By Bob Ellis
Homestead will mark the last race for Chevrolet’s Monte Carlo SS. “With 396 wins since its introduction in 1971, the Monte Carlo brand has set a benchmark in the series. Drivers such as Dale Earnhardt, Benny Parsons, Cale Yarborough and Terry Labonte piloted their Monte Carlos to wins and championships. These icons in the sport passed the torch to today’s champions such as Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart to bring Chevrolet’s total driver’s championships to 23,” said Ed Peper, general manager of Chevrolet.
Count them, 23 Championships since 1971, and that is including the brief time the Monte Carlo was replaced by the Lumina, where Dale Earnhardt won at least one Championship while driving that car. That says a lot about the car. It has changed a lot over the last 30 or so years, but it still seemed to run fairly well most of the time, especially after they came out with the ares-coupe in the early to mid- 1980′s. It is that version of the Monte Carlo that is my favourite.
It will be hard to watch races without any Monte Carlo’s in them, even though today’s race version is little more than a custom built machine with decals on it. It is the fact that the brand will no longer be present. I had a difficult time when the Lumina first replaced the Monte Carlo, but this will be be a little more difficult because I’m even more of a fan of racing than I was then (although there were some dark years there after Dale died) and seeing a Monte Carlo on the track has become even more ingrained on my psyche over time.
Heck, my first car was even a Monte Carlo. It was a 1973 Monte Carlo to be precise, and a piece of $500 junk that I bought with money I borrowed from my grandmother. I borrowed the money from my grandmother because my parents told me I couldn’t buy the car and wouldn’t loan me the cash. I love my Grandmother. Anyway, my plan was to buy it, keep it at my friend Gerry’s (the NASCAR virgin) house, fix it, register it, drive it home, and have my parents just try and take it away from me – it worked. A week and a $100 later I had that car fit for the road. I had it on the road legally for no less than 2 hours when I got hit by a truck. The damage wasn’t that bad and I settled with the trucking company for $600 and fixed it myself for $20. There was still some cosmetic damage that I never did fix, but in the end the car literally cost me $20 after everything was said and done.
One problem though, I had bought the car from a a known drug dealer at the time – known to every cop in town, but not to me. So after about 8 months of being pulled over for ‘routine’ checks the police finally decided I really did have nothing to do with the guy I bought the car off of and they left me alone. All my friends would make fun of me about it. More often than not whenever one of my friends would see a car pulled over on the side of the road they would always assume it was me and slow down to say ‘hi’. In my High School yearbook that year under “where most often found” it says, ‘pulled over at the side of the road’.
I ended up taking a hack saw to the roof of the car about 3 years later because I wanted a convertible. It looked nice as a convertible, too bad it drove like garbage after the roof was gone (the frame started to sag in the middle after a while), and whenever it rained I’d have to put garbage bags on the seats. I scrapped the car before winter hit. I miss it. I even have a picture of it, along with all my other cars I’ve ever owned (except that 4-door piece of crap Parisienne), on my desk at work. What can I say? I’m car guy, and I’m sure going to miss seeing a Monte Carlo out on that track every week.
If I remember, I’ll get that picture of my convertible from work and scan it to share it with you later.
