We are fast approaching the first birthday of Faster Than The World. We've come a long way since those early days and we realize that a lot of the readers we have now missed out on some of our favorite stuff. So each weekend, we will run one or two of our favorite columns from back in the day.

One night we did a list of our favorite cars from movies and television, with help from the FTTW readers. Then we chose a few and wrote about them. Here's our favorites:

Turtle:

Bluesmobile - 1974 Dodge Monaco

A car that was bought at a cop auction. Powered by god himself. What the fuck? Cops and god? And cigarettes? And Nighttrain wine? And being late for shows? Oh...this is classic. This car could move through anything. Get away from anything. Escape from anything. It could do anything. It would even kill its own kind to get to the Cook County Assesor's office in time. Those orphans needed saving. They needed to hear the blues. This car was the one that would do it for them. They knew it, god knew it, and it knew it. It could do anything. Well, almost anything. It couldn't light your cigarette. You were on your own for that. Broken lighter.

It's had a cop motor, a 440 cubic inch plant, it had cop tires, cop suspensions, cop shocks. It was model made before catalytic converters so it ran good on regular gas. It could do anything.

But it had a broken cigarette lighter. That was the only sucky thing.

See dude. That's fucking cool. This car was power. Not in engine wise power. But the backup behind it. It was on a mission. It would get through this. It would help you. But it sure wasn't gonna be happy on regular gas. Sure, that's a thing of the past now. But back then, a car that could take the cheaper gas was like an over the hill hooker at a bar who still could fuck your brains out, but you could see the years in her face and you wouldn't have to pay as much. Beat the fuck up looking. But just moving. Powered by god to just keep moving. And moving faster. Like cops had been using it for years and it got out. Just to help two people who were fucked up. Three fucked up souls. Two human. One Bluesmobile. All together. They were gonna get into this show together and they were fucking gonna get out together. God commanded it. I think it was even in some chapter in the bible or the Koran but don't quote me on that.

One of the best movie cars of all time. This car had life. It had fire. It knew evil. It knew good. It knew what it had to do. Sure it didn't like these assholes sitting on it or that cheap gas. But it had to do what it had to do.

This might be the "turtle took too much acid as a kid thing again" but who knows?

This car was cool.

It didn't have a shitload of power or look that cool. But once it jumped that bridge, you all know you fell in love with it.

And you know you all cried a little when it died. That car...died...no....

It had done its job. It had gotten them to them to the Cook County Assesor's office. This car helped two souls get out of purgatory.

A car that cared enough to die for them and kill its own kind.

That's like the ending of "Old Yeller".

Pure tears. - T

Michele:

The Mystery Machine

Let me preface this by saying that I never really liked Scooby-Doo. I didn’t watch the show in its original airing, but when it switched to ABC sometime in the mid 70's, I got stuck watching it at my friend’s house because for some reason, most of my friends found it amusing. Or maybe they just didn’t know better. They were content to get stoned and sit in front of the tv, all slack jawed and red-eyed and hands stained by Cheetos, mesmerized by the day’s mysterious entity doing mysterious things in mysterious surroundings. Not me. I kept saying to them “Guys, don’t you realize it’s the same mystery day after day, just with different characters? Don’t you realize that there never really is a ghost, it’s always just some batty old person trying to wreak havoc on the world? Wake up, guys, you are being played!” But I watched anyhow. I watched for one reason. The Mystery Machine.

See, my mind works in mysterious ways (see how I worked a variation of ‘mystery’ in there? It’s the word of the day!). Instead of focusing on the lame mystery, I focused on...well, no. Focus isn’t the right word. My mind would drift. Was it the drugs? Was it the banality of the show? Who knows? I just know that each episode of Scooby-Doo got me thinking about what really goes on inside that Mystery Machine.

Hey, this was the era of vans. Customized vans were all the rage. And, as I’ve written about before, the insides of these vans often looked like a bizarre amalgamation of Liberace’s decorating sense and Hugh Hefner’s fantasies.

This was the Mystery Machine, man. If the van is rockin’, don’t come knockin’. Know what I mean? We’re talking teenagers here. Well, hmmm. Are we? Were these ghost hunters teenagers? They look kinda old, don’t they? Were they young adults? I never paid enough attention to the show to figure out. But now I’m hoping they were at least of age of consent because in my mind, all they were doing in the back of that Mystery Machine was partying. And by partying I mean snorting lines of cocaine, performing sexual acts that would make John Holmes blush, worshiping Satan and sacrificing small animals and virgins. We’re talking Rosemary’s Baby and Hunter S. Thompson meet Behind the Green Door. Total debauchery.

Hey, don’t look at me like that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not into cartoon sex or anything. Turtle is the one who goes on about Barney Rubble getting laid. That’s his gig, not mine. I was just imagining what goes on inside every van of that kind. I had a short attention span, ok? My mind would wander. Mystery Machine. What was so mysterious about? What darkness and depravity lurked behind those sliding doors? We’re talking bad ass van, people. You have to know that when the mysteries were all solved and the bad guy was in jail and Scooby was tied up in the backyard like a normal fucking dog, those kids kicked back in the Mystery Machine and drove around looking for virgins or a good dealer.

Ass, gas or grass, baby. Nobody rides for free. -M

Michele sometimes calls Turtle the "mystery machine"

Fifth Gear

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