ROYAL OAK, Mich. (WXYZ) — In the 1960s and early 70s, Woodward Avenue was a test strip for automotive engineers. GM, Ford, and Chrysler would put performance parts on "test mules". Then late at night, they would drag race each other down M-1.
Watch the full story in the video player below:
Most of the test cars were sent to the scrap yard, but one of the street racers got away.
This is the legendary Silver Bullet.
It never lost a race and became one of the most famous cars on the strip.
"The car that we're looking at behind me is the legendary Silver Bullet, the king of Woodward Avenue street racers," said Silver Bullet owner Harold Sullivan. "It's a 1967 Plymouth GTX powered by a 426 Hemi, 650 horsepower, automatic three-speed transmission."
Chrysler engineers stripped the GTX down to 3200 pounds, added on performance parts, and driver Jimmy Addison took it to Woodward.
"(The) lighter the car, more horsepower the faster it," Sullivan said. "The car itself was a factory test mule. They tested different high performance mufflers on it, intakes, carburetors. Thursday night usually was the race night. It was 12 o'clock, midnight, 1 o'clock, okay, so they were able to get away with it because there was no traffic. The Silver Bullet would do 10-30s and a quarter mile consistently through four mufflers."
Legend says this car never lost a race. But after testing, cars like this usually went to a scrap yard.
"It got out the back door somehow," Sullivan said.
It got out the back door and sometimes sat at Jimmy Addison's Sunoco station on Woodward.
"When I was 18 years old, I used to follow the car quite a bit, religiously, actually," Sullivan said. "I'd go with a pump 260 Snowco, because that was a high-octane gasoline that everybody used back then. And I tried to get as close as I could to the bullet because it would park there. And Jimmy would come out and say 'hey, get away from that car.' I wish I had owned this car."
Years later, Harold was able to make his dream come true.
He restored the vehicle, brought it back to Woodward, and shared it with our own WXYZ reporter Mary Conway in 1996.
"What did cars mean to you as a kid, and why did you want to own this one in particular?" Kelly asked him nearly 30 years ago.
"Well, when I was 18, I used to follow this car around, and I admired it very much, and admired Jim Anderson," Sullivan said back then. "And I never really believed that one day I would own it, and today I do, and I just, I love the car, because it was the fastest car on Woodward Avenue. It was the king."
Harold looks fondly back at those Cruise memories.
"Oh that was fantastic, that was our first unveiling, I believe, for the Woodward Dream," Sullivan said. "Mary did a great job."
