(light folk music)
- Let's get one thing straight.
New Yorkers are not like other people.
And I'm not talking about the New Yorkers
that live in places like Buffalo or Albany.
I'm talking about those of us
who grew up in the surrounding boroughs.
There are 11 million of us
that live within a 50 mile radius,
and what that does is a few things:
one, we have the world's greatest BS meter.
And as a car guy, that's one of the most important traits
you can ever have.
The car behind me belongs to a friend of mine,
and the mechanics and the build
is as genuine as the owner
that we're going to showcase today.
So stay tuned for a very New York-based episode
of the House of Muscle.
- Welcome to my city!
- Seeing my buddy Eddie
and his 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass
could mean only one thing:
I was back home in my old neighborhood.
(soft relaxing rock music)
(Cutlass growls)
This car is pretty raw, right?
Carborated 540 big block,
reverse manual ball body,
12 bolt rear end.
Smokin' torque, smokin' horse power.
I'm going to get out of this thing today,
I'm going to smell like fuel,
I'm going to be somewhat filthy.
But there's a charm about this,
there's a charm about a car
that makes you feel like you've had an experience,
and that you've had an interaction.
I feel like every time I rev the motor,
I get more chest hair.
(engine growls)
Ooh!
I remember when the first time I actually saw it.
I heard this thing just rumble,
like (makes rumbling sound).
And it just looks burly.
The guy behind the wheel
had these black wrap-around sunglasses,
and the license plate on the car said,
"Ay ohh".
(slow intense bass guitar music)
- I mean,
if you're going to have a loud, obnoxious car,
you might as well have a loud, obnoxious
plate to go with it.
I'm a New Yorker,
and most of our vocabulary consists of,
"Ay, ohh!".
And that's me.
What are you going to do?
When I first got the car,
it was black, it didn't have the gold stripes on it,
it didn't have these wheels,
it wasn't ranked like this,
it was just a black Cutlass
with red pin stripes.
It was pretty sinister in its own respect,
but it was like a carbon copy.
It was like everybody had one,
weld wheels, I was like, okay,
so my first car show ever,
and I wound up meeting the actual builder of the car.
He brought up to date on what the car was built for
and what it was done,
they basically hung quarters on it,
they did all the bodywork,
and they put in a ZZ502, just to run it to track.
That's all they did.
- This car, you look at it, and it says,
"New York", it says I'm a back-roads brawler.
If you want to race,
I am more than happy to do so,
but the odds of you winning are pretty damn slim.
I'll tell you, this thing is wicked.
(exhaust rumbles)
Eddie changed the wheels,
he put on much more streetable wheel,
as far as rim and tire combination.
He's got 18-inch Shelby style wheels all around,
running Continental extreme performance sport tires,
and there's a big thing here,
because now he went from badass to badass cruiser.
And when you're an adult, that's kind of nice,
because you still want people to look at you and go,
"That's pretty macho".
- These guys had set up the cars strictly
to go racing.
We de-tuned the engine a little bit,
we made it more streetable.
Lowered the gear ratio in the back.
We got some 373s.
So now I figured, let me just set it up
so I can actually drive the car and enjoy it.
(exhaust crackles)
- We're talking about 540 cubic-inch Chevy big block.
700 horse power,
680 pound feet of torque.
We've got a Turbo 400 tranny,
with a reverse manual valve body
through a hard shifter.
And it fits the personality of the car, right?
I mean, if it just had a regular (makes gear noise),
automatic, which it used to
because the column shift pan is still right here,
you know, you'd look at the car,
and you'd be like, oh, it's kind of mundane.
The fact that I have a reverse valve body,
and I got to bang through the gears
to get this thing to go,
it's very fitting for what we are driving.
Plus the fact that this car,
I mean, you can get on it, like ...
(engine roars)
It's fast, you'll rip the tires off in third gear.
(power rock music)
- I wish had an extra gear,
you know, as we all do, right?
But let me tell you,
the first three gears, the only three gears in this car,
first is wow, second is holy crap,
and third is, I think I'm going to crap myself.
(engine roars)
These were light to light cars.
Every light was a starting gate.
Every light was an opportunity to make you look bad,
and if you were this guy named Petey
with Mom's nightmare, he basically embarrassed everybody.
(tires screech)
(exhaust roars)
- When Eddie was growing up,
so much of his car persona
stemmed from what was around him in the neighborhood.
Think of cars like Camaros and Trans-Ams
and Hosemobiles.
But they were not numbers matching,
these were barely raked out, quarter mile street racers.
- I fell in love with cars when I was about
five or six.
My entire block, unbeknownst to my parents,
were a bunch of gear heads.
It was just great,
there was a lot of cars.
Back then you could get them for like
600 bucks, 700 bucks.
And they used to do such crazy things to it
that just, one better than the other.
- And that's one of the greatest parts
about being a car guy here.
Because everybody lives in such close quarters,
because we're all connected,
you never want for anything.
If you need a part, it's there.
If you need to find something,
and you break down and need help,
it's there.
You know, New Yorkers get this bad rap about,
oh, you New Yorker, you don't want to help anybody out.
That's a load of crap!
- What would the recipe be?
It would be a cheap car,
a big engine,
and a hell of a lot of patience,
because they used to swap motors
using tree branches and rope.
Not everybody had engine voice
and booms that you could buy for $200,
they improvised.
Okay, an engine cradle was a tire.
You know, basically whatever they had
at their disposal, they used.
(indie rock music)
- [Mike Musto] Local shops like Mekniko Auto Works
are legendary for keeping borough cars like this running
and on the road.
- Basically, when I got the car,
and after we did what we did
and we're squirling all over the place,
Mike and his brother Nicky, they said,
"Eddie, if you want to go in this direction,
"squat the car down a little bit,
"put the hard stress suspension in".
- Right here, you have the Hodgkiss,
fully boxed low controllers.
This helps a lot on the traction.
If you're going to launch the car,
they're solid, it keeps the car steady on the ground.
- [Mike Musto] Believe it or not,
but keeping 700 horse power connected
to the pavement is actually a good thing.
- Very good, eh?
- [Mike Musto] And if you want stuff done right here,
you need a little bit of cash
and a whole lot of attitude.
- What?
- [Mike Koloniaris] Start from there, bro!
- [Eddie] What's the difference?
- There is no difference,
you got to start running the hose from the middle.
That's it, you're fired, let it go.
Get out of here.
You're a bad payer too.
- [Eddie] I'm a what?
- I love you, but you don't like to pay.
- [Eddie] What do you mean?
- I don't know.
- I pay with affection.
(makes kissing sound)
- Right (laughs).
- That's where I come from.
(laughs)
(pumping blues rock)
Uh oh, why are we being stopped?
Somebody wants to talk to us.
How are ya?
- Nice car, man.
- Aw thanks, I wish it was mine!
- Woah, who's is it?
- This is my buddy Eddie's car.
- Oh, okay.
- Did a nice job on it though, didn't he?.
- Is it WD40 in there?
- No, this is a 540 cubic in Chevy.
- Chevy?
- Chevy.
- Wow. - Yeah.
- I got a '55 Chevy.
- Yeah?
What you got in it?
- Got a small buck.
- [Mike Munro] Neighborhood car?
- [Pete] Push.
Light 'em up, man.
(tires screech)
(laughs)
- So here's the thing.
If you guys haven't figured it out by now,
having a car like this in the neighborhood
is kind of amazing.
You have gentlemen like Pete that just went by,
and ...
The stories that you'll hear from guys
that grew up here are amazing.
Because aside from like Francis Lewis Boulevard,
connecting highway was a big street race spot
where guys would literally tow their cars in,
and then race them.
I could sit, I could talk to that gentleman
for hours.
And I guarantee you, the stories that he would tell us
are things that, well,
you wouldn't believe.
- Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday
were the best days.
My face would be pressed up against the glass,
and all you would hear is the house shake and rumble
and it was just sick.
The smell of race gas,
well back then I think it was available on the pump
all the time was leaded fuel,
and I was just hooked.
They were test and tuned right there on 41st avenue.
It was great.
There was this lunatic with a white Thunderbird,
like a '60s Thunderbird that just baked the tires,
all the time.
That was my hero.
(engine revs)
(fast jazz music)
- [Cameraman] Is it okay that there's
smoke comin' out the back?
- Oh, is it really?
- [Cameraman] I'm seeing a little bit of ...
I think it's the exhaust.
When you stopped, I saw a little whiff of it go by.
- Well, we're probably burning oil.
- [Cameraman] Okay.
- We'll go back just to make sure.
Thankfully it wasn't an oil leak,
but rather a belt that was starting to shred,
but you see, we broke down in the neighborhood.
- [Mike Musto] You've shredded it.
- [Andrew] Oh, you shred the thing.
- [Mike Munro] Within minutes,
our buddy Andre was on scene,
and more than willing to help us out.
- [Andre] At least it held.
- [Mike Munro] It's still there?
- [Andrew] It's still there.
You see how's pinched in like that?
- [Eddie] It eats itself off,
it's just a matter of time, it's got to be done.
It's going to just break.
My girl lost her belt.
You can tell her that you're going to take care of her.
All right?
- But what we're going to have to do at this point
is be nice to the car for the next couple of days,
'cause otherwise it's going to keep doing this.
'Cause if you think cars don't know,
you're dead wrong.
They know everything.
They definitely know.
- Sorry, baby.
I'm going to have them machine me
as a toller guide for both sides of that.
- You know what you need also?
You need a deep groove.
- Yes.
Very deep, so it if they fly out,
'cause I have these pools, they're shallow.
What non-car people will never understand
is that these cars are not just family cars,
but instead, they're members of the family.
- Favorite part of this car to me
is sitting behind the wheel and looking at these two
humps on the hood.
Every part of this car I enjoy.
I always used to have a fender
that I enjoyed on other cars.
I enjoy every part of this car.
The hood, especially the crevice between the two scoops.
It's almost like caressing a woman, in a way.
It's kind of like, it does it for me,
I know I'm crazy, but you know what?
It's either this or a real woman.
Right babe?
(cameraman laughs)
- Oh, that's part of it.
Oh, there's another part of it.
- [Mike Musto] Regardless of how many nuts you tighten,
and how many bolts you turn,
45 years of rolling over on New York City streets
will take a toll on even the best kept automobile.
(engine rumbles)
(something rattles inside)
You hear the holes?
You hear the pot holes?
Everything rattles.
Now, listen.
(car rattles)
Right, that's a typical New York borough street.
So while we are just cruising around having fun,
you get to the point where you're like,
Jesus, now I got to refit the floor panel,
and the window crank just fell off,
and now I got to realign my hood
because it shook all over the place.
This is not something that is like I'm making up,
this is just the fact of owning a car like this
in the boroughs of New York.
Is what it is.
- And it's not perfect, but you know what?
I think I have an idea of what I'm going to do next.
The gauge part, I made,
it's my first attempt.
I got these Pro-Car seats,
they were the older type.
I don't think they make them anymore,
but I'm happier with these cleaner lines.
I'm a bigger guy, so I don't really want anything
hugging me, because they don't make anything
wide enough to hug me with.
So (laughs), I needed a flat background
a little bit flatter,
a little bit lower so that my head
doesn't go through the headliner.
(engine roars)
- Is it perfect?
No, it's not.
But I mean, it doesn't have to be,
I've got this roll cage in here
that is just really friggen' annoying,
but when he bought it,
it was a quarter mile car, right?
It was a light to light car,
it was a street racer, so screw it,
you had to have it in here.
Are the brakes good?
No.
The brakes are terrible.
Even though they're four-wheel disc,
they're just, you know, like,
Eddie'll tell you flat out,
he's like, "Yeah, it was a cheap system,
"but I wanted to stop a little better,
"and I guarantee you it stops better
"than the drum brakes that were on here".
It will always need a little bit of sorting
here and there, as most old cars do,
but I think that's okay.
- [Eddie] The love affair I have is with cars.
If I ever had to choose between another woman
and my car, I'd pick my car.
It keeps me young too, man.
The last 13 years of owning this car,
every year I get in it and it's like I'm
driving it for the first time.
- Here's the deal.
Eddie's done a great job with the fact that
the dash, even though he's got some new
automated gauges,
it's still fairly stock.
I have a cassette here, and on the cassette I've got,
I don't know if you can see this,
but I've got Deep Purple in there,
which is kind of awesome.
It feels like it's kind of like 1986,
and this is what I should be driving.
Like most vehicles,
this car is really a product of its environment.
What started off years ago as kind of a
raked out street racer
has now evolved into more of a
stealthy street fighter.
If you are that guy in that Porsche,
or that Ferrari or Lamborghini,
and this car pulls up next to you,
you might want to think twice about
putting the go pedal down.
But like anything else,
as the neighborhood evolves,
well, so will the car.
So I suppose, in closing,
the only thing that you can say is,
you can take the car out of the neighborhood,
but you'll never take the neighborhood out of the car.
I still wouldn't change a thing.
(car drives past)