So, I watched American Graffiti last night and.....

My next door nieghbor just bought a baby blue Citreon and parked the trailer it was on in front of my house. I spent an hour starring at it wondering what the hell it was! I knew I had seen one before. Just couldnt place it. The seats in the thing look like old lawn chairs.

 

I told my girlfriend that my 53 Desoto would not be considered cool back in the day and it blew her mind. I had to tell her only old farts would be driving one. Luckily I was born an old man trapped in a young mans body.

 

You are correct, thats exactly the way it was in the movie which is just the way it was in real life. That is what made the movie so great, Lucas nailed the details perfectly from the personalties, the setting, the cars, the clothes, music etc etc. A lesser director probably would have screwed the same movie up big time by cutting corners on the small stuff.

 

Before my time of course and dad's gone now but since we had this conversation many, many times I'll tell you what he would say. Back then any 4 door was a mom car and he'd horse laugh a 2 door sedan. I never could understand that because I knew that there were a bunch of cool race cars built from sedans back then and they looked cool as hell to me as a teenager in the '80's. Then it dawned on me that back in the early '60's there were literally millions of 2 door sedans on the road. They were common like the '70's Nova's and Comaro's I was turning my nose up at, at the time. On the street as a kid in the '60's, if it wasn't a hard top it wasn't worth a second look. At least that's the way my dad saw it. I'm sure there are those who were there who would disagree. Perspective is everything.

 

Some of you need to look at old magazines and talk to some folks. Lots of 4dr sedans and wagons found their way onto the strips based on weight/ci.

 

For Example.......

 

Why in the world did they let Burt Reynolds run from the cops in a Citreon in the original Longest Yard? Lame. Dad had a 4 door 55 Chevy that was cool, however, it was wicked fast and he was beat only once at Mo-Kan Dragway in '62 and '63.

 

Because A: at the time he's drunk and B: it's his girlfriend's car. and C: what better to drive off a pier in? That's how the car got here to begin with.

I do see once in a while a custom 4-door in the little pages, and there's a local guy who drag raced a Pontiac 4-door wagon for years, if he's still around.

 

At my Dads 74th birthday we were drinkin beers and watchin old movies of kids and cars . I made a comment on one particular 57 chevy convertible
he owned how much it would bring nowdays. My dad explained.....Blew motor in that un took it to local junkyard run by Ed Shartman [ yes fast eddy ] sold it for 150. The car was samon color with white top, dual exhaust, 4" lowering blocks on rear ! ! ! he junked it in 1962 because of a blown motor ! ! Mistake by the lake Cleveland Ohio

 

I remember when I was Young my dad would always buy a new buick ragtop every year. He would always take me for a ride and we'd go to the local gas station [back roads stations back then] and all the guys would come out and see how many mph was on the speedometer. When we left he would always let me drive. We got Pulled Over driving his 29 roadster when I was about five and the Patrolman let us go. I was sitting on his lap 'cause I couldn't reach the pedals. I've still got the 29,and that's why I love the HAMB.....it's the memories......thanks guys

 

Back in the day portrayed by AG, you couldn't give a station wagon away. Same for 4 doors and 6 cylinder cars, they were the cars high school girls, old farts and nerds drove. Chevy 409's, Pontiac tri power 389's and an occasional Mopar were the hot cars of the day.

 

Did you guys see the quick shot of the 39 Chevy gasser parked on the street? It was a Hemi Car that said "Hemi-roid" on the doors... I'm gonna see if I can google a pic of that, but I'm scared to Google Hemi-roid..

Here's a small pic, all I could find.

 

i was four years old , all the really cool shit was TONKA!!

 

I noticed a 40's Ford truck with a parachute on the tailgate,and wondered the story about that one.

 

At least in my neck of the woods, ANY fourdoors were totally squaresville. We laughed about foreign cars, even though some of had them. We only liked certain cars, the cool ones. Station wagons were "family" cars & did not do much for any of us. The romance & feeling presented in the movie was pretty darn accurate. Now, I see cars & trucks in a different light than I did then. I like a lot of the old stuff that I didn't even notice then. Why? Good question.

 

In '62 I was just a bit too young to drive but having an older brother that worked at a car shop/junk yard was the next best thing. He'd drag something different home nearly every other week or so. Not the American Graffiti cars like in the movie but what the "poor" kids really drove back then. We lived on a small farm in the country & there was no such thing as junker laws so the old cars were scattered around out in the cowpasture. A '51 Ford homemade convertible, a '56 Plymouth 2 door, a '55 Ford 2 door, a '51 Chevy 2 door and a '53 Ford business coupe come to mind. And every once in awhile he'd drive or drag something home that really caught the eye. One in particular was a '39 Ford coupe - he came boppin' down the long dusty driveway in it, I think mom heard it coming half a mile away! but it didn't last long, I think one of his buddies traded him something for it, probably a shotgun. All or most of those cars were sold to his boss as junkers, to be crushed or parted out and I doubt he paid much more that $25 or $50 for any of 'em. But his cruise buddies' (yeah the REAL Milners, Toads, and Pharoahs) cars ranged from a '47 Merc convertible that was driven by an older guy who always carried his "auxiliary police deputy" card, to a '58 Ford Custom - a real sleeper, shit-brindle brown but fastest of 'em all, a pukey baby-blue '48 Ford sedan and a pastel blue/green '56 Chevy come to mind. Brother's car was a '56 Fairlane hardtop. Many summer weekends I remember him and some of his buds out under the big tree in the back yard, chain fall hooked to a strong limb and one of their cars sitting under it, hood off, getting a ring job or "souped up". Down the road a piece was a straight flat strip of smooth asphalt about a mile or so long. But there were 2 white stripes painted across it - just 1/4 mile apart... lookouts posted, and there they went! We lived about 4 miles from the GM Proving Grounds and being 11 & 12 at the time I remember sitting along the road with buddies for hours in the summer, trying to figure out what kind of cars the GM engineers and techs would be driving home that night? They didn't put bras or covers over the new models back then so we'd guess what they were. Even as early as the summer of '58 we'd see the 'weird' '59 Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles and those ugly Chevies with their huge tailfins! And when those Corvairs came along in '60 none of us knew what to think - they must be foreign! That was my American Graffiti - I wish I could watch it again.

 

http://www.stillrunnin.com/magazine/sr3/57-58

Paul Le Mat was at the KKOA Sled Scene East Show and cars of the like were on display check the link out.

 

In the early to mid 60's, in the south and southwest suburbs of Chicago, there was a lot of forested land with good two lane highways. In most suburbs, (Oak Lawn, Hometown, and un-incorporated areas), The cops weren't allowed to bust you on private property. There was a Dog-n-Suds drive-in near the roller rink that would chase the cops off their lot. We used to have 1st gear races there. So they got a "Barney Fife" image. Between the Roseland area and the 'burbs, there were about 7-8 different "hang-outs" that we cruised all night. All with car- hops!!! The car-hops at Buss'es had roller skates. The roller rink parking lot was a great "make-out" spot. There were miles of empty dark roads and forest preserve parking lots where we went to the "submarine races", and "Batchelors Grove" cemetary. We would drive up to Skip's on North avenue about 2-3 times a month. We also would cruise up Archer ave. and usually wind up in a fight with the city kids. Drive-in movies were everywhere.
As for 4drs. and wagons. Some guys would rather drive a 4dr 50's car than any newer compact, sedan, or wagon. Many were "sleepers" for street racing. I remember a 50's Stude sedan with a 410 Edsel motor. Crazy. When the factory muscle started coming out, the rich kids would pay others to chop up their broken, out of warranty cars, and a lot of big blocks wound up in older cars and bottom-line mid-sized cars. And, a lot of 4 spds. and modern automatics,and posi rears made older cars faster.
What a great time to be a teen-ager with a job. Yes, I was there. And, it was a LOT like the movie.

 

The cruising scenes in that movie were shot on Citrus Ave. in old town Covina, Ca. I grew up a couple miles away in West Covina. Funny thing was, Citrus was never a cruising street. The Covina cops were real assholes, and always hassling "modified" cars. The buildings on Citrus in that part of town had the small town look they wanted. The club I was in was called on, among others, to supply "period cars" for the movie. And in 62 we did not like every car on the road, and wagons were driven by your mom. To me, and my buddies in 62, a new car, if it wasn't a hardtop, wasn't worth looking at. It amazes me what is cool now.

 

for sure....my four door hardtop of choice....57 olds

 

I forgot to mention that automatics were, for the most part, not cool. I mean, how can a guy properly act like as asshole by burning rubber every five minutes? How can you chirp second & third? I had only one friend with an automatic in the early sixties, but that was '57 Golden Commando Fury (I think) with dual quads. We didn't say much about that one being an automatic. Heh-heh.

 

Well, in the mid fifties it didn't really matter as long as it had all 4 wheels, a radio, and it ran most of the time. Of course the hot rods were the most popular, then the t-birds, vettes, 55 chevy gassers, but it really didn't matter as long as you had wheels or had a friend with wheels. I had an old 42 studebaker and everyone called the tank but the backseat was big enough to hold a party and it was great for making out at the drive-in or wherever, nobody ranked it and some of my buddies who had small coupes always wanted to borrow it for hot dates. Great times.

 

That is one sweet '55! Bet ya wish ya still had it.

 

They filmed alot of American Graffiti like a half mile from my house. Some parts of that downtown strip, alot of it really, still looks the same as it does in the movie.

 

Not true if you had a hot date for the Drive In.

 

One of my buddies had a '41 Stude Coupe (looked a lot like a Willys) he traded it for a Citroen cause he thought it was cool that you could raise and lower it from in the car.That was in '62,I had a '53 Ford 2 door black primer,no front bumper,raised front end and 286 cubes of BAD Flathead.

 

Studebakers weren't cool...MAYBE a Hawk or an Avanti. But my 56 Studebaker President wasn't cool, unless you think a little 289 with a sidedraft stromberg 2 bbl that ate up stock tri-five Chevys wasn't cool...Not to mention the hill-holder clutch and overdrive.

Seriously, when you turned 16 and had your own wheels, any wheels, THAT was cool.

Cushmans were cool, Vespas were not.

Honda 50's were cool. Wasn't it the Beach Boys that made the song that made them cool?

Head rests were cool. Seat belts weren't cool but Chuck Berry made a cool song about them.

Having a record player in your car was cool. Speaker(s) in the package tray was cool. And speakers in the package tray with reverberation was WAY cool.

Wolfman Jack on the radio (AM only) was WAY cool.

 

When I got in high school('65) the tri-five Chevy's were still kinda pricey for a student, the Y-block Fords were much more affordable. Mine was a '54 customline 2-door post/ 312Merc with O/D. The machinist at one of the parts houses had a '57 150 that ruled, he's the one that caused me to switch!

 

To me, Wagons are the coolest thing out there, I dig 4 doors simply because you would not neccessarily see them restored or customized over a two door..........And I would kill for a Vespa now days.