When turtle said, let’s do the Impala, I got all excited. Yea, my grandpa had an Impala! Oh, wait. Look at these pictures. No good. Grandpa got his Impala long after they stopped being cool looking. I mean, gramps wasn’t exactly a “let’s go cruising in a muscle car” kind of guy. He was more of a “let’s drink this jug of wine and then ram my piece of shit car against the garage wall because I’m so drunk I thought I was on the street and not still in the garage” kind of guy. Yea, by the time gramps got an Impala, they had transformed into something a nun (or a drunk Italian grandfather) would drive. Nothing like this beauty, which I am writing about tonight:

That’s a 68 Impala Super Sport. Oh yea, I have a thing for those SS cars. There are a lot of variations of the 68 Impala, it seems, but this one is my favorite.

Take a good look at that car. You know what that reminds me of? A greaser. No, not a greaser like Kenickie or the dude Travolta played in Grease. No greased lightning here. This is Outsiders greaser. Remember The Outsiders? Sure you do. We all read it. Or at least you saw the movie. What a cast. Matt Dillon. Tom Cruise. Rob Lowe. Emilio Estevez. Leif Fucking Garret. That movie was a wet dream inspiration. Plus, I loved the book. Seventh grade, I read that book once a week for the entire year until I knew it by heart and the pages were all crudded up with nicotine and Cheese Doodle stains.

Ok, car. We are talking about a car here. Ok:

Bob Shelton: You guys know what greasers are? White trash with long, greasy hair.
Ponyboy: You know what a soc is?
Bob Shelton: What?
Ponyboy: White trash with mustangs and madras.

So this Impala, it’s total greaser. Can’t you picture Dally in this car? Or was that Darry? Matt Dillon....Patrick Swayze...hmm, I’ll take Dillon. Yea he made some crap movies (Herbie Fully Loaded? Did he owe someone a favor?) but he made Singles and that rules over Roadhouse * and that dancing movie any day of the week.

I’m having some attention deficit problems here tonight. Sorry.

The car. Yea, I can see this baby full of greasers. Johnny and Dally up front, smoking cigarettes and bitching about life. Sodapop and Ponyboy in the back seat, cursing out the window. Ready for a fight. A rumble. Have you ever been in a rumble? I was. Almost. Sorta. Remind me to tell you that story some day. But the Impala. All greaser. No socs allowed in this vehicle, please. In fact, this car was made to destroy socs. Yea. Like Death Race 2000. Socs are worth 500 points each! Dally gunning the engine, spotting Cherry Valance standing in the middle of the road, flipping her hair. Gun the engine. Step on the gas. The car is a blur of black fury as it heads towards that stuck up bitch. Sodapop and Ponyboy laughing maniacally. Johnny...well, that’s Ralph Macchio and he’s not that great an actor so he’s probably making the same goofy face he makes in all his movies. Maybe he’s yelling WAX ON, WAX OFF! Well, too late for your zen chants, Ralphie boy because this 68 Impala SS (see how I kept on topic there?) just made road pizza out of Miss Cherry Valance. Scooooooooooore! LET'S DO IT FOR JOHNNY, MAN. WE'LL DO IT FOR JOHNNY!

You know, it kind of upset me that Leif Garrett played a Soc in that movie. He was my first major crush. I had so many teenage fantasies about him that I had to start thinking about Leif Ericsson instead of Garrett when I went to bed at night in order to not go blind or grow hair on my palms or whatever. He should have traded places with Patrick “Oh look at me I can dance!” Swayze in that flick. That would have worked.

Shit. Impala, Impala, Impala. Damn cool car.

God damn, I made some strong coffee today.

Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold.

*listen, I've disparaged Roadhouse before and got reamed out for it. I don't care. I'm really not afraid of you Roadhouse fans. Afraid of Patrick Swayze fans? I don't think so. And though turtle thinks Swayze is the most underrated actor of our time. I'm gonna have to laugh at that. Hello? Kurt Russell? Overboard? Hell, I'd put Roadhouse up against Big Trouble in Little China in a steel cage match any day of the week. -M

Impala. An Impala. Why did I say Impala? I must have had some kind of dream. A lot of you know that I didn't grow up in the best places so sometimes when Michele asks me about my past, it brings up memories of when I was younger. I don't know why, but sometimes these thoughts get carried into my dreams. Maybe that's why I thought of this car. Telling anyone about how you grew up is always going to bring back memories. Since this is a site about cars and since tonight was car night maybe that's how it got there.

Or maybe it was watching an old Snoop Doggy Dogg video.

The 1962 Impala!

Oh yeah. These were the true lowrider cars. When you saw these roll by you had a feeling there was power under there, but why bother using it if you don't have to? Las muchachas todavía estarán allí. The putas will still be there. Why rush? They will still be where we are going. They aren't leaving. Let's get some 40's and just cruise for a while. Slow the car down and just ride. Everyone sit as low as you can and let's just cruise.

This car is basically an ocean. No, I really mean it. If you have every been in one of these, you feel like you are just floating. Just moving along, drinking and floating in the ocean. Just happy your head is above water so can see if the policia or la migra was around. Cause that river's cold and I don't want to swim it again.

Oh, this has nowhere to go but down.

But this car was a machine that basically was machismo defined. Something that said, "You see this? This is the same size of my cojones." Well, maybe it didn't say that. I might have just been thinking about it. When you rode in this car, you felt cool. The big thing turned out to be the hydraulics . Who in the hell ever thought up this idea? Cars can do that? Raise one wheel off the ground? Bounce? Really? That is cool. When you saw that happening you knew to either walk away or go closer. The car bouncing was pure machismo. "Oh, yeah. You think this car goes up, you should imagine your chocha on my pigna. The way this car moves, is the way i make love, baby. Hard, long, high and on asphalt."

Well, maybe the asphalt part.

But just a really cool car that if you rode in it, you needed a hat. I think thats how I got my hat fetish. But, you had to have one. You needed to pull it down. Not a baseball hat or shit like that. This had to be a cool "Friends Approved" hat. Those are expensive. But you look cool in one. You also had to have a wife beater. Before anyone was let in the car, they were issued a wife beater. Kinda like a nice restaraunt won't let you in without a jacket, this car demanded a wife beater.

This is a cool car that did incredible things and taught me the true meaning of machismo.

Coche loco.

*listen, Michele obviously doesn't know the impact of such a great actor. Patrick Swayze has defined the bar fighting movies. Instead of arguing with her, I will simply feel sad for her missing the fine action movies from a man who has brought us such great movies as Ghost, Dirty Dancing, Red Dawn and, of course, Roadhouse. So the next time your car overheats and you know to piss in the radiator to cool it down? Swayze and the Wolverines taught you that little trick -T

Manic Hispanic Brand New Impala
Get Up Kids Stay Gold Ponyboy

Update: A '64 Impala, just for Pril (see comments)

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