly and no one else on earth would be able to start the car or keep it running, give yourself 75 points.
7. Fifty points for any chassis and/or body with bondo, in primer paint or is custom made.
8. Forty points for wire wheels. Ten more for "unsafe" knockoff spinners with ears.
9. Deduct 200 points for wire-wheel hubcaps and 50 off for "bolt-on" wire wheels. 25 more points if your wheels are stylish STEEL "mag" wheels....damn the high tech light weight alloy!
10. If your car, or one very much like it, ever won in NASCAR give yourself 100 points. 150 if it won at a demolition derby!!!
11. Fifty points for ROCHESTER or CARTER carburetors. If it has 2 or more, add another 50.
12. Fifty points more for carburetors with velocity stacks and no air cleaners; 25 points more if the velocity stacks protrude from the bodywork.
13. Deduct Seventy-five points for EACH performance name sticker or logo on your car. e.g. Edelbrock, Hurst, Hooker, Halibrand etc. BUT add 25 points for EACH name brand performance part that you have. Lastly Reward yourself 50 points for EACH "homemade" performance modification or part that works!!!
14. Award yourself 100 points if the car was an early to mid 80's production car. You deserve it.
15. If replacing the clutch requires that the entire engine and transmission be pulled, give yourself 150 points.
16. If you would rather commit suicide than do any maintenance job more than 2 times, give yourself 25 points.
17. 50 points if you insist upon doing the "job" yourself because you don't want the car scratched, abused, dirtied or in any other way violated by a mechanic/technician. 50 bonus points if you don't have a clue what your doing to start with, but will attempt anyhow. Fifty points if you insist on cleaning and detailing your own car because you know it's particulars.
18. If you have to go out of state or cross a time zone for this or any part or form of maintenance, add 40 more.
19. Seventy-five points for any car whose engine heat causes passengers to request you let them off early, near "a friend's house" or a phone booth.
20. 150 points if you get carbon-monoxide headache from SOME kind of leak or another.
21. Give yourself 75 points if you have to stress (or for the sake of saving on premiums AVOID) convincing your insurance agent that your car was a production car (25 more it still shows up wrong on your insurance contract).
22. Collect 50 points if your car has T-tops.
23. One point for every "Lift-the-Dot" snap that doesn't line up with any visible grommet on your weather equipment.
24. If, on the roadside, you are brought to your knees, exhausted, by a convertible top that will not stretch far enough to reach the "Lift-the-Dot" snaps, give yourself 40 points. Forty more if it's raining. Ten-point bonus if you are on the Dan Ryan Expressway at night.
25. One hundred points for chrome bumpers, window glass trim and/or grilles.
26. Thirty points for in dash ignition switch.
27. Deduct 500 points for any car whose door window glass does not go all the way down on the rear passenger doors. Then write a letter to the company and ask what they were thinking.
28. One hundred points for having a large American station wagon instead of a minivan or a sport-utility vehicle. Fifty more for "Vista-Cruiser" roof windows or a rear-facing jump seat.
29. Fifty points for any car that has more than 40 bhp for each inch of tire width. NET!!
30. DEDUCT 150 points if your car was one of those cheesy "designer" editions.
31. If your car is, or ever was, the fastest production car on earth, add another 100 points.
32. Add 25 points if your car was a limited production PERFORMANCE car...i.e. had equipment UNavailable on lesser models. Not just paint and/or trim difference.
33. Fifty points if your car was driven in a movie-or in real life-by Steve McQueen, Burt Reynolds, James Dean, James Garner, etc. or was in itself a popular tv/movie icon.
34. Twenty points if your car has EXTRA wide white walls or white letter tires.
35. If you come out of a movie at night and accidentally try your keys in another car that looks just like yours, subtract 500 points. This has never happened to a car with character.
36. For having TRUE dual exhausts you deserve a whopping 100 points. 50 for dual exits.
37. If your car has a feature or option that is now obsolete, give yourself 25 points EACH. (e.g. fiber optic light monitors, multiple carbs, hell even one carb, less than 4 forward transmission gears, etc)
38. Deduct 300 points for a faux convertible roof top.
39. Add 100 points if you actually look out for other cars like yours. 50 more if you actually HAVE to be on the look out to find one like yours. And a generous 50 more if you feel compelled to greet or approach the owner of this car.
40. 100 points if people KNOW its you and your car from the sound a 1/4 mile off or some UNIQUE (for better or worse) look.
41. 50 points if your car's interior has a unique fragerence (though some may claim it's an "odor"). 25 more if you "miss" that fragrence when in other people's cars.
42. 500 points if you've done the NASTY in your car! That car has got character now rather you acknowledge it or not!!
43. 500 points if you were involved in an accident with the car (it's an emotionally bond)....another 500 if it wasn't with another car (i.e. a tree, curb) because you were showing off!! 250 if you were jsut being a stupid driver.
44. 50 points for EACH "battle" scar with accompanying story!
45. 25 points for each Junkyard salvaged part on your car.
46. 5 points for each missing trim part although the piecs that hold it still remain!!
47. Finally give youself 500 points if you've purposely taken pictures of your car, a hundred more if their on your wall or in your wallet, or a hundred if your hands are always too dirty to handle a camera.
Well tally it up. How'd ya do? I rated my car at 1750 points. Email me at rand007@athenet.net and tell me how you did. People who beat me will be put on the list of legends coming soon!