 It was this look that made Terry part with his hard earned-money from Vietnam on June 15, 1969. |
June of 1969. The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was burning. There were race riots in Indianapolis. John and Yoko were in bed. Thor Heyerdahl was crossing the Atlantic in a papyrus boat. And for a guy like Terry Laughlin, those headlines didn’t matter.
Laughlin was on his way back from a tour of duty in the Vietnamese jungles courtesy Uncle Sam. He was one of the thousands of young men to fight a war whose goal (the restraint of communism) was successful, but at a tremendous human cost. Often rejected by their peers, these men came back still hoping to find some of the American dream. Terry Laughlin Sr. knew exactly what he wanted to do when he got back from Vietnam on June 15, 1969.
“We went from the Greenwood County (SC) Airport to the bank that morning, got out my money, and I went down to Dewitt Motors (a Chrysler dealership). This GTX was on the lot; I took it for a test drive and owned it before noon.”
Terry had decided during his time ‘in-country’ that only a Road Runner, GTX, R/T or Super Bee would suit his need for throttle response, and displacement had to be at either 426 or 440 inches. His prior ride had been a 1955 Coronet with a Red Ram Hemi under the hood, but there were no Hemi cars at Dewitt, so the GTX was the
 The GTX was actually a luxury model that featured comfortable interior, power, and nice paint design. |
next best thing.
At 4208.00 (plus a fat 700.00 per year insurance payment), the GTX was the pinnacle of the Plymouth’s B-Body line-up, optional engines were just one – the Hemi. The 375-horsepower Super Commando 440 in this one was backed up by an A833 four-speed and a 3.54 SureGrip Dana 60. Terry wasted no time finding out if they worked.
“About two hours later (after the purchase), I got into a street race with a local ‘57 Chevy with three deuces on it. We ran out toward the bowling alley on a stretch of highway 25 about a quarter-mile long, and I was outside of the car waiting for him before he got there.”
It took out a lot of the local talent in the green hills of South Carolina in the following years until he met Elizabeth Rush. With marriage and children on the horizon, Terry decided to put the GTX out to pasture in the mid-Seventies. It sat outside for years, and a lot of people figured he would let it go.