It was an old car in 1974 when Sandy gave it to us. It was generally still a good car admittedly with some minor issues like the fact that floor boards were missing having rusted out years before we got the car. Needless to say youth and a desire to drive made details like holding your feet up in the air while driving a non issue. 

The morning was perfect and I being the oldest of the three occupants of the car was driving. We were  heading to the camp house when all of the sudden...

 the car took off running wide open! We were careening down a straight stretch of Duncan Hill Rd at break neck speed!

Ernie and Jerry were laughing and having a good time delusionally assuming I was somehow intentionally trying to see just how fast we could make it to the camp house. I was too occupied with trying to figure out how to stop us to point out the error in their thinking.

Finally I turned the key off and we coasted to a stop with the smells of gasoline, overheated motor oil and transmission fluid filling the air. As soon as it was safe to put our feet back down on the inside of the car, we got out and opened the hood. After much expression of opinion, we concluded that the return spring on the outside of the carburetor had broken, which had opened the jets in the carburetor and which was now leaving us stranded.. or so it would have seemed.

After tinkering with the how does it work side of the carburetor "someone" figured out that when you pulled on the arm where the spring had previously been attached to the carburetor, it regulated the speed of the engine and so we hooked a string to the carburetor arm then stretched the string behind something or another so the carburetor could be manually controlled by the driver. Pull the carburetor string to slow the car down, release the carburetor string to speed the car up.

The idea was as ingenious as it was simple and efficient and we were back driving again. However when implemented, the plan did not work as intended. Speeding up was no problem but when I tried to slow us back down by pulling on the carburetor string it would not move. I tried turning the carburetor string loose then pulling it back but we only got faster. Finally I turned the key off again and we unloaded from the car.

After much more dialog about why the plan didn't work "someone" determined that when the string was pulled by the driver it was being pulled straight back making it nearly impossible to slow the car forcing us to accept the fact that our original plan needed modifying. It was concluded that the string needed to be pulled downward so it would slide instead of bind.

Jerry was the second oldest occupant of the car (and throttle issues were a part of driving) so he was elected to be the throttle jockey. All he had to do was lay upside down in the front seat with his head crooked to the side with his arm extended though the missing floor board on the drivers side while maintaining a good grip on the carburetor string. It was Jerry's job was to control our speed by pulling or loosening the string. Ernie's job was to sit in the back seat holding his feet in the air and hanging on to Jerry's feet which were draped over the back seat of the Valiant. 

With the necessary modifications now in place we drove on to the camphouse. While it worked at the moment, the idea proved cumbersome to implement and more than a little difficult to staff given that the carburetor string was nylon and caused the throttle jockey to complain constantly that the blood flow was being cut off to his hand and so we replaced the spring. Valiant stories can only now be told. 

Cecil Bell Jr. (Ernie is my brother, Jerry is my cousin Jerry Bell Jr, Sandy is our late cousin one of Aunt Mayme's daughters)