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keihtkogane-blog · 7 years

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make you feel (at ease)

chapter 1/? posted!

warnings: none rated: teen tags: accidental baby acquisition, canon divergence, post-season 2 (ish), pining, broganes, angst and fluff

notes: huge shoutout to miranda and keith who both beta’d this for me <3

read on ao3 or click “read more”

Keith wakes up feeling like he hasn’t slept at all. This in itself isn’t unusual, but the thundering bang bang bang coming from his door is. Keith groans and grumbles as he drags himself out of bed and stumbles blearily over to the door. He quickly unlocks it with the panel on the right and the door opens to reveal an annoyed–and, judging by the bags under his eyes, exhausted–Shiro.

“You’re up?” Keith asks, confused. He’s always the first one up and out of bed, with the occasional exception of Pidge (spending a sleepless night working on something) or Allura (getting a head start on the day’s schedule). But Shiro– Shiro’s usually third. Right behind Allura, who usually wakes sometime after Keith, and before Coran, Hunk, and Lance, who all tend to arrive at the same time like they have some kind of pre-breakfast meeting place.

“You’re not?” Shiro tilts his head in confusion.

“No…?”

“You missed breakfast,” Shiro says, eyeing Keith with concern.

“Oh,” Keith internally winces, knowing that his protective older brother is about to make an appearance.

“You never miss breakfast unless you’re already training,” Shiro looks him over in concern. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Keith responds too quickly.

“Keith,” Shiro sighs. “What’s going on?”

“Shiro,” Keith parrots back with a little more bite than the situation probably calls for, “Nothing’s going on.”

“You’re lying to me,” Shiro crosses his arms and narrows his eyes. “You know I can tell when you’re lying, Keith.”

Keith sighs and childishly bangs his head twice on the wall next to the door in frustration, “I just haven’t been sleeping well, ok?”

Shiro stares at him and then sighs before turning to look at Pidge, who is coming down the hall towards them. “Fine.”

Pidge joins them at Keith’s door then, cutting Shiro’s imminent lecture short, and Keith silently makes a promise to find her some cool new tech junk at whichever planet they land on next.

“What’s goin’ on?” Pidge asks, fiddling with some kind of tablet in her hands.

“Nothing,” Keith says. “I was just about to grab a snack. You already ate?” He asks Pidge while stalking past Shiro still lingering in the doorway.

“Yeah,” Pidge responds, “But I’ll hang out in there with you for a while. I’m just waiting on this software I made to install itself.”

“Cool,” Keith glances back at Shiro, who gives him a frustrated look that Keith recognizes from years of him being Keith’s guardian. Keith gives him a mock salute and smirk designed to further annoy him and continues down the hall towards the dining room, while Pidge rambles about her newest updates to the outdated Altean tablet.

When they arrive at the dining room, they find Lance and Hunk seated at the table and engaged in some sort of discussion about movies. Lance, having heard the door open, turns, barely spares a glance for Keith, and yells at Pidge.

“Pidge! My best friend, coolest dude, homeslice, tech guru–”

“Get to the point, Lance,” Pidge sighs, but Keith can see the fond smile she’s trying to hide with an eyeroll.

“Which is better: Star Wars or Star Trek?” Lance asks, practically vibrating in his seat. Keith wonders if Hunk has found some kind of space coffee and forgot to inform Keith, or if Lance is just that hyped about the conversation.

“Star Trek,” Pidge responds without hesitation. Lance’s mouth drops open and he lets out an almost inhuman shriek.

“I cannot believe! Pidge! You were supposed to be on my side!”

“Sorry,” Pidge takes a seat next to Hunk and diagonal from Lance, who is seated at the other side of the table. “I only speak the truth.”

Lance makes another strangled, garbling kind of noise and turns to Keith in desperation. “Keith! My man! You agree with me, right?”

Keith huffs and turns his head to the right to avoid looking at Lance, selfishly afraid that Lance will be able to read on his face that Keith, in fact, does agree with him, which will end with Lance never leaving it alone. “Uh,” Keith fidgets. “I think Star Trek’s better.”

“Abominations! All of you!” Lance huffs, crosses his arms, and purses his lips. “If Allura and Coran had seen both series, somehow I can guarantee they’d agree with me. You know why?” Lance asks, pausing for dramatic effect. “Because they are not heathens!”

Keith scoffs again and finally heads to the table in order to–reluctantly, of course–sit next to Lance, “No way they’d agree with you.”

“Um, yes, the Princess would definitely agree with me.”

Keith just rolls his eyes and turns to Hunk, “I’m assuming you already asked Shiro?” At Hunk’s confirming nod he continues, “What’d he say?”

Lance glares at nothing in particular while Hunk smirks, “He didn’t. Claimed that they were both his favorite series and refused to pick one.”

“Which is basically him saying Star Wars is better,” Lance huffs.

“In what universe?!” Pidge shouts, now invested in the argument.

“Whichever one we’re in right now!” Lance yells indignantly back.

Keith, against his own logic, finds himself getting invested in the argument too and resigns himself to a morning without food as he defends Pidge and Hunk. Keith gets a weird kind of joy out of arguing with Lance, which he will never ever tell anyone ever, and secretly delights in the way Lance gets progressively louder when Keith lists all the bad things about Star Wars (things that are all lies because Star Wars is the best and Keith is dying a little on the inside at having to pretend he hates it).

Ten minutes into the argument, Keith catches Hunk’s eye. Hunk raises his eyebrows and nods towards Lance in a way that says, “Are you actually going to let him think you don’t love Star Wars?” Keith flushes and regrets the conversation that he’d had with Hunk only days prior about this very subject, the only difference being that the argument was just between him, Hunk, and Shiro. Keith shrugs and looks away in embarrassment.

Unknown to him, Pidge has noticed the entire silent conversation and has one of her own with Hunk while Lance and Keith are arguing about the coolness of Star Trek’s spaceships.

“What?” Pidge’s face asks.

“Tell you later,” is the response Hunk’s half-smile gives.

“Is it about them?” Pidge gestures subtly towards the paladins still arguing obliviously across from them, to which Hunk only raises his eyebrows and smirks in response.

A minute later, Hunk and Pidge rejoin the argument, both with knowing grins on their faces.

The conversation continues for another half an hour or so, thankfully drifting to other series in the meantime. Keith was seriously going to cry if he’d had to hate on Star Wars much longer. Eventually, Shiro heads into the room with Allura and Coran close behind him.

“Are you all ready?” Shiro stops at the head of the table and looks around at the seated Paladins.

“Sure thing,” Hunk smiles and follows the three leaders back out of the room with Lance, Pidge, and Keith in tow.

“Ok team,” Shiro says once they’ve arrived in the training room. “I’ve discussed it with Allura and Coran, and we’ve agreed that today we will all focus on both long-range and short-range combat techniques.”

“What?!” Lance shrieks. “But-”

“No buts, Lance,” Allura says sternly. “We’ve all agreed that we can’t afford to have everyone trained in one type of combat and be incapable of succeeding with the other.”

Lance sighs, defeated, and gestures for Shiro to continue.

“I know you’re all better trained for whichever type of combat your bayard is best suited to,” Shiro softens his tone, “But we need to be prepared for the worst. Lotor isn’t going to pause a battle so that we can rotate who is where to better suit our talents.”

All the Paladins, including Keith, huff in a combination of half displeasure at having to train in a type of combat they aren’t used to or comfortable with and half acknowledgement because they know that Shiro, Allura, and Coran are right.

“So how do we do this?” Pidge asks.

“I’m glad you asked, number five!” Coran steps forward. “We’ve decided that the most efficient way to train you in the opposite form of combat, aside from just throwing you into battle of course, is to pair two Paladins up who have experience in different areas and go from there!”

“And,” Allura starts before anyone springs into action, “We’ve already decided on the pairings,” She smiles, oblivious to the defeated drop of everyone’s shoulders.

Please pair me up with Hunk, please pair me up with Hunk, please pair me up with Hunk, Keith tries to project his thoughts to Shiro through some kind of telepathy. Maybe his part-Galra brain can connect with Shiro’s arm?

“But wait,” Hunk says, interrupting Keith’s silent pleading to Shiro. “There isn’t an even number of us.”

“I’ll be sitting out today,” Shiro says and, almost subconsciously, rubs his shoulder, where he had sustained a pretty bad injury during their last battle with Lotor and his generals. Shiro’s arm had been cut so deep you could see bone, and while the healing pod could fix a lot of things, apparently soreness wasn’t one of them. Everyone accepts that excuse without comment, knowing Shiro’s more than deserved his day of rest.

“Shall we begin?” Allura asks after a moment of awkward silence where everyone was remembering Shiro’s injury in graphic detail.

Shiro takes a deep breath and nods while Keith starts up a different internal monologue slash hopefully-telepathically-communicating-with-Shiro chant. Please don’t put me with Lance, please don’t put me with Lance, please please please don’t put me with Lance.

“–will be Keith and Lance and then Hunk and Pidge. Pidge, I know your bayard is technically either long-range or short-range, so I figured that you could practice a bit of both,” Shiro continues, oblivious to the look of utter betrayal that Keith shoots him.

It’s not that Keith doesn’t want to work with Lance, per se, it’s just that things have been…. Strained between them recently.

A month ago, hell even just a few weeks ago, things were great. He and Lance were getting along better than ever before and even hung out together a few times, just the two of them. But then– then Keith had realized that these warm and tingly feelings that he had for Lance? The feelings that he thought were mild dislike and annoyance combined with reluctant fondness? Those only started to get worse, at which point Pidge confidently barged in on Keith in his room sometime in the middle of the night and informed Keith that he was in love with Lance.

Keith understandably, in his opinion, panicked. Which resulted in avoiding Lance, making this entire situation kind of his fault. Avoiding Lance then turned into Lance confronting him about why Keith was avoiding him. Which resulted in Keith panicking again and shouting at Lance. Which resulted in an even worse dynamic between them that didn’t even compare to when they first formed Voltron. These days, they can barely go five minutes without yelling at each other for some stupid or petty reason.

Yeah, Keith will admit this is his fault.

He stops reminiscing, reminding himself to focus on training and hopefully not fight with Lance, and catches the tail end of Lance’s also betrayed look that he shot at Shiro. Keith resists the urge to groan.

“So, how are we supposed to do this?” Keith asks with enough bite in his tone that Hunk flinches slightly and gives Lance a worried glance.

“You will decide on a training regimen on your own,” Allura starts. “We trust you to take into account your partner’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as your own methods of combat, and use them to develop an effective training strategy. Provided there are no sudden attacks, we will be continuing with these exercises all week,” Allura pauses, waiting for everyone around her to nod. “You will also need to develop a training schedule between the two of you. The times and frequency of the exercises will be up to you.”

“I’ll be in the control room with Allura and Coran if anyone needs me,” Shiro says. He gives Hunk and Pidge a short wave and shoots a stern look at both Lance and Keith before continuing out the door. Allura follows, and then they’re alone with Hunk and Pidge.

“So, should we, like, work on the schedule altogether?” Hunk asks. “You know, so we don’t get in each other’s way?”

“Sure,” Keith shrugs.

“Why don’t we each choose a day and time block and then go from there?” Pidge says, “We can take turns until all the days and slots are filled.”

Keith nods and takes a seat on the floor, the other three Paladins following him only seconds later.

------

In the end, they decide that Keith and Lance will train Monday, Tuesday morning, Wednesday, Thursday afternoon, and Friday morning. Then they’ll train with all the paladins and the droids together on Saturday, so they can practice fighting against a larger group.

That being decided, the rest of the afternoon is spent coming up with their individual plans. Keith didn’t think this part would be very hard, honestly, but he clearly underestimated Lance’s ability to annoy him in any given situation.

“Lance!” Keith growls after Lance’s third time singing “Under the Sea” from the Little Mermaid.

“What?” Lance responds, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Keith can’t concentrate when he won’t shut up.

“Shut the fuck up.”

“You shut the fuck up, mullet.” Lance glares.

“Guys,” Hunk sighs, “Can we please not do this right now?”

“Sorry buddy, but Keith started it.”

“You were singing!” Keith snaps back.

“Oh, so you’re jealous of my singing skills?” Lance’s grin is practically the definition of smug. “I knew it! You’re just jealous of my amazing skills, aren’t you?”

“No,” Keith grits his teeth in frustration.

“Yeeeeeessss!”

“No, I’m really fucking not.”

“Yes, you really fucking are.”

“Guys!” Pidge interrupts them this time, “Both of you shut up.”

“He started it,” Both Lance and Keith mumble at the same time, but they reluctantly turn back to their individual plans in silence.

-------

The next week is absolute hell. Absolute, total, complete shit.

Monday is Keith’s day to train Lance, and he can already tell it’s going to be a disaster. Two minutes in, and Keith has barely been able to speak a full sentence, let alone start training Lance.

“–So if you think for one second that you can beat me, mullet, you’ve got another thing coming. I refuse–refuse!–to leave here with you thinking–”

“Lance!” Keith shouts with a glare. “Can we please just start training? I’m really not in the mood to be lectured by Shiro because you won’t cooperate.”

Lance huffs and looks away from Keith, frowning at the opposite wall with his lips pursed. Keith simply watches him pout for a moment. He’s definitely not admiring Lance’s bone structure and the slope of his nose and–no,stop that. He flushes, grateful that Lance is still looking at the wall, and drops his head to stare at his own shoes.

“Fine,” Lance finally says as he turns back to Keith, who looks up. Lance isn’t pouting anymore, but Keith is having trouble identifying the expression on his face. Keith had thought he would be able to recognize all of Lance’s many facial ticks and their meanings by now, but he has absolutely no clue what Lance’s face is doing right now. Lance’s face is almost carefully blank, his mouth in a straight line and eyes without their usual glint. It’s almost a mix of his I’m disappointed and My feelings are hurt and I’m trying not to show it expressions, but Keith can also see a hint of his Hate Keith and Battle Mode faces thrown in as well. It’s weird, Keith thinks, to see Lance without a hint of expression at all, his usual easy-to-read ticks nowhere to be found and instead replaced with this strange mask.

“Well,” Keith clears his throat, “I was thinking maybe we could start with some hand-to-hand combat, see where you need work, then go from there.”

“Okay,” Lance says, almost without inflection, and Keith is suddenly struck with the inexplicable urge to ask him what’s wrong. But Lance is already heading towards the center of the room and taking up a–totally incorrect–battle stance, so he decides that asking Lance what happened can wait until later.

The training itself goes surprisingly well after that. Lance doesn’t argue against Keith’s direction and Keith finds that Lance is an incredibly fast learner when he’s actually trying. By the end of the day, it even takes Keith ten minutes to beat Lance, which is a vast improvement from the solid forty-five seconds it took in the morning.

So, it should have been fine. It is fine, Keith tells himself. Lance was just… focusing. Lance was focusing and that was why he barely talked, why he didn’t taunt or smirk at Keith once, why he didn’t brag about his skills, and why he didn’t say anything to Keith when they were done and instead gave him a slight nod before leaving the room.

Keith’s going to bring it up. Really! It’s just that the next morning Lance walks into the room and is back to his normal, obnoxious self. So Keith drops it.

That day, Lance starts to teach Keith the finer aspects of using a long-range weapon. He teaches Keith breathing techniques, helps him decide which eye is his dominant, and shows him the correct way to aim. By that afternoon, Keith is marginally surprised at how fast he’s managed to pick up on how to use Lance’s bayard. While he’ll definitely admit–to himself, at least–that he isn’t picking up on it nearly as fast as Lance had picked up on hand-to-hand combat, he’s learning a lot more than he ever had during his time at the Garrison. He now manages to hit the target nearly every time, even though he has yet to hit the center.

There was no resurgence of Lance’s weird behavior from Monday, and the day is spent with Lance mocking him before suddenly turning serious and being incredibly patient. He also, of course, makes time to boast about his own skills and shows off.

The rest of the week continues much the same way; Lance is his usual self, Keith snaps at him in response, they fight, but somehow they manage to work through it and continue training. After the group demonstration on Friday, even Shiro and Allura are impressed with how much Lance and Keith have improved.

“I knew you’d make a great pair!” is Coran’s response to their demonstration.

“Good job, Paladins!” Allura says with a grin.

Shiro smiles softly and says, “Good job, guys.”

All in all, Keith thinks that the week has gone fairly well. Certainly better than he’d expected. Maybe he and Lance have finally moved past this weird funk they’ve been in for the past month.

Then Lance starts acting the same way Keith himself had been before they’d spent a week training together. He avoids Keith whenever possible, mocks him whenever they’re in the same room together for more than five minutes, and glares at him whenever he enters a room.

Keith lasts about five days. Then, he loses it.

“Is this some kind of payback?” Keith demands, resisting the urge to grin when Lance and Hunk flinch at his unexpected arrival in the common room.

“Keith?” Hunk asks, looking nervously between Lance and Keith as if expecting a sudden explosion.

Admittedly, he’s probably not far off.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Lance asks, his Hate Keith face now proudly on display, having replaced the Friendly Bonding expression he’d been wearing seconds prior.

“You heard me,” Keith growls, coming to a stop before Lance, who had stood up from the floor while Keith was gaining on him. Hunk reluctantly stands as well and places himself slightly between the Red and Blue Paladins.

“Payback for what?” Lance asks with a sharp grin. “Are you going to finally admit that you, all of a sudden, ignored me again?”

“I–”

“You know what, Keith,” Lance grabs Hunk’s wrist and starts to drag him out the door. “Let’s just work together when we have to, and we can ignore each other when we don’t. Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” Keith spits, ignoring the way his heart clenches at Lance’s words.

As Hunk and Lance leave the room, he hears Hunk say, “That seemed a little harsh, man.” He doesn’t hear Lance’s response.

-----

This is Keith’s fault. He knows it is. After all, he’s the one that started ignoring Lance again after he’d realized how he felt about the Blue Paladin. He’s the one who decided it was better to stay as distant from Lance as possible. He’s the one who can’t get close to people without hurting them.

So, yeah, this is Keith’s fault, and he’s not afraid to beat himself up for it. The thing is, Keith hadn’t realized how lonely it is without Lance hanging around, taunting, mocking, and training with Keith. And now that Keith isn’t the one who’s making it their mission to ignore the other, he realizes how shitty it feels.

He’s lonely.

He’s on a castle ship with people that he spends days on end with, and he’s lonely.

The problem is that he doesn’t know if he can fix it. He’s not sure he even knows where to begin. Had this been a problem with anyone else, Keith would have definitely gone to Shiro for advice. But this time he doesn’t want to admit that it was his fault and that he’s probably deeper into this ‘feelings for Lance’ thing than he had originally thought.

So he decides to leave it. What’s a little loneliness in the grand scheme of things, anyway?

#klance #klance fic #mine #my fic #fic #voltron #vld #vld fic #voltron fic

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itsworn · 7 years

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Wild Day-Two Street/Strip 1967 Plymouth GTX Will Live Again As Project Hacksaw

Sometime in the late 1970s at a gas station in the little town of Warren, Arkansas, longtime Mopar enthusiast Wayne Johnson saw a 1970 Challenger that piqued his interest. He went over to the owner, complimented him on the car, and began to swap Mopar stories. The owner eventually bemoaned the fact that his girlfriend had concluded that he liked the car more than he liked her. For that reason he wanted to get rid of a 440 motor that had just received about $2,800 worth of race parts and quality machine work. The troubled suitor was so desperate to please his beau that he told Wayne he would give him the RB engine for free.

When Wayne arrived at the Challenger owner’s home later that day, the 440 was there, but it was sitting in a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere GTX. Desperate to please his girlfriend, the Challenger owner told Wayne to just take the car and motor out of his yard. Wayne obliged and towed the car back to his home. Love is a many-splendored thing.

The motor in the newly acquired GTX was inspected and found to have high-compression pistons and a big cam. Wayne thought that the 440 might have been original to the car, but since it was so heavily modified, he determined that his freebie GTX would be the jumpstart for building a very fast Mopar that could be used at both the dragstrip and on the street. Wayne installed 4.56 gears in the 8 3/4 Sure Grip rear, perfected all the car’s mechanicals, and mounted big tires for the rear.

The rear wheelwell openings on 1966-1967 Mopar B-Bodies were ridiculously restrictive, so back then the common practice was to cut the quarter-panels and radius the wheelwell lips to make room for bigger tires. Employing a bit of hyperbole, let’s just say that Wayne broke out his hacksaw and redesigned the rear quarter-panels. He never had a tire clearance problem after that.

Drag Car Persona

The car was occasionally drag raced at Prescott Raceway in Prescott, Arkansas, for a few seasons. It might have even participated in a street race or two—who knows? During those days, Wayne removed the front bumper, cut the bottom leading edges of the fenders, and poked a bunch of holes in the original GTX hood. Wanting to take on the 1980s drag car persona, he had one of his buddies paint the car in striking red, blue, and yellow.

Sometime in the mid-1980s, Wayne parked the GTX. It sat in his building until 2003. At that point the car was sold as roller, sans motor and transmission, to Mopar guru Paul Slater. Soon, Slater sold the car to Mark Pallas, who placed the GTX in storage for what would become 13 years, awaiting the time that he could restore it to its former glory.

In 2017, 1966-1967 B-Body hero Joel Nystrom heard about this real deal GTX roller with an interesting history, which was now available for purchase. With visions of a nostalgia drag car in his head, he hitched up his trailer and readied himself to evaluate this potential project. The “RS23L” in the VIN verified that it was a real GTX, originally equipped with the Super Commando 440-inch, 375hp engine, with a TorqueFlite 727 three-speed automatic transmission with column shift. (Yes, the console and floor shifter were optional equipment on the 1967 GTX.) Even though the fender tag was missing, Joel could see it was clearly originally a red car with black interior. Though weathered and worn, the interior floor pans and engine bay retained the factory PP1 Bright Red paint. The hacked-up quarters and wild paint scheme only added to the car’s charm. Joel struck a deal with Mark Pallas and brought it home to his shop in suburban Minneapolis.

While he was enamored with his newest GTX and its bad-boy persona, Joel was forced to weigh it against the priorities of a number of other projects already in his shop. His decision was to find a good home for the GTX. Long story short: That home became the slot that had once been occupied by our Project MaliBeater at Midwest Muscle Cars in Lake Zurich, Illinois (mwmcars.com). Readers, meet Project Hacksaw.

Speculation

Once the GTX arrived at Midwest Muscle Cars, pictures from back in the day were examined. Until we get the proper information from Chrysler Historical Services, we can only speculate as to how this GTX was equipped when it rolled off the assembly line. The earliest pictures supplied by Wayne Johnson show that the car is wearing the optional black sport stripes, which appear to be factory. One bucket seat was included in the deal, and it has the optional headrest. Whether headrests were original to the car is yet to be determined. The column-shift car came with manual steering and manual drum brakes. There is no evidence of any major collision damage. Maybe someday it will be restored to bone-stock original condition, but the missing engine and transmission make it less appealing as a rotisserie restoration candidate.

For the time being, we plan to leave the exterior of the car alone. Some of you probably hate the look of the butchered quarters, but we choose to embrace them. For that reason, the radiused wheelwell lips are staying, but the floor, trunk, and bottoms of the quarters will be fixed. A bulletproof drivetrain and functional interior will be installed. Project Hacksaw will be a continual celebration of day-two and street machine components that typified muscle cars prowling the streets and dragstrips in the early 1970s. Stay tuned.

While Joel Nystrom owned this car, it was tucked away in one of his buildings. The previous owner stored the car for 13 years; prior to that it had been stored for about 20 years. In other words, it’s not a barn find. It’s a car that was stored for a long time.

Everybody knows that a Mopar must always tow a Mopar. Loaded up from Joel Nystrom’s building, I stopped to see my Mopar buddy Gene Mosbek, and then headed to Midwest Muscle Cars.

Production for the 1967 Plymouth Belvedere GTX came in at 12,010 units. A total of 8,791 two-door hardtops were built with the 440 Super Commando engine and TorqueFlite transmission. (Figures courtesy of plymouthgtx.net).

The VIN authenticates the car as a real GTX. “R” stands for Plymouth, “S” for Special, “23” for the two-door hardtop, “L” for the Super Commando 440/375hp engine, “7” for the model year, and the second “7” because it was built at the St. Louis, Missouri, plant. The last six numbers identify this particular car.

For 1967, Plymouth offered two engines for the Belvedere GTX. The aforementioned 440 Super Commando was standard, while the 426/425hp Hemi engine was optional. The original 440 is long gone, but a code-correct 440hp short-block and correct 915 cylinder heads were included with the car. The block and heads might be the basis for a future restoration motor.

The brakes have already been rebuilt, a big plus for getting this car roadworthy. When Wayne Johnson built the car to race, he used fenderwell headers. That is why the inner fenderwell panels have been cut on both sides. Options include fixing the metal or installing fenderwell headers.

A 1967 GTX with automatic transmission came standard with a column shift. The console and floor shifter were optional. The legendary Jimmy Addison 1967 Silver Bullet Plymouth GTX was originally equipped with a column shift and 440 Super Commando engine. Chrysler supplied Addison with a stroker 426 Hemi engine for street/strip dominance. Might history kind of repeat itself?

The passenger floorboard rust probably looks familiar to a few Mopar guys. Nobody likes to see rust, but it’s not the end of the world. It will get new metal.

The driver-side door seems to be original to the car, while the passenger door is a tossup. The door is solid, even in the seams.

Best guess is that moisture sat at the bottom of the spare-tire well and created this apparition. Squint just a bit and you see the Chicago skyline. A rust-free OE spare-tire well came with the car, so this area will be patched.

I had these 15×4 Cragars with Stahl front runners in my parts collection and could not resist putting them on the car. When Wayne Johnson raced it, he used Mopar Rally wheels all around. Later he installed Cragar Super Tricks up front. Though I’m not settled yet on wheel choice, Keystone Kustomags would look Sox-and-Martin-right on this car.

Wayne remembers running 28.5×10.5×15 tires in the rear. I just happened to have a pair of M&H Racemasters in that size, conveniently mounted on 15×8 Cragars. Size is not bad, but there is room for some slightly bigger day-two meats.

The gray primer panels need to go away. Top relic paint guys will be approached to make this situation right. Getting this angle to look right with the rest of the paint will be a major challenge.

Project Hacksaw, the Backstory

For many car collectors, part of the enjoyment of having an old car is assembling its history. We will attempt to assemble the entire owner history of this GTX, though that might not be possible. What happened from about 1979 to the present is already known. I’m going to try to find the guy who gave Wayne Johnson the GTX.

A later article will describe the process of going through FCA Historical Services to obtain information from its database (based on IBM cards that have been made available) on the as-born status of the car. For now, check out the pictures from Wayne Johnson that were taken between 1979 and the mid 1980s.

Back in the day, future Project Hacksaw is wearing black sport stripes, and they appear to be the original, optioned ones. I am hoping that the car was originally optioned with that awesome signature look for the 1967 GTX.

Wayne Johnson occasionally drag raced his 1967 GTX in the early 1980s at Prescott Raceway in Prescott, Arkansas. The car still has the front bumper, sport stripes, and Mopar Rally wheels. The rear wheelwell lips have already been cut.

The GTX racing again at Prescott Raceway, sometime around 1980. Cutting the quarters for radiused wheelwell lips was common practice on drag cars. Vintage decals in the quarter-windows were mandatory for a tough race car image. The door-edge guards suggest that the car is wearing original paint.

This photo would seem to indicate the car was resprayed. The emblems and door-edge guards are gone. Most notably, the front bumper has been removed and the front leading edges of the fenders have been cut. Weight reduction and tall front tire clearance might have been the incentives.

At some point the car received this wild paint job from one of Wayne’s friends. The snorkel scoop was homemade and big. The design was later patented by McDonald’s and installed on all exterior drive-through trash receptacles.

The post Wild Day-Two Street/Strip 1967 Plymouth GTX Will Live Again As Project Hacksaw appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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