This is my old car, Max

Into every car enthusiast's life, there comes a machine that you take a special liking to. Meet Max. Max was a Bad Boy. My wife named him.

Max was a mild-mannered Datsun 260-Z on the outside. But under the hood, he was pure Detroit small-block, as deep in Max's chest beat a Chevy 350 small-block engine, with an Edelbrock manifold, a 650cfm Holly carb, a 3/4 racing cam and headers. Did I know what all that stuff was and what it did? Nope. But he growled. I liked that.

These converted Z's are sometimes known as Scarabs. You know, like the black beetle in the movie The Mummy that ate anything it came in contact with? And to keep the record straight, it was a DATSUN, not a pansy-ass NISSAN.

Max was a hell of a lot of fun to take into service stations (back then we actually still had people, they're called mechanics, that worked at the stations to fix, well, the things that pulled into service stations - cars. Oh, that's right, they're not called service stations anymore, they're mini-marts. Sorry. Anyway, it was a BLAST to pull in and the mechanic would hear the lobed-racing-cam going WHUMP-WHUMP-WHUMP-WHUMP in the parking lot and of course come out to see what kind of muscle car was sitting there. And there sat a little black Datsun Z. They ALWAYS wanted to see under the hood. It would kind of go like this: "Whut the hell you doin' with that in THERE...that's a Jap car with a Detroit small block in it!? HEY LEONARD-BOB, GIT YOUR ASS OVER HERE AN' LOOKIT WHAT THIS GUY'S GOT IN THIS DAT-SUN (always pronounced dat, like cat)!!"

But as it goes with most Men-Toys, Max had to go.

I miss you buddy. Sniff. Sniff. Boo-hooooooooooooooooooooooooo!