History WHAT IF YOU COULD GO BACK ....

My 1st car was dad's 64 Olds. I learned that automatic transmissions behind a 394 could be broken pretty easily. My 2nd car was a 69 Buick. I learned how to change motors, and how to replace rear wheel bearings and I learned tires were expensive. My 3rd car was a 72 Plymouth. I learned it was much tougher to break then the Olds or the Buick was. There have probably been more then 100 cars with my name on the title since then, I learned something from every one of them.

Learning auto mechanics in high school has proven to be very helpful through the years, but I'm glad I change careers in the mid 80s.

Occasionally, I look back and wonder what if, but then I think about what else might have changed as a result of an earlier change, and I let it pass. I'm pretty happy with the way my life has gone so far.
If I could go back, I might have taken a little better care of myself when I was younger, but then, I don't seem to be taking much better care now either. Gene

 

[Roothawg,I hope you make out O.K and recover fast.Bruce.

 

I would kept every car I ever owned(except one Pontiac with bad memories). If I could only pick one it would be the 1st one I bought with my own $$. 1956 Meteor Crown Vic. Over the years I've discovered what a low production car it was. Damn I loved that car.

 

If I could go back I would have never, ever sold my '58 Corvette, never sold my BB '67 Corvette coupe and never would have parted with my '70 GTO I bought new.
Oh... I would have gotten a SHINGLES shot last year when it was offered to me and I declined.
Yup, hit me in the scalp this summer, huge regret.

 

I would have kept my first car (a white 55 chevy 210 post) and kept it more the plane jane way it was than the wild plans I had for it at 13

 

I would have found a way to keep my 65 GTO 4 speed convert with a trans planted 421. I bought it from a guy that had just got drafted in 1970. I won back my purchase price with in a week, two lane blacktop style. It had stiff rear gears and that 421 would wind up like nothing I ever had before. Three months later I got my own greetings letter from Mr. Nixon. With no place to store it for the next two years I had to sell it. On the up side, I did survive the two years of army life!

 

I would go back and buy the 53 Skylark vert with the stock wire wheels that the father of a high school friend offered to me for $350 in 1967.
I also would have bought the Cobra I saw for sale in a sports car salon in 1968 for $3500.
If I sold those two cars now my retirement would be a little more comfortable!

 

LOL my first car was a '59 Reilly. It looked like across between the Prefect and a Simca. I probably wouldn't do anything any different than what I did with it, overhaul it.

My first legal car was a '58 Roadmaster. I would have gone with a different carb, and an Earl Scheib job. It set good, an good and rode good. granted it was a freakin boat but we had a lot of fun in that car. The paint was crap though.

 

Earl Scheib ...... I came from the era when Earl Scheib commercials were on TV, more than the sparsely scheduled programs, on only THREE TV CHANNELS. Yes, only 3 channels !
Earl would say "I'm Earl Scheib, and I'll paint ANY car, ANY color, for only $19.95."
As the years went by, the wording of the commercial stayed the same, only the price increased.

 

I would have checked the oil level.

 

My first car sits in dads back yard. I have never driven it. I wish i had never been distracted by all the other projects i had to have and finished what i started

 

If I could go back, I'd stay there!
'40 Ford coupe, '56 Olds motor with trips. (1965)

 

I would not have read the owners manual of my 1964 Impala SS.
327 Powerglide. If I recall,the manual stated that you shouldn't shift into low and accelerate at speeds higher than 35 mph.
So I got up to 32-33 by the speedo and pulled the console shifter handle back and mashed the gas pedal.
Scattered the 'glide right there on the street.
My numbers may be off as it was 41 years ago.

 

My first car was a '63 1/2 Galaxie 500. What would I have done different? Broke that back seat in, WAAAY earlier than I did.

 

Regret is a terrible thing. The trick is not to do the same stupid thing again. If I had to do some stuff over ,I would have bought alot more cars,they were cheap way back.And figured out how to stash them away. Would not have cut up that chevelle for a field car.Would have stayed away from any mind flipping things(well it helped Robert Williams) and would not have been such a prick to my high school sweetheart.One of the nicest person I ever knew. Going back is a pretty wide subject

 

To my first car? Nothing more than I did, which was keep it on the road for a couple of years!

There were 250 kids in my high school, and I was one of about 6 to actually own my own car (not a overly wealthy community). It was a 1956 Ford 292 with 200k plus miles, and I was lucky to be able to afford the $100. for it at age 14. It took two years in shop classes to fix the body work, and make it road-worthy.

It would have been my fifth car, a 1968 Ford Mustang 390-GT that I bought new that I would/should have modified. During that time, the EPA was scaring us to death about any engine modifications on 1968 up cars and I believed them. Modifications would have been a set of SVO aluminum heads, an aluminum SVO dual quad intake, junk the Holley (I did that anyway after the engine fire, THIRD one with a new Holley in less than 9k miles on three different cars), and install a pair of Carter AFB's, and a pair of SVO cast iron headers. And the engine would be similar to the one currently in my 1968 shop truck!

The Mustang was a lot of fun to drive, but the aluminum components in the engine compartment would have really improved the front/rear weight bias. Going from memory, the f/w bias was 59/41; the aluminum would have made it 55/45, not ideal, but a lot better. The extra horses wouldn't have hurt anything, but it had plenty of power anyway.

Jon.

 

Since I was 14 or so, all I wanted was to buy and fix up an old car or bike. But my folks refused to entertain any such notion. Two people at the factory where we all worked (when I was 16) tried to GIVE me running motorcycles for free, folks said NO. No one else I knew wrenched on cars, so I never learned anything about it at all, until in 1987 I bought my 1st, a '64 Caddy. My girlfriend and I were renting a basement apt in someone's house on Revere Beach in Boston so it wasn't the best place to work on cars.

The first thing I did was try to change the oil. The oil filter was stuck, and the bottom half ripped off. So I figured I would put the oil back in and drive it to Jiffy Lube. (Took 20 rolls of paper towels and several bottles of Dawn to clean that oil spill)

2nd thing that happened was a 2' section of steel girder fell off of a flatbed in front of me and tore the front wheel off. Luckily, there was a junkyard in Boston specializing in old cads; Gately's Restoration , (john Gately, still there, probably 90 years old, great guy). He helped me order the bushings, explained how to do the job and sold me all the old pieces to fix it myself.

Shortly after, it started running a bit rough, so I figured I would change the wires and plugs. Didn't have a manual, hadn't heard of "firing order", nor did I take any notes on how the wires were attached. Of course the car barely ran after, worse than ever with smoke billowing from it. I had no money at all, and mechanics over the phone said the engine was toast. So I called John Gately and he came and bought the car for $200 and towed it off (he let me keep one hubcap as a souvenir)

I was a punk rocker taking a year off from college. I was the assistant manager at a store called "Shake Rattle and Roll" in Cambridge. We sold 1950's restored jukeboxes and other 50's nostalgia. There were a couple of girls that worked there in poodle skirts, I had a pompadore and the owner made us dance on boxes to doo-wop music while customers milled around. It was a bit humiliating but awesome at the same time. I had a friend named "johnny Foxx", who was a rock-a-billy guy that was a bouncer at an Irish bar the " plow and Stars" down the street, he kept a shoebox full of money for the IRA underneath his bed. He came by one day, said "Danny, John Gately has your car for sale outside his shop for $2500. I went in and asked about it, he said some dumb kid had put the wires in wrong, once the firing order was right, the car runs perfect, no leaks and lot of new front end work, the car will run forever..."



What a putz I was, spent more time on my hair than my girlfriend, but did I love Caddies. Over the next 30 years I owned so many shitbox cars I made up for those early years 10 fold.

 

I would have used a better rear gear then 463 with a g60 15 tire. Late 70's and had to drive 30 minutes to work on the highway, The 289 was screaming.

 

1. Not wreck my '56 chevy wagon on Niles Canyon Road smoking a joint
2. Not cut up all the dashes putting in stupid ill fitting radios from Grand Auto
3. Putting a small block chevy in my 5 Window

 

I don't think I'd have done too much differently with my first car, three on the tree 1954 Chevy BelAire. It was a nice driver, and got me everywhere I needed to go when I was 16-18. I certainly know that I would have done a lot more IN the car, particularly in the rear seat area.

 

Mrs beaner and I would have been one of those 6, we had the Fury II by then. Too many doors and a 318 that wouldn't quit. If I did anything different I probably would not have let Stickly in the back seat on senior skip day. He locked me out when I jumped out to grab that coach whip, how did I know he was afraid of snakes.
I got a question for ya? We always parked on the street in front of the school, did we have a school parking lot?

 

Beaner - we didn't have one, even for faculty, no problem getting a parking space on the street.

The only places that needed parking lots were the churches. Even the markets used on-street parking.

Jon.

 

I bought a 1947 Mercury in 1967 and put in a 392. Still have it

 

I was 14 and was given a 28 Ford coupe...no motor/trans but had been painted with white house paint before they parked it....just to protect the body which was perfect. We moved when I was 15. If I had it to do over I'd have borrowed a trailer to bring the coupe to my parent's new residence. As it was, I returned after spending 3 years in the military to find the coupe was gone...

 

If I could go back and know what I know now You can bet your sweet arse that early morning in June 1974 I would have taken a different route home and not had that hellaicus wreck on my Harley. HRP

To quote Freiderich Nietzsche ~ “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”

 

Are you saying this guy, "Friederich Nietzsche"' is in Kelly Clarkson's band? What does he play, the glockenspiel ?

 

I don't need my life to live over- I am afraid if I went back- I'd just find new ways to make the same mistakes over again.
Two things I would do different though - I would hang on to all those great shop notes I threw away - and I would be a lot nicer and a lot less arrogant than I was to people during those high school years.


Drive Em

 

I wouldn't have let my mom catch me doing holeshots in my olds powered 33 Chevy 3 window.
She made me sell it before I killed myself in it. So I got a 49 Ford business coupe and a J.C. Whitney
engine swap kit and put the 55 Olds engine and trans in that. She was much happier because it had fenders and bumpers.

 

Wish I knew then what I know now. I've made a lot of mistakes but very fortunate things worked out extremely well in spite of my stupidity.

 

Would have kept the '29 A coupe instead of selling it for little profit just to pay off my parents for loaning me a few hundred to buy my second car, a '64 Barracuda (which I also should have kept and restored). Third car ('64 XKE drop-head) and fourth car ('73 Plymouth Duster) were both horrible. Learned my lesson eventually. When you've got a good, reliable car that you like, keep it in good repair and drive the hell out of it.