Reply to "My new Garage Art"

Okay Adams. I've got a story too.

I grew up in Harbor City. One of the racially diverse and economically depressed cities of the southern California area we call the "South Bay" (San Francisco has a "South Bay" as well, but that's not the one I'm referring to). Other South Bay cities include Long Beach, San Pedro, Wilmington, Gardena, Carson, Lomita, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Torrance. One of the major highways through our area was the Pacific Coast Highway, i.e. the rather famous Highway 101. The high rent district, i.e. Palos Verdes, loomed on a hill in the background. Across the street from the lowest rent housing projects, at the corner of Normandy Avenue and PCH (PCH = Pacific Coast Highway) was an auto mall. And on that corner situated on Normandy Avenue was Peyton Lincoln Mercury.

Are you familiar with the original Gone In Sixty Seconds movie? That auto mall is where the tow truck chase scene began. In fact the whole movie was filmed in the South Bay.

Getting back to Peyton L/M, the owner Peyton Cramer was the former manager of Shelby American. He's the guy who swung the deal with Hertz Rent-A-Car for the Hertz Shelby Mustangs. His L/M dealership in Harbor City is where the earliest POCA meetings took place. Peyton L/M was also the highest volume Pantera dealer in the USA. His dealership sold more "new" Panteras than any other ... ever.

As a side note, the POCA folks would like you to believe that their earliest meetings, which took place at Peyton L/M, took place in Long Beach. That's because Harbor City was the low rent district, it had a bad reputation. They don't want to admit that their club was founded in a ghetto like Harbor City. But now the cat is out of the bag, so deal with it POCA.

So I'm finally getting around to my story ... when the first Pantera arrived at Peyton L/M I headed down on a week day afternoon (when business was slow) to take a look at Ford's exciting new sports car ... and I fell immediately in love with that exotic Italian beauty. I was a young man, obviously couldn't afford a Pantera, yet the salesman in charge of Pantera sales took me for a ride. The next day I showed-up with a bottle of his favorite beverage ... and I made an instant friend. He and I shared several subsequent test rides. This was a period of time in which my driving privileges had been suspended, I had no drivers license. So he did all the driving. I didn't get to drive until 1973!