Meckanic™'s Cars

 Updated: May 7, 2004

 Please Note: All pictures are Copyright (c) 1980-1998 Dave Meckanic. All Rights Reserved.

 Geez....Cars, had a few.....but I didn't keep pictures of all of them....dang! So a little on how I felt about the previous ones....and the present ones...

  • 1973 Ferrari GTB, well, wasn't mine, but I got to drive it for 2 weeks while my buddy got his license back. He had a bad habit of screaming down the DVP in Toronto at 2:00 am every morning (because there was no traffic in 1973)....well he got caught and I got his ride for a bit....LOL. What a car this was, the thing was amazing...it held the road like it was glued down. Had access to a 74 Lotus Europa JPS then too...fun wow!
  • 1967 Camaro....excellent toy...nice little 6 cylinder automatic. It wasn't real fast, but it was a lot of fun!
  • 1971 Dodge Challenger, 340/440/505 CID, Automatic, what a ride....the beast started with a 340, I upgraded to the 440, had it bored to 505, 11.5:1 pistons with Carrillo rods, California crank with mallory metal inserts, 4 bolt straight through, purple shaft cam, cloys roller, anti-pumpup lifters, stage IV heads with 2.32" intakes and 1.87" exhausts, triple springs on swirl finished titanium nailhead valves, 1.5:1 rockers, Elderbrok hi-rise intake, dual Holley 850 mechanical linkage carbs with additional 1.5" downdraft spacers, velocity stacks, accel hi-perf ignition, custom designed 5 core radiator, Nixxon braided hoses, all stainless steel tubing with Swagelok fittings, Nitro feeder (designed by me) with 20 lb cylinder in the trunk...Motor was shot peened, fluxed and x-rayed. Exhausts and intakes were ported and polished. Headers were Hooker, 2" pipes with 4" transfer. This was all mated to a 727B automatic transmission with reverse valve body, oversized porting, 4000 rpm stall converter and a bulletproof blanket. The drive shaft was out of a truck, 4" cut down and balanced. Rear end was 8-3/4" with Dana gears and electronic clutch pack. Tires were G60-14's front and S50-15's in the rear. Car had track bars, pinion snubber and remote controlled wheely wheels. Air shocks, dual air resovoirs, dual regulators and ball valves controlled the front and rear hieght from inside the car (I was an engineer then...I over engineered).Horsepower was 1350 and it did the quarter in 8.91 @ 168 mph. This thing was powered normally by aviation fuel mixed 4:1 with alchohal and Nitropropane (would sometimes put in acetone as well). Mileage was horrid, 1 to 2 mpg in the city.
  • 1971 Mercury Marquis, 351 CID automatic, 4 door, what a piece of junk this was!!! But then it was a Ford product. Go figure eh?
  • 1973 Pontiac Gran Prix, 400 CID 4 barrel automatic....this was a nice comfortable car, T-bars, leather interior, power everything...had very few problems with it.

  • 1986 Misubishi Tredia (South Africa) little 1.6 litre, standard transmission but should have bought the GT3000... oh well. Car is beside a Baobob Tree in the picture, near the Zimbabwe border at Beitbridge.

  • 1987 BMW M5 (South Africa) this was a nice company car, cruise at 220 kph all day, not a problem, but then I had a license to do that in South Africa, was well appointed in the interior, maintenance was expensive, luckily I didn't have to pay for it, or the insurance, or the gas... whew!
  • 1989 Nissan Skyline (South Africa) 3.0 litre automatic, nice car, pretty fast and very little maintenance. Lame pic taken in front of my house in South Africa on the one day you can’t see me wearing a gun.

  • 1984 Oldsmobile 98, 305 CID automatic, fully loaded, leather interior, got talked into this one....But it was a good car, easy to maintain and seriously comfortable.
  • 1995 Dodge Neon, 2.0 litre automatic, 132 hp, no frills except an upgraded stereo/cassete player....this is a nice little car, good passing accleration and excellent gas mileage. This car used to go 600 kilometres on $20 worth of gas. This car is the reason I bought the 1997 Neon. The 1995 had literally no problems, was in the shop twice for recalls, once for brakes and once for CV joints over a period of 3 years.
  • 1995 Pontiac Firebird Formula, 5.7 litre/350 CID, 6 speed standard, 315 hp with trick ECM, convertible. This car was the biggest piece of shit (IMO) I have ever driven!!!!! Right from the get go, this car was in and out of the shop, I think it was 15 times and 27 workorders over a period of 15 months. It was even delivered with literally no oil in the differential, so when I took it in for the first service, the rear end was screwed up and the guy who did the service recieved a 3rd degree burn on his hand from touching the differential. So many things went wrong with this car I started writing letters to GM head office and phoned the designers and project leaders. But nothing helped... they wouldn't take the damn car back... so they screwed us. Even though they knew the rear end was a mess and about all the other problems with it, they did little to nothing and they blamed the 'feels like the wheels are gonna come off' vibration on secondary resonance of the drive shaft. So finally, they changed the drive shaft under warranty to a racing aluminum drive shaft... uh... well... didn't fix it....duh? Anyway, I’m glad the piece of crap is gone, it can be someone else's headache, even though no one else deserves this kinda grief. Maybe they will fix it before it goes to the next unsuspecting driver. Fortunately, it was a company car. Picture is of me and the beast, up north at the lake, daughter took the picture.

  • 1997 Dodge Neon, 2.0 litre, DOHC, automatic, 150 hp, 2 door, fully loaded, power everything, sunroof, Kenwood faceoff cassette and 12 banger CD changer. It has been in the shop 4 times in 3 months for the same problems, ECM, crank and cam sensors and loose connectors, hope they fixed it right this time...This Neon is not nearly as reliable as the first one.