The first time I drove the car with the motor working the way it should, I came in and said, 'Boy, this is one strong mother!' None of the Germans were familiar with the term, so I had to explain that it meant 'very, very powerful.' From then on they used the expression quite a lot without knowing its real derivation. They asked me if it had enough power then, and I said, 'No. It will never have enough power until I can spin the wheels at the end of the straightaway in high gear.' They were aghast at that. They had never seen motors put out even as much power as we had. As they reached 800 horsepower, they literally burned out one of their dynamometers.

By the end of the year, the five-liter engine was up to 880 horsepower, and the best 5.4-liter engine in 1973 was eventually good for 1190 horsepower. All the time they kept asking, 'Now does it have enough?' And I kept saying, 'I still can't spin the wheels all the way down the straightaway.'"