Omigawd...it still lives...
Yes, it's a Dodge Aspen (it's still got those 1978 Michigan plates on it!), but the resemblance stops there.
Fiberglass body. NASCAR-style tube frame. 10% engine setback (to adjust the timing, you jumped in the car and flipped up the grille that covered the radio speaker...personal eyewitness testimony here).
Four wheel drive (check photo above...those are Olds Toronado wheels on the front!). An engine note that would give the collective membership of The Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and the Democratic Party instant heart failure.
Legend has it that S. Harvey Sr. (who was a special products engineer at Chrysler) was looking to put something a tad beefier than his Colt on the rally trail. Somebody with contacts in the upper echelons heard about it, a few hasty conferences were called, and one day Scott came to his front door to see a semi-trailer loaded with parts in the street. He was told "Have fun...". The torches were lit, and awhile later there was a whole new animal unleashed on the rally circuit. (A fair amount of the parts were actually test items for a full-size Plymouth Fury 4wd police interceptor that was eventually built in limited number for the Michigan State Police.)
In the late 70's, I was sitting high up on a rock wall at the finish control of the last stage of Sunriser. The sky was just turning blue, and there was almost enough light to see without flashlights etc. There had been the standard blatting of hopped-up 510's, various British whatnots (this was the era of the Triumph TR8), submarine SAABs and a few others...but then came this unearthly unmistakably American V8 thunder...pistons the size of quart milk bottles...carburetors with bores the size of a sewer pipe...it seemed as if someone had missed the return road at the local drag strip and was taking the fast but long way back to the pits.
The Cheetah (I didn't know it had that name until much later) came around the last bend, every light shining (including the swivelable spotlight on the roof), singing a basso profundo that was truly testosterone-boiling in its scope. As shagnasty as the Hairy Canary and Mike Hurst's Mustang sounded at full song, there has NEVER been anything to compare with the sound made by the Plastic Fantastic.
Please, Mr. Harvey Sr...can you bring your toy out to play? There's some real nice roads up Houghton way...we miss you...
:7
