History Where were you in '62???

Bamburg Germany. Driving a M113 APC. Sold my Model A coupe when I went in the Army.

 

I was 11. Mom and dad would drop me off at LIONS Drag Strip with one of my friends. They'd go out to dinner and to the movies and pick us up about 10 PM up on Alameda and 223rd St. Couldn't do that today. I started taking photos every weekend at the drags strips in Southern California with a Graflex 120 camera and an 8mm spring wind-up movie camera, many of which are posted throughout the HAMB threads.
We lived close enough to San Gabriel Drag Strip that I would ride my bike there.
I took this photo of Tommy Ivo that year in the shut down area at San Gabriel.
Small world...I just gave him this photo two weeks ago...

 

I was developing eyelids!

 

I was'nt even born yet !!!! Not even a thought You guys make me feel young

 

No, way cool. Thanks for your service.

 

In 1962 I was 14. My older brother was 15. Our father was making mini-bikes and hopping up Briggs and Stratton engines. Two years later were drag racing with a green Studebaker with a Packard engine in it.http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=322544&highlight=modelacitizen

 

Station at Dover Air Base working as a cop and driving a 56 Merc. four door hardtop. Was supose to get out in June 62 but along came Cuba and that cost me another nine months. Born and raised just outside Charleston WV I decided to try my luck here in Dover for a job and here I am 47 years later with a 71 olds cutless convt. and a 57 chev that needs to be done. I hope to get started on the chev sometime but with the olds to drive Its easy to not get started.

 

9th grader, goodyear jr. high, rubber city capital of the world,,miss the smell of those rubber shops, my brother had a 56 chevy conv. w/ a white top, but when the shops would blow the chimneys clean his top and every thing else had a film of black soot,

 

409 WAS a big block.

 

Hope you still have that Fender...worth a KNOT today!

 

5 years old and running barefoot in the Palma Ceia area of Tampa FL. My ride was my brother's mutt bicycle. Dad had a Studie wagon.

 

That sounds similar to the 50's for me. I backed into Johnny Otis's
new Ford at Connellys Record Rack. Going to Poly at the time

 

If you were in SE Asia in 62, you weren't getting your ass shot at - you were an advisor and were far from the front at that time.

In 62 I was stunning friends and family alike by actually graduating when I was supposed to. Worked at the mill all summer long, saving up for a used Corvette. Off to college in Sept and then - gee whiz - 62 was over already...

dj

 

so, in your world, a 348 is a BBC, then...OK

 

Ok, how about BOAT ANCHOR.

 

haha...We're both right
I've never heard of that before...I learn something everyday

 

In school and getting in damn trouble !

 

Expensive "boat anchor" today!...............Buddy had a 348 tri-carb '58 Bel Air in.................you guessed it 1962!

 

I was 7-1/2 years old. My sister, Maxine, had taken me shopping at the Hecht Co. We used a CHARGE CARD to make our purchase. I thought it was great to buy stuff and not have to pay for it with money. Talk about young and dumb.Anyway, she bought me a Monogram 1930 Model A coupe customizing kit.It cost $1.98. I now have 2 of this same model and I paid about 30 times that for them. I was in the kitchen building the Model A and on the radio was playing Hey Baby by Bruce Chanell. It was a General Electric battery powered AM radio. Black and silver. Life was good. I remember that day like it was this morning. I guess I'm geezin' out, huh? I still love that song.

 

Me, well, I was still just an egg. But, my mom was apparently having a hell of a good time, so guess I was too.

 

1962: 6th grade at Beverly Park Elementary; had a paper route, actually two, that I did on my bike; working on my go cart; trying to be a big brother, and a little brother too; hated hunting, fishing, and camping then, and still do today; exploring the woods, beach, and deserted Navy radio station; mowing our large, hilly lawn with a push mower ( a real push-to-make-the-blades-turn, push mower!); got my first dog (of my own), his father was a Boxer/Great Dane mix, his mother was a Beagle (figure out how that occurred), his name was Sniffles (I did'nt name him); we had a 59 Buick 4 dr, green on green, and a NEW 62 Chevy P.U. truck, red and white, with a 261, and 3-speed; my baby sister was a year old, my little brother was 6, my older sister was 13 and completely boy crazy, and always on the phone tying up the party line; my father was a Senior Master Sargeant in supply at Paine Field Air Force Base; my mother was a stay-at-home mom. How's that for a memory? Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

This was the good part of 1962 for me. 17 years old, won class at the Winternationals, and set a class record.

 

This was the bad part of my 1962. Rolled this '53 Stude into a ball at El Mirage in May. Spent the next 6 months in a body cast while 3 broken vertabraes healed. Missed my high school graduation. Finished the year in physical theraphy.


If you look under the hood of the Stude, you'll see a 374" W motor. Not a BBC, not an SBC, a W motor. Call 'em what ever you want today, but when they were new, no one ever heard the term "Big block Chevy". It was simply a W motor because of the head configuration.

 

I was in high scholl reading about the man in the above post in Hot Rod. Wishing I was him and dreaming of El Mirage, Road Runners and going fast.

 

On the last year of a 4 yr hitch in the USAF. Lots of Hot Rod building on the bases at that time. Was stationed in Moses Lake Wa. Desert country . Old cars everywhere. Spent a lot of time cking out old Ford dealerships in the small towns that were recently closed or closeing up. Out behind one I found a NOS 32 front apron with the tag still on it laying on the ground on the way to a burn pile. At another one that was still open as a repair shop was a NOS 32 std grill and a NOS 34 4cly comercial radiator hanging on the wall . The guy was glad to see them go down the road for $15.00. We were busy fighting the Cold War with the Russians then and I personally never remember hearing any thing on Viet Nam untill the summer of '64. I got discharged in Oct '62 ,the day before the Cuban Missile Crisis. Otherwise I would have spent another 6 mo's working for Uncle Sam. I hung around out there for a couple of months, then in the middle of Dec '62 I drove my 41 pu loaded with loot back to the E Coast. A list of stuff I had in those 4 yrs in no particular order. '32 2 dr, '37 panel, '32 Ply PB coupe, '40 Ply coupe, '34 dodge coupe; '31 4 dr, '37 Can. Pont coupe. '47 Chev sedan del., '51 BSA 650, '41 PU, '50 4 dr. ,"37 HD 61". All runner drivers and I don't think the purchase price on any off them would have been more than $300.00. Lots of good posts here. To me , I think 1962 was the year the '50's ended.

 

30 yrs. old--married--3 kids--wondering if Kennedy was gonna draft me back into military again because of the "Cuban blockade"---going thru all the pieces & parts of a '32 roadster I had just bought for 500.00---wife knew I was "nuts" over that pile of "junk".---just turned out as a journeyman pipe tradesman making 4.75 an hour!!!!------Things were good!!!------------Don

 

Last year in college and in the middle of a 10 year break from hot rods. Newly married and working on getting a commission in the A.F. and going to pilot training at Craig AFB in Selma Ala. Beginning to wonder what that far away place called Viet Nam that my "spook" pilot friends that flew for Air America told me about. My circle of beer drinking buddies consisted of a Bay of Pigs pilot, a couple of Air America chopper pilots and a C-47 Gooney Bird pilot. They would leave abruptly for a month and return with some pretty wild stories. We were all loosing our 40's and 50's innocence pretty quickly.

 

Geez! I was just a twinkle in my Grandpas eyes!

 

For the front half, I was studying Automotive Design at Art Center, driving an orange '41 Ford coupe with a nasty 269ci flathead. Got married in April, spent the summer looking for work, got a job as a drafting trainee at Douglas Aircraft in August. Worked at Douglas for six years. Became a dad for the first time in November. Sold the '41 and bought an MG 1100 sedan for a family car; bad choice.

 

Not born yet.