Musclecar Attraction

[Keith Seymore]

Speaking of muscle car promotions (and Dick Purtan):

I'm sure most if not all of you are familiar with the "Beat the Tiger" program, whereby a lucky participant from the audience would get to race the "Mystery Tiger" in one of two "identically prepped" Royal Pontiac GTOs.

In addition to drawing names from the crowd they might also give a local celebrity or politician a shot at beating the Tiger.

One time they invited radio personality Dick Purtan to race in one of the cars. They quizzed Dick ahead of time to make sure he could drive a 4 speed.

"Yeah - I can drive a 4 speed" he replied.

I think you can guess where this is going. The tree came down and the two cars launched - and Dick proceeded to blast down the quarter, foot to the floor - in first gear, the whole way.

By the time he got to the pits the car was popping and carrying on. I think he bent every pushrod in the thing.

Needless to say, they screened their local celebrity participants a little more rigorously after that.

K