Aside from getting the worst gas mileage of every student at University High School, I love driving my classic cougar. My "Black Cat" is a 1969 Sports Special with a black XR7 interior. It features an AOD transmission outfitted with a shift kit and a 2000 RPM stall converter turning a 3.90:1 posi rear end, all powered by a 1997 351W marine block crate engine.

The car was purchased in August of 1997 by my dad. At the time it had some front end damage, and the engine compartment was a wreck. After we fixed all that, the car became my dad’s daily driver. Two years later, when I wanted a Cougar, we decided I would buy an all original Sports Special that we found in New York, and pay for the costs for us to restore it. In return, I would get the black one.

The Sports Special is my first and only car. It can be seen cruising or tearing down Orlando streets (depending on who you talk to) taking me from point A to B. So far I haven’t got a ticket while driving it, though I have been pulled over a few times. But only by cops that are so interested in the car and the fact that I’m a teenager driving something other than a Honda that they forget about the ticket.

More recently I redid the engine compartment with the addition of headers and some homemade electronic exhaust cutouts that with the push of a button open the exhaust just behind the headers, which makes for a noisy ride. In the future I have plans to add a few more things including a mild cam, MSD, and a T5 manual transmission.

The Cougar is a pretty reliable car that has been on a few long trips. My dad and I took the car to the 1998 Nationals in Atlanta, as well as 2002 in Atlanta, where it won First Place in the Daily Driver class. In 1998, the cars damage had not been fixed yet. More recently we drove the car to the Kentuckiana Nationals in Louisville, Kentucky, where the car won Second Place in the Daily Driver class as well as winning the road rally that took us through some narrow Kentucky back roads.

I plan to hang on to the car as long as I can. I hear all too many stories about how people wish they had never sold that cool car they had in high school.