Whatever happened to cool sounding loud pipes on autos and trucks? Vehicles now days have trendy “neon” lights and stereo speakers that could peg the seismic needles in California! And the “music” that emanates from those huge speakers… if one could call it music. I… oh never mind… None of that impresses me because the vehicles just whisper down the road. There’s no loud, throaty bassy sound and no “back-off”.  I’ll explain the meaning of “back-off” a little later. Back in the mid 60’s all cars (at least those driven by teens) sounded cool and loud. My first car, a 1955 Ford Crown Victoria (that was multicolored) sounded COOOOL! When I purchased it, (for $35) it had “dual glass packs” which was the holy grail of exhaust systems! Oh man, did that car sound cool! I used to go out in the evening and start up the 289 cc Ford V-8 just to hear the pipes! The NEATEST thing was the “back-off” which was unique to dual glass packs. “Back-off” is the sound the pipes make when you gun the engine and let off the accelerator. It has a PPPPPPPPPP sound! The closest, but not exact sound, is like a “Jake brake” on a semi. However, the back off from dual glass packs was higher in tone. It was really cool when I would “floor it” and shift gears and hear the back off. The ultimate was to approach a stop sign going about 60 then downshift! The back off would last a long time! We discovered if you unhooked the vacuum line, it would backfire during the back-off! I did this quite often for the ultimate cool sound! On day the ultimate tragedy happened! I was parking my Ford in my usual parking area here at the farm and the right glass pack hit the top of a large protruding rock and broke at the front connection! (See sketch below) That devastated me since the cool bassy and back off sound was now ruined! The next day being a Saturday (I’ll never forget that it was a Friday after school that I ruined the coolest sounding exhaust system I ever had), I went to Norwalk to “Western Auto” to buy some “flexible tubing”. I couldn’t afford another “glass pack” muffler to replace the ruined one. Since the duals were “unbalanced” and could cause too much time in back road drag races, I took off the other glass pack and ran straight pipes for a few months. It never occurred to me that I could have taken it to Heckleman’s to be welded and thus restored it. I went through several feet of flexible tubing over the next few months. As I look back, I could have saved up and purchased a new glass-pack with all the flexible tubing I went through! I guess teenage minds don’t work the some as middle-aged ones do. One thing though, the teenage mind might not be as analytical, but it sure is quicker! Eventually I went to “The Norwalk Bargain Center” and bought 2 “Cherry Bomb” mufflers (for $5.00 each if I recall correctly). The exhaust system never again sounded as cool! Back in those days the “poor man’s” cool sounding glass pack mufflers were either “Cherry Bomb” or a Thrush mufflers. Whenever we would buy a new Cherry Bomb or Thrush, we would put about a quart of oil in our gas tanks to “burn out the fiberglass” so it would sound louder and of course cooler. As I think about it, I seriously doubt that really “burned out” the fiberglass, but it sure made a trail of smoke until we filled our tanks with just gas again! I’m sure the oil didn’t do our spark plugs any good either! Ironically, the “Ultimate Coolest” non “glass pack” non-auto exhaust pipes I ever heard were on a Harley our neighbor Woody Wloodorsky had! It had 2 straight pipes, which were shaped like megaphones. That bike was LOUD and I loved it! Well, I guess I’ve just about “exhausted” this subject.