Projects Teenage Projects that never got off the ground

I was just going through an old album and found photos of the first ever old car I dragged home.

It was a 49 Ford four door, It was the summer of 2000 I had just graduated and I traded a some work (oil changes, a grease jobs, and a couple of tire rotations) with a 49-51 Ford collector for it.

Having attended 2nd the Rockabilly Rumble about a week before I got it I had big plans!

A V8, floor shift, lowered front and rear with a slight rake, white walls all the period correct good stuff!

However I quickly realized how much it needed, how many parts, I had no place to work on it and no money to put in it I ended up selling it for a (small) profit.

About six year latter I finally had the money and a place to work an old car. I bought my 53 Chevrolet and started modifying in a late 50s early 60s style and out grew that silly V8 fad.

So what teenage projects did my fellow HAMBers have?

 

I always figured that when I turned 16, that I would get a car but that changed when my brother who is a year older, decided to get a motorcycle. He bought a new one because he was a responsible kid who had a part time job to support such a purchase. Me? I was not. I heard about an old 250cc BSA that was basically a disassembled pile of parts. It had a rigid frame, so this was cheap chopper material. Didn't know enough to do anything with it ended up giving it to another kid who wanted to make a go-kart.

 

I bought my first car, a 1939 FORD Tudor when I was 15.... a real rust bucket mess but I had her looking GOOD and drove her to high school before I graduated....

 

I stacked lumber in a lumberyard when i was a teenager and the end of summer i told my boss I would work the last week for a 33 Chevy 3 window coupe body that they had left over from taking the motor and transmission to power the saw mill. I hauled it home and my brother had left me his rusted out 49 Chevy when he went into the army. So me and the neighbor kid cut the body off the 49 Chevy and we started to put the 33 body on the frame when another neighbor gave me a 55 olds that he had wrecked and hit a tree and bent the frame.
So plans changed and I had a V8 to put in my new hot rod. My dad owned the neighborhood garage so I had use of all the tools and knowledge to do it safely.
I ended up shortening the frame to make it look right . then channeled the body over the frame to get the stance. Put the Olds motor and transmission and rear end in the car. My dad cut the driveshaft and showed me how to balance it.
I got it running and it was fast for what it was. It weighed 1900 lbs on a truck scale. So that 324 Olds with nothing more than dual exhaust and a stock 4 barrel would smoke the tires for ever.
My mom came home from work one day and me and my buddy were doing holeshots in front of our house and leaving hundreds of feet of black marks. She told me I had to get rid of it before I killed myself. So it was gone the next day , but what she didn't know was I kept the Olds motor and trans and it went into a sweet little 49 Ford business coupe.

 

BTTT

 

BTDT. I bought a POS '63 Nova my Junior year in High School in 1974. It had a toasted SBC, 4 speed, Camaro rear. But I had no money, skills, money, tools, money, etc. Did I say had no money? Tough time at home as my folks were separating. Ended up selling what was good and scrapping the body shell. I still have the radio plate!

 

I bought a '56 F100 while attending school and working nights at the Auto Part Mart in Abilene. I remember it had a 318, 4 speed and cragers. It was all in one piece but it needed work to make it driveable and I didnt have a lot of spare time in those days so it sat in front of our rental house off-campus. My unimpressed young bride at the time gave me the "ultimatum" so I sold the truck after an all too abbreviated period of ownership. Hindsight being 20/20 as they say, I should have kept the truck. I might still have that.

 

Sounds a little like my experiences.
I remember two "dream cars" that never came to fruition starting as a 16 year old just after buying my second car while in high school in 1970.
Mainly because as a teen I had been a drag racing type magazine geek dreamer with no money, tools or a place to work on them other than a gravel driveway which by the way actually is where I ultimately built my first race car.
The first was a 62 Nova, a pristine red/white two door hardtop that had been started by a guy that was building an altered wheelbase car, he was a friend of people my mother knew, he developed a terminal illness not too long after starting it and all that had been done was to cut out the firewall for an engine setback.
The other one was a 1948 English Austin A40 (two door) that was a parts car that was left over after a local drag racer finished his car, thinking back, considering how nice it was it was better than a parts car by todays' standards.
As with the Nova it was sold without doing a thing with it and get this, I paid $40 for it and sold it to a local "loser" on a promise to pay, he never did but I still hold that dream fondly.

 

While I was in high school I bought a dodge truck frame with a hopped up Plymouth flat head six and a aircraft seat was going to build custom body never happened instead I found a 1934 Plymouth coupe and put the flathead six in it

 

When I was 19 I had a good job and made decent money. So I splurged and bought myself a 41 Mercury. I didn't have any skill at the time. My parents were nice enough to let me park the project on the side of the house. I got the suspension done and the engine rebuilt. Then progress slowed to a snails pace. I got married at 22 and the project sat for a couple years until I sold it.

 

In May 1968 I bought a 331 hemi from a junkyard for $50, and bought a '37 Ford coupe from a friend's father who owned a radiator shop, also for $50. It was nominally a roller, without engine, trans, glass or trunk lid. I was moving parts from it into our basement when my mother asked what I was doing. She said no, return the parts, and I did, but still had the hemi delivered to the backyard, where I tore it down and found a piston sticking out the side of the block. I cleaned up the heads and sold them to get my money back, then had the rest hauled away for scrap. Three months later I bought a '29 A coupe, barely running, no roof, windows or wiring other than what it took to run the engine. I built that into my daily driver and used it through much of college.

 

Just look at the '35 Chev in my avatar pic... got it for $35 in '69, complete except for engine, trans and seats. I had it for a few months and cut the rusted out floor out of it in preparation for new sheetmetal. Then found out that a '40 Ford coupe I'd been keeping an eye on was for sale for $50. That side-tracked me and neither one got finished. The Ford ended up in Minn. and I lost track of where the Chev. wandered off to. Only chevrolet I ever owned or wanted to...

 

I lived at home with mom & dad. After I drug a pile of bicycle parts home around age 13, I was informed from both mom & dad not to be bringing any junk home. The next day, dad hauled off the bike parts to his buddy that junked cars and they went away in one of those cars. I lived at mom & dad's house until shortly after I got out of school.

I worked at a gas station from about 15 1/2 until I was in my early 20s. Any project I had belonged to someone else, and it had to get done, and at the gas station, not at home.

I didn't start collecting projects until after I was married, at 19. By then I was well past the point of buying something I didn't intend to finish, but I did buy several projects with the idea of making money selling them, or selling parts off of them. I had a very good side business. Gene

 

We sound as though we could have been brothers. No junk allowed at Mom and dads house, period. After I got married and moved out, I bought and sold several projects. Some ran, some didn't, none ever got finished or even got tagged. Something always came up that I needed money for, so the project had to go. Didn't finish one until after my kids were grown. And now, can't seem to get the Lincoln back on the road, much less finished. Maybe soon....or later.

 

I bought a 55 Olds 88 four-door from a neighbour for $35 when I was 13 or 14. He said it had been running but I never got it to do more than backfire through the carb. Didn't have a clue what to do but I had a few tools so I pulled the manifolds, heads and oil pan without finding any problems. Decided I wanted something else and since Mom said only oine care at a time ,I paid a guy to haul it away.

 

I had a basket case ‘57 Chevy 4dr wagon back in the ‘80s that I wanted to put on the road, but my family kept telling me it wasn’t practical, its beyond my ability, it’s not worth it. I finally succumbed to their remarks and removed the glass and other parts, then cut the roof off of it. I then let a scrapper have it for junk. Try to find a cheap one now! If I could get my foot high enough, I’d kick myself somewhere appropriate!

 

When I was a teenager, all my projects got finished. I had no other responsibilities and could spend all my money and time on them. However...it is the ones in middle age that are more discouraging...like a 36 Ford 5-window coupe I recently got from a friend because I had always wanted one. Owned it a couple years before reality sat in that I wouldn’t have time or money to build it for a long time so sold it to someone who could build it.

 

I was 14 when I got my first 'own' car. My brother and I were co-owners in a car a while, but he had a license, and I didn't so I soon got frustrated and went on my own.
My 1st car was a '55 Chevy body that had been a race car, street car, and now derelict. I did get an engine and aluminum flywheel eventually, and I had just enough cash for EITHER the used ISKY Z-50 cam, OR the clutch and trans set up I needed to make it drivable... Yah, that lumpy cool-sounding cam won easily, but blew it up just a month into it when I was revving it in the yard. Ouch.
Traded that '55 body for a Henry J body that was another project (a WHOLE 'nother story on that ordeal) that had set-back firewall and SB Chevy mounts started, and a '55 Chevy rear. I didn't make much progress for a few months so my brother traded his nice '55 body to me for the J shell, and soon
turned it into quite a street terror. And yah, blew up the engine I put in THAT one, too. Another story...

 

I do not remember having any projects that I did not finish but I could get them done quicker then now.

 

I have one of those sitting in front of my shop right now. I'm not the teenager though...

 

I bought this in 1976 when I was 12 (so actually not a teenager) with money I had earned catering weddings with my Mom for a company she worked for. My Dad and I (but really just my Dad..... I was 12 ) drove it home 400 miles after I purchased it for $150. Sold it a couple years later for $375 with doing not a lot other than waxing it.

 

I took this truck apart when I was 16 but it did not get not get on the road until I was almost 40 so it almost did not happen.

 

I can think of two!;
All my own cars got done n shiny,but there was 2 that I helped a bit with I know never did see the road !
I got my 28A running in 59,by early 1960,I was working on another ,a custom "J" of my own at the time,I would also help out others in our car club { RRCC}on there's and they'd help me too some.
Two in the club,never made the road. Keith Foster's 40 Ford coupe I help build a set of motor n tranny mounts for a Cady V8,then it just set next to his house for years and disapaired. The other was Bob Williams 39 Plymouth coupe we were putting a Olds Rocket 88 into< his Mom on a clean up kick!; had the junkyard tow it off. By the time Bob n I got to the junkyard,they had already cut up the coupe. But the Rocket 88 n tranny was just setting there off to the side. Bob got them to give him the V8 Olds 88,he ended up going in the U S Navy,an gave me the 88. I put that big v8 Olds in my Custom "J".

 

In my late teens I bought this bad boy for the sum of three hundred bucks that I happen to see in someone's backyard while going to a friend's house. It had a 312 ford motor and a 4- speed transmission out of a dump truck that had the power take offs on the side of it for the dump bed. It also had a trailer hitch that went from the center of the frame to the the back of the truck that was made of 1/2 steel all the way through. And if I recall the rear end had 10 or 12 lug bolts and the rear spring perches were welded to the outside of the frame. I have a feeling judging by the overkill of this truck it was probably used to pull stumps all day. The bonus was the bed of the truck was full of old parts from various 30s and forties cars and it also had a bare 390 Ford block in there. After selling all the parts from the bed I cleared 500 bucks. I came across another project not long after and because I didn't have the room I had to let it go. I sold it to some kid who didn't change the ownership to his name, forged my signature, and resold it to a woman three years later who contacted me and wanted to know the history of the truck. I trusted this kid to change the ownership the next day and he didn't. Lesson learned. When I found out what happened and found my name was still on the truck I told this woman not to worry about the history of the truck she should now be more concerned about me calling the cops and having them bring back my "stolen" truck that still had my name on it as she hadn't changed the ownership to her name yet. Not long after I got a letter in the mail from the ministry of transportation all about the deal with this truck and luckily I had the kid I sold it to sign a receipt with the VIN on it when he took it and they then went after him. Don't know what took on then but never saw it again and heard nothing about it again.

 

Robert you make me feel old, in 2000 I was 50 yrs old but I digress. I bought my first car from a friend that owned my MG at the age of 13. It was a 48 or 9 Anglia Prefect stocker in perfect condition paying $30.00 for it. Going to build an A/G car like my hero's at Jack Merkel automotive, so the first thing I do is take the car completely apart, my parents knew nothing about this and I was renting a garage a few blocks from where I lived. One day my neighborhood friends decided to play a joke on me and went into the garage and pulled out all of the parts and place them on the landlady's lawn. Needless to say she told me to get my stuff and get out, I called a tow truck and paid two have my first car carted off to the scrap yard. No pictures but true story.

Pat

 

Sex with Sanda Foti was a failed project...

 

In the fall of 62, I was 14, and found a 35 Willys 4 door that had been cut into a pickup. At the time I was a big fan of Wayne Harry's flathead, and blown Olds powered truck. This one only needed a couple things to run, and it was only 6 bucks. I gave the the guy 3 dollars down and the balance a week later. Me and a couple of buddies decided to push it to my house, a couple of miles away. At about the half mile mark, a front tire went flat. Our thinking was to take a tire pump, after school the next day, and push it as far as we could, hoping to get it home in a couple nights. Riding home on the bus the next afternoon, I spotted it sitting by our mail box. One of my older brothers, who lived 35 miles away, came home to visit my Mom, she gave him rough directions of where it was, he found it and towed it home for me. We got it running, with a lawn mower gas tank strapped to the firewall, and I was able to drive it back and forth in the driveway. Realism set in, and I sold it for $20.00 to help the family. 25 years later, I did race with and become friends with Wayne Harry, and got to restore and race the Ron Bizio Truck.

 

Marty
Your folks and brothers sure gave you a good start, so envious of that and others that have related some of the same stories from their youth here, to have had such a large group to support you had to have made a difference in your lives.
I do have to say that it was also my mother and older brother that made it possible for me to channel my "issues" after my dad died when I was 14 years old.
Relating to the earlier post of my failed projects I must say I really made up for it by first keeping my face in some sort of car magazine for a couple of years even in school hiding them in my school books and sneaking in some "research" as to how my first hot rod would look like.
My first car was a 61 Impala four door hardtop that I really didn’t feel the love for but when I spotted what ultimately ended up being my second car, a 57 BelAir I knew the direction my life was headed.
I had been following the way the tri-five Chevys were so popular in many of the drag race classes in the mid/late 60's and it no doubt was a major influence on me.
My 57 actually was transportation for both my mother and I through my high school years because she did not drive. She fronted a fair amount of money to buy it but stipulated that the money for the hot rod type parts would come from my lawn mowing and paper route pay, also I had to make sure that the down time was kept to a minimum so "our" car was always available.

This is how it looked the day it was bought but it didn’t stay that way very long.

 

al i have been trying to reply to you about your 32 can you reply to me from this so i can message you cheers clive