Have you ever seen a car that has had you in shock, disbelief, amusement, and fits of laughter all at once? Then asked either the question, why? or why didn’t I think of that? Well mine happened just the other day, and goes something like this…..
I was traveling along a main road in Perth with a few mates at about 10:00pm, when the approaching lights turned red, giving us pole position.
Our attention was grabbed by a Lancer revving it’s engine, wanting to race the early 80's cream Laser next to it. These two cars were to our left, and waiting for their green light. Now these two cars looked like your average cars, the Lancer had more plastic than Cher, and had the customary “Lancer drone”
coming from the exhaust. The Laser looked bog standard with standard rims, tyres, and was not producing any exhaust note at all, while the driver was leaning forward, with his right arm rapped around the steering wheel, and producing a smug smile while looking at the driver of the Lancer.
All of us had a bit of a chuckle and make a few wise remarks towards them (not so they could hear mind you). The lights turned green for these two cars, which was about the same time the smiles were wiped from our faces, both cars launched normally, but the Laser had moved about 3 metres when an extremely load whistle came from it,
launching the car forward like a rocket, it was this time we realized why the driver had his arm rapped around the steering wheel (to stop him being thrown through the rear window), and his passenger was pressed hard into his seat, with his eyes the size of dish plates, all the while the front wheels were chattering as they were trying to transfer all that power to the road.
Under full boost, this car was at the other side of the lights within a second, where the motor (which sounded like it was pulling 18,000 rpm!) started to bounce off the rev limiter (that told us it was fuel injected). All this had shocked us, but there was still more to come, as he backed off to grab second, there was the customary “PPPSSSSTT” from the blow off valve, but this wasn’t your average release of pressure, it sounded as if someone had released the valve on an massive oxygen tank, and to this day, we are still surprised it didn’t launch the bonnet 50 feet in the air. His passenger also had a very small reprieve from the G-forces exhorted onto his body, as he came forward out of his seat, before being forced back again as second gear came on strong.
The four of us were just gob smacked as we watched this thing moving away at a rapid rate, before repeating the process with third gear and disappearing into the darkness, all the while the Lancer hadn’t even made it to the other side of the lights, he had admitted defeat very early on.
I’ve seen some sleepers in my time, but this would’ve had to be the best one, just wondering what sleeper stories other people have?
Proud TQE Operator
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