My supercharged Mazda Miata sports car was my answer to Dad’s quest for fast cars. Which ended with his 150 mile per hour Toyota 400 Lexus.

Since I’ve gotten two DWI’s, I’ve got Marriah driving my supercharged Miata sports car. And she’s loving it, as any high powered East Saint Louis stripper would. They live in the fast lane, and I’m living it also. Because how else do you think I got two DWI’s?

The Miata started out as a 1600 c.c. 1993 model. With only 116 horsepower, there’s no way it could withstand the stresses I had planned on putting it through.

My first step was to install a free flowing muffler that had been advertised to give the little car an extra 5 horsepower. Then I installed an air intake system which the manufacturer claimed to give it another 15 horsepower. I don’t know if it did or didn’t. So I decided to go all balls out and buy a Sebring supercharger. But 50 extra horsepower would be too much for the Miata’s suspension, wheels and tires. My solution was to have the car lowered, and have significantly larger wheels put on with a set of high performance low profile tires with a two inch larger diameter than stock.

I had the Springfield, Illinois Mazda dealer install the Sebring supercharger for me. Which made me the hit of the entire service department.

Without getting into the details, a supercharger is an entirely different kettle of worms than a turbocharger. Which comes to life at high rpms. The Sebring supercharger would pull from low rpms all the way up to the car’s redline, making the little sportscar feel like I had a V-8 in it.

The way I’ve got it figured, the supercharged Mazda Miata had gotten its first 5 horsepower increase from the new muffler. And then, it got another 50 horsepower from the supercharger.

Installing a high performance header was good for another five horsepower. I’d say I got an additional 5 ponies from the air scoop I put in to replace one of the head light protectors. So I’d say 180 horsepower would come close to what I had by the time i started handing my keys over to Marriah.

My now totally transformed supercharged Mazda Miata would now hit 140 miles an hour before the rev limiter kicked in at a little over 7000 rpms.

And then the fuel system would completely shut down as if I had just hit the sound barrier. By the time the car stalled out, it was still accelerating hard. So taking a wild guess, I’d say my sports car would have done 150 miles an hour. Provided the engine could stand it.

I’d end up blowing three engines. But I don’t think accelerating to the car’s red line caused my engines to blow.

Because I would have held the car to 7000 rpm’s for only a second before shifting to a higher gear. No, I am going to blame my father for all those engines I’d burn out. Now my dad was something else. That Toyota Lexus 400 of his would do 150 miles an hour every time he opened the car up. But my dad just had to get 151 miles an hour out of it. And eventually he did. When he was eighty years old. So I was going for the same holy grail he was. But it would take me a minute or two to get my supercharged Mazda Miata sports car up to 135 or so. What this means is I was making that engine howl at 7000 rpms for more than a minute and the engine just couldn’t stand it.

Getting back to my dad and his Toyota Lexus 400, my dad’s thirst for speed ended up with his 150 mile per hour Lexus. Which was a great car that totally outclassed all the competition from Mercedes and BMW when it was first introduced in 1995.

Now my Dad, he was something else, and now that he’s long dead, I am sitting here in my Thailand condo, still thinking of him.

I have just published my sixth book, Life of an Exotic Entertainment Photographer, and last night I published it in full color. Which you can buy at Jack Corbett books through lulu.com

While writing and publishing Life of an Exotic Entertainment Photographer I’ve been reliving all those great times I’ve had with all my stripper friends. While also thinking about my Dad and how I am so much like him. The situation I’ve described in the book is I’m hanging around Marriah a lot. And she’s driving my supercharged Mazda Miata. My Dad’s been getting his Toyota Lexus up to 150 miles an hour when he’s 80 years old. But suddenly his health has gone sour. He’s 83, and for the past two years he’s been suffering from a stroke. His memory is now gone. He can hardly move. He’s dying. And here I’m hanging around with Doctor Doom and Marriah. While my favorite bar is the Dollies Playhouse in Washington Park, Illinois.

So here I am, the night after publishing my latest book. While thinking of Dad and his great love for cars, and what I know about the cars my Dad bought. And which cars he didn’t buy. And why.

Dad kept telling me about a Chrysler New Yorker he had that would go 120 miles an hour.

I don’t remember that car, but I do remember the 1955 and 1956 Buick Roadmasters he bought that he had hoped would equal the New Yorkers top speed. I was eight years old when he bought the 1955 Buick Roadmaster. While I was with Dad the time he wrung that car trying to bet 120 miles an hour out of it. It couldn’t do it and neither could the 1956 Buick that replaced the 1955 model.

So I’ve been totally fascinated by the 120 mile per hour Chrysler New Yorker. And what enabled that car to go so fast. I was 4 years old in 1951 so this might explain why I can’t remember the car. While I still remember the 1955 and 1956 Buick Roadmasters my Dad bought later. Could the 1951 New Yorker with its fabled hemi V-8 hit 120 miles an hour? I had to find out. But I will let you decide for yourself from this link.

Well I don’t know about you but I think there is no way that a 1951 Chrysler New Yorker could do 120 miles an hour.

But a 1954 Chrysler New Yorker? Yes. That must have been the car my Dad took up to 120.

The 1954 Chrysler New Yorker offered a 235 horsepower engine in a car that weighed 4000 pounds. So if a 260 horsepower 3800 pound Toyota Lexus could achieve 150 miles an hour, the New Yorker could certainly do 120.

Unfortunately for Chrysler, the competition from Ford and General Motors trashed that car. Because the New Yorkers styling was just too old fashioned. I remember my sisters and I poking fun at such cars. Calling them bath tube cars.

But if my Dad’s New Yorker was a 1954 model, I would have certainly remembered it. Because I remember all too well my Dad trying to get his Buick Roadmasters up to 120 with no success. The answer could have been that like me, my Dad had a local mechanic soup up a 1951 New Yorker.

After all, I wound up with a supercharged Mazda Miata. Which produced the same 180 horsepower achieved by the 1951 New Yorker. But—my Miata only weighed 2300 pounds. Whereas the New Yorker almost doubled its weight at 4000 pounds.

Which now brings up those Buick Roadmasters my Dad got to replace his Chrysler.

Hemmings offers the following specifications for the 1955 Buick Roadmaster. With 322 cubic inches producing 231 horsepower the Buick’s stats are very similar to the 1954 Chrysler New Yorker’s. But it weighed a whopping 4270 pounds–which is nearly 300 pounds more than the New Yorker. So this alone in my opinion explains why the Buick Roadmasters could not equal the New Yorker’s performance.

But from the time I’m 8 years old I have my father as my number one example. Driving each car he buys as fast as it can go. I will become just like him.

Although he had the money to buy any car he wanted, Dad was always a leader. And never a follower. He could have bought Cadillacs. But I think he viewed them as status symbols that could never equal the performance and superior engineering he sought.

My first car was a 1958 1500 c.c. MGA.

The MGA was the car I learned how to drive when I turned 16. The 1958 model had just 1500 cc’s developing just 65 horsepower. While unlike the MGB my mother later traded it in for, the MGA did not have a synchronized first gear. It would top out at 91 miles an hour, but it was a lot of fun to drive.

My Dad being Staunton’s very successful funeral director and owner of a furniture store certainly had the right kind of friends to soup up his New Yorker. Or quite possibly he bought about the first one to come off the assembly line which would have been late 1953. Because in 1960 he was about the first person to buy the Chevrolet Corvair when it first hit the Saint Louis market. Which was just like my dad.

In 1960, the Corvair was revolutionary due to its rear engine design. Even though the concept was first widely implemented in the Volkswagen beetle.

In 1960 Dad bought a gorgeous Plymouth Fury that had the ground breaking slant six for its powerplant. The car had 145 horsepower but it would consistently get 20 miles per gallon. But after he sold his 1960 Corvair and the Plymouth Fury his car purchasing became very ordinary which was not like Dad at all. WIth the exception of the two MG’s, of course. He settled on the Chevrolet Impala supersport, and got a new one every year. His supersports only had the 283 cubic inch two barreled engines, however. The cars looked good but they sure weren’t much when it came to performance. The best he could get out of one would be 110 miles and hour. And they’d only get 13 to 14 miles per gallon on the highway.

By this time I was getting into a lot of impromptu drag racing. Just outside Staunton a bunch of guys had marked off a quarter mile stretch off a little two lane highway known as the Prairie Town Road. A lot of guys would use that strip to show off what their cars could do. We were really into showing off our cars back in those days. And it was a big thing to drive up and down main street. If you ever watched American Graffiti you would know what Staunton was like back in those days.

By the time I was 17 my mother had gone behind my Dad’s back. And traded the 1958 MGA in for a 1964 MGB. The new MG had an 1800 c.c. engine producing 94 horsepower. I thought I really had a fast car until one of my classmates challenged me to a drag race. I thought he had a .283 Chevy, but when he totally smoked my MGB I found out he had taken his parents Chevrolet that had a 327 four barrel under the car’s hood.

From then on I practically begged my Dad to get something a lot more exciting than a Chevrolet that houses a 283 with a two barrel carburetor.

Dad finally broke away from Chevy and got a Ford LTD that had a 390 cubic inch engine. It only got 10 miles per gallon but I could out drag race most of my friends with it.

But Dad never forgot about that fast Chrysler New Yorker and how he could do 120 behind its wheel. Because in my Senior year in High School, he bought an elegant Chrysler Newport. The Chrysler was a gorgeous blue. And a whole lot bigger than all those Chevys he had been buying.

The first day he bought it Dad took me out on a curvy road to show me how well it handled.

“See how flat it is handling these curves, Dad told me. “This is because of Chrysler’s torsion bar suspension.”

And Dad was right. That Chrysler handled much better than the Chevys he had been buying.

But whereas those Chevy Impalas could only do 110 miles and hour. While never getting better than 14 miles per gallon, the big Chrysler Newport would do 120. And get 20 miles to the gallon in normal highway driving.

Dad bought a series of Chrysler Newports after that. All of them getting at least 18 miles per gallon. He finally bought a Chrysler New Yorker with a big 454 engine. I never liked it half as much as I liked the blue Newport, but even with its big 454 cubic inch engine it would still get over 16 miles per gallon.

Like my Dad, I became totally convinced that Chrysler’s offered superior performance and engineering to what Ford and General Motors were offering. In most cases. But not all. In my entire lifetime I’d buy only one General Motors car. And that was a 1973 Chevolet Monte Carlo.

I was selling insurance on the road in 1973. And had to pay for my own hotel rooms, meals, and car expenses. The best I could do with this car was to get 15 miles per gallon. Holding her right at 70 on the highway and being careful not to give it too much throttle. It had a 350 cubic inch V-8 in it which had become Gm’s standard V-8 replacing its 283’s and 327’s. But after having to pay for all that gas I have nothing good to say about Chevy’s 350 cubic inch engine. Much later on while farming I’d end up buying 4 pickup trucks. The last one being a 1997 Dodge Dakota sport four wheel drive with a 318 cubic inch engine. This four wheel drive was much heavier than all those Chevy Impalas my Dad had been buying and the Monte Carlo as well, But I could get better than 110 miles an hour out of it. I’d normally get 16 miles to the gallon in normal country driving. But it would get 19 miles to the gallon when I took it into the mountains.

But by the time I was driving my supercharged Mazda Miata I was clearly out of my mind.

I was using Marriah, a Saint Louis Metro East stripper for my designated driver. And we were doing a lot of heroin runs together. By this time I had Dirt, a young college student from Springfield, doing my web site for me. And I often took Dirt with me to the Dollies Playhouse strip club where Marriah worked. Marriah loved driving my supercharged Miata, but as much as she loved that car. She loved chatting in the Lost Angels just even more.

Meanwhile, the main mentor of my life, my father, is dying. Dirt and I had gone to Marriah’s house the week before where we spent the night with Marriah and Taylor, a beautiful Dollies stripper I was just getting to know. But when Marriah and Taylor were doing their bathroom breaks they were shooting up heroin. Dirt and I were to meet up with Taylor and Marriah the next week over at Dollies. But some very bad things were about to happen.