Greg Fair - My Cars List

I bought my first car when I was 14 and a half years old (a year before I got my driver’s license), it was a green 1968 GTO, I bought it for $350 of my own money in 1978 from a guy in my freshman high school class, his name was Bob Dahrooge, he was only selling the GTO because he wanted to buy a 69 Charger. The GTO had a 400hp engine, the legendary Hurst His & Hers Dual Gate Shifter (Automatic and gated Manual “Racing” shifter), with a Posi-Track rear end. Man this thing was FAST! The low rumble of the dual exhaust on that 400 engine at idle was absolutely intimidating, and when you stepped on the gas.. Whooop Wooooooooo, this thing could really move! I put Cragar SS rims on it and drove it to and from high school. One day I put the old tires & rims back on the rear wheels and drove it to school to do burnouts! If you have never seen a posi-track rear end do burnouts, it is really badass, because BOTH tires spin instead of just one! I burned both tires until they popped, I couldn’t even see where I was going there was so much smoke in the air, but I didn’t care (teenagers…) The fire department came, they though it was a fire! It was a LOT of fun, but I regretted it later because it left burnt rubber all over the rear quarter panels and it wouldn’t come off, so I had to have it sanded & painted. This car only got about 6 miles per gallon, but back then gas was only 6o cents a gallon, so it didn’t matter, it was just pure badass driving down the road! Every guy has a special love affair with his first car, no exception here.. I loved this GTO so much I that bought another one when I was in my 40’s, just for fun! A 1969 GTO Judge.

My 2nd car was a 1970 Ford Maverick, it wasn’t that fast, but it was certainly fun!

This thing was a BOAT!, Literally almost 20 feet long! I bought it from a friend of the family for $450. The 2nd picture is a picture of me, after my high school graduation in 1981.

I bought this car for $250, drove it until I joined the Army in 1982.

When I was stationed with the Army in Germany, I bought a blue Triumph Spitfire MK5, this was a fun car to drive on the Autobahn (no speed limit). This car was small, short, and light, and it could “turn on a dime”, one of my Army buddies had a BMW motorcycle, and I bet him that my Triumph Spitfire could make a tighter circle than his motorcycle, so we hit the basketball court and I proved it!

I bought this car from an Army buddy that was returning to the states, and drove it all over Europe, until one day another buddy of mine and I went to Holland, on our way to Amsterdam. I saw this bright green motorcycle with the word “Marechaussee” across the front, and I pointed and asked my buddy “what is that”, he said it was the Dutch Military Police! Then the motorcycle started following me, and pulled me over. He said that I needed to follow him to the police station for a “technical inspection”, which I did. When the “technical inspector” arrived, he took an ice pick and with my car on the lift punched the icepick through the floorboard on my car! Then they told me that my car was “not safe” and that they would have to confiscate it! (true story). Later that evening (after they confiscated my car and we were stuck in Brunssum, Netherlands with no car! We ran into the same “Marechaussee” police officer at a bar (still a true story, my buddy Doug can attest to this), and I approached him and asked him why he was “fucking with me”! His response… I saw you “give me the finger”??? I said nooo, I was just pointing and asked my friend what the word “Marechaussee” meant… so can I have my car back? He said, sorry, it’s already gone, but I can buy you a beer!, So we proceeded to drink together all night. The 2nd picture is of my Fiat up on the lift at the police station as they were “inspecting” it.

When I got back to the states and worked at The Pentagon, I bought a white Opel GT, they were only imported to the USA for a couple of years so they are pretty rare. It was the only car that had “roll up” hidden headlights, way cool! The guards at the entrance to the base always knew it was me by the roll up headlights. And a buddy of mine had a Mustang that he wrecked, but he still had the Cragar SS Rims & Tires from it, so I checked and guess what? They were the same bolt pattern as the Opel GT, so I bought them off him and put them on the Opel GT! I think I had the only Opel GT in the world with Cragar SS rims on it (I wish I had a picture of the GT with the SS rims on it, but I never took a picture of it).

My next car was a blue, 78 Camaro I also put Cragar SS’s on that too, I just like the way Cragar’s look, its classic, they cool on any car.

When I went back to Europe, the first car I bought was a BMW 633 CSi, it was pretty fast on the Autobahn, but I kept on seeing these other cars passing me all the time, not Porsche, Ferrari, or Lamborghini, they were OPEL Manta’s! (not available in the USA), so I started buying those instead.

Opel Manta’s are like the Camaro’s of Germany, people buy them, fix them up, and make them faster! These things go like a demon on the Autobahn, topping out over 200mph with the right modifications, and they handle very well at high speeds.

My 2nd Opel Manta had rear and side window louvers on it.

Altogether I had 3 Opel Manta’s, I am still looking for more pictures, this one I sold to my brother-in-law Jorg when I went back to the states, that’s him with the car.

When I got back to the states I bought a Mercury LN7, the strange thing about this car was that it had metric sized tires, like European tires. I didn’t find this out until I got a flat in Newark, New Jersey, and there were no tire stores that had the metric tires in stock. I had to stay overnight there because they had to order the special tire for the car.

I bought this car brand new at a dealership in Florida when I was down there on a business trip, and drove it back up to Virginia. I had a speed shop replace the chip and tune it to be faster. On the way back up to Virginia I was driving through North Carolina at 4:00am in the morning, cruising at about 120mph when I saw the blue lights behind me, the cop pulled me over and said “you tryin’ ta play games with me tonight boy”? (With a severe southern draw), I just said “No sir”, I just bought this car and I wanted to see what it could do, there are no other cars on the road. He said, you know I had to do 130mph just to catch up with you right? I have to give you a ticket, I could arrest you for reckless driving but I’m going to give you a break. So he gave me a ticket for 75mph and I was on my way. I loved driving this car, but after driving with no speed limit on the Autobahn in Europe for four years, I just couldn’t stick to the speed limit. Eventually I was racing a buddy of mine in his 1989 Trans Am Turbo Pace Car on I66 in Virginia at 3:00am (with the headlights turned off), I decided to pass him in the breakdown lane which was a really bad idea, because apparently there was a broke down car in the breakdown lane. I tried to turn back on to the highway, but because of the gravel in the breakdown lane the car just went straight, and I hit the abandoned car at about 90. Luckily no one was hurt, but my Camaro was totaled.

The S10 Blazer was one of the original generations of 4x4’s, which would eventually evolve into the SUV’s that are all over the road today, but the S10 was one of the first purpose built 4x4’s, made for both off-road and the highway. It was fun to drive, and I shipped it out to California when my company moved me there to take over a large banking project (Great Western Bank). I didn’t have to haul much stuff in it, so I put a huge dual Pyle Driver subwoofer in the back with dual Alpine amps, this thing was very loud!