Joe, that's a nice walk down Memory Lane. And here all these years I
thought Dynaflow only had one gear, and a high-slip converter!!! The
hum those Buicks made must have made me think that.
Don McMeekin is the fella who used to run the Buick straight 8 back in
the day when it was an advantage in NHRA classes, don't know if Don is
still on this List.
When I was a teen in the mid-'50s, one of my friends who was a little
smarter and had a little more money than I had first a gorgeous black
'49 Cad Sedanette, with the V8 hopped up as much as he could, then after
he totalled that, he scored a sweet '50 Olds 88 fastback from a local
used car lot, with the 303 V8. Both of these were supercars in their
day. Both had Hydramatic, which was a Good Thing with four speeds and a
low first gear to move those heavy cars off the line. For street racing
on Lake Street in Minneapolis, he abused the Hydro like a stick, by
revving the engine in neutral, sticking it into first and flooring it.
And, amazingly, still never broke the automatic box. Instead, things
like u-joints would go. We were told that GM toughened this automatic
by tank use in WW II with Cad flatheads, one engine and automatic for
each track of some model of tank, I forget which. And there's no doubt
that it was tough, I saw that for myself. Bill
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