When Whitey Needed a Fast Getaway, He Used the Tow Truck

In my continuing research into the story of Massachusett’s most notorious mobster, I picked up Brutal, a memoir written by Kevin Weeks, who for many years was the muscle behind Whitey Bulger. Week’s book is a picture of delusion….he talks abou being forced to box in his living room as a child, and spends a lot of time blaming forced busing for him ending up behind bars.

He relates with pride how his father, who never missed a day beating him up, was the most proud of his son the mobster hood than his other sons, who graduated from Harvard and lived decent, if uneventful lives.

In the book Weeks describes a vehicle that Whitey had built to use in their life of crime. It was obviously inspired by Ian Fleming’s OO7 character, James Bond, since they employed a few of the tricks that we’ve all seen in the movies.

It was a 1975 Chevy Malibu, and they called it the Tow Truck. That’s because when they were on the radio they didn’t want anyone to know about the car so the called it a truck. It was as souped up as you can get, 900 horsepower with a big block bored out engine, special suspension, and a host of other gadgets. Once Weeks said he took it out on the interstate and did 160 mph, leaving a Porsche 911 and a Corvette far behind. He never told Whitey about that, though.

According to Weeks, the Tow Truck featured a manifold that would dump oil on the hot exhaust pipes, creating a smoke screen behind the car as it sped away. It also had a tank to leak oil on the pavement to make pursuing cars spin out. The lights could be turned on to only work in the front, with the license plate (fake, of course) not lit up.

In the dash was a police scanner to keep the bad guys informed of the cops. Whitey used the car to murder a man in a waterfront parking lot, outside of Anthony’s Pier 66. He wore a wig, a fake moustache, and later, he had the getaway car chopped up and they never drove the infamous Tow Truck ever again.