Motion Pictures How can Steve Bolander afford a 1958 Impala custom?

My '61 Impala ragtop was $1,395.00 in '65... the same price as the '53 Corvette parked right next to it.

I wanted the '62 Pontiac Ventura with the 421/4 speed but i didn't have the extra $50.....

 

I had a 58 Impala 348, 3speed, 3-2 carbs, in 65. It cost me $250.00. Had red spot primer on it, and ran good long enough for the guy to unload it on me. It had hardly any compression. I traded it for a 56 Chevy with a 58 Corvette powertrain, 3-2's 4-speed, posi rearend. Black and gold roll & pleat int. That cost me $250. more above the trade in. Cars were cheap back then, compared to todays cars. My Mom paid the money for these transactions, and I paid her back so much a week. I think it was paid off in about a year. Bring back the good old days.

 

In 1961-62, I worked full time and took home $34.75 for a 40 hour week...a new car cost less than $3000...I bought a three year old '57 Chevy in 1960 for $775.00...gasoline was 19 cents a gallon...sometimes it went as high as 24.9...50 cents worth of gas took you all over town for a few days...$10,000 a year annual salary meant you were in the high tax bracket...

INFLATION kills good times...!!! The nation's politicians are idiots.

R-

 

Just like all the other kids that had bitchen cars in high school. Thay had A PHD

 

he sold dope at high school

 

I would think his parents, the same way the banker's kid had a Porsche, the gallery owner's kid had a 'vette, and the lawyer's kid drove a Caddy back in '65 when I was in school.

Another kid drove a fire engine red '56 Victoria, shaved, louvered, tube grille, chrome reverse rims, and skinny whites that he built himself.

Bet you can't guess which one I thought was more impressive.

 

man, a '64 chevelle 2dr wagon is rare enough, but with factory 4-speed? i am so jealous..

 

Just look at the prices of the cars, in the car lot Toad was parked in front of after his fender bender.Not very exepensive.

 

I tell people the richest I have ever been was while I was in High School. Started at 16 bagging grocery's in a union store. Boss took a liking to me, altered my paperwork to make me 18 so he could bond me and promoted me to clerk at 7.35 hr. Most my buddies were pumping gas at $1.25 hr, minimum wage at the time. Working 30 hours a week, living at home and no time for anything but school and work didn't take me long to save up some serious for the time bank. Quit my senior year so I'd have the time to chase girls and build my 68 Barracuda. By the time I graduated I had the coolest car at school by far and tricker then most the older guys. It was doable then if you worked hard!

 

Steve worked as a child actor on a TV show.

 

maybe he was a lobbyist for the acne cream industry

 

In '62 I was in high school (Artesia, Ca.) and worked as a lot boy for a cheep car lot over in Downey, Ca. I bought a '54 Olds 88 more door for $50 bucks from them, I already had a '57 Plymouth Belvadere I paid $100 bucks for! The high priced cars were down town Downey, Ca. '57 T-bird $1700 bucks or so and a '55 T-bird $1500 bucks. Check out the prices of those Corvetts at the car lot in the movie.

 

As a young man Goober had taught him the art of investing,he had followed wisely with his Mayberry wages and aww helll even I can't beleive this line!!

 

About the same time (1962) Tom Wolfe wrote the first serious study of the custom car culture by a mainstream journalist, The Kandy Kolor Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby.

He couldn't figure out where these young working class guys got the money for their cool cars either. He called it "the magic economy". He did put his finger on it when he said they spend all their money on their cars.

Look at Larry Watson's first car, The Grapevine 50 Chev. He describes how he worked on construction for his uncle one summer and made enough to buy the car.

Is this possible?

Suppose he worked June - July - August, 12 weeks of 40 hour weeks @ $2 an hour. That makes $960. Take out a couple of bucks a week for Cokes and candy bars, and the price of a leather jacket and he has around $900 bucks in the bank.

He lived at home for free and his mom cooked his meals.

So, for $250 he can buy a 5 year old Chev and get it painted, some whitewall tires and hub caps and gas money left over.

He pinstriped it himself. That is how he got started painting cars.

So is that how Steve Bolander did it? Hell no, he's a preppy, his dad paid for his car.

 

I bought a 67 GTO in 71 for 1000.00 when I was in high school making 1.50 an hour in a gas station.Even found the bucks for mags and headers the first year.Cars didnt always bring the big bucks they do today...

 

In those days most new car buyers traded in every 2 years. That was the longest car loan you could get. A 2 year old car was worth less than half what it cost new. A 4 year old car almost nothing.

You have to keep in mind how fast styles changed. There were bigger changes from year to year than you get these days in 10 years. Cars wore out faster too. It was unusual to see a car with over 100,000 miles and every part on it would be totally beat and worn out. A car with 30,000 was definitely past its best before date.

 

in 67 I could have bought 49 merc coupe for $50 , it was on the back row at one of those old time car lots, the spark plugs were left out of the heads, motor was toast. I had the money but my dad wouldn,t let me buy it, I was eleven years old.
as for the 58 impala on american graffiti, I've wondered about that and I decided not to worry about it and instead I sing along with all the songs which drives my wife and kids batty.

 

Don't you mean "Opie Cunningham"? His dad was Boyd Cunningham.

 

Lots of kids had cool cars in high school. I bought a brand new NINJA motorcycle (that was what we were in to besides hot rods) my junior year at high school with my own funds. I did have to wait at the Kawasaki dealer for an hour because when the salesman took my license he wouldn't sell it to me because I was under 18 and mom had to sign the sales agreement! We all worked after school and on the weekends and spent every penny on gas and parts.

 

I wonder why we are not asking why in the opening cruz seen you see the querter of a 67-68 chevy Caprice while fanning the 40 ford with panel painting. I had a 66 SS 396 in 1970 while a junior in high school ( uncle owned a wrecking yard )

 

My old man bought his mother (my grandmother Claire) a BRAND NEW car at the age of twelve and paid for it outright with cash in hand. He fished TONS of hours a day and sold all the fish (live) to the fish markets on Clark/etc in Chicago. He was making more than his dad and he was a foreman for the railroad at twelve, but he hustled his ass off and I'm still trying to get him to retire...

 

he had a cool 58 Impala because if he had his Grandmas hand me down 48 Desoto 4 door the movie wouldn't have been nearly as cool.

 

If you read the credits at the end of the movie which most people don't he sold acid

 

I remember seeing it on Love American Style. I miss that show. I liked the theme song.

 

I've always hung out/worked with guys older than I am (53 now, they are in their 60'70's)
almost all of them drove new or nearly new cars back in the late 50's. My good friend Harley Pete was 17, working in construction, right after HS, and bought a brand new 56 Olds Starfire convertible! Then put a Connie kit, skirts, duals, and lowered it! That car cost as much as a Caddilac.
The others also owned car that were new, or a year or 2 old, and they customized them, as well. One guy, Lefty Rapetti, who I built a 58 Chevy for, actually owned 3 brand new cars in55. Bought a 55 Ford, drove it for a few months, then started getting beat by the new 55 Chevies. So he traded it in, and bought a 55 Chevy. Wasn't impressed with the overall quality fo the Chevy, even though it was faster, and he thought the Fords looked better customized, so before the year was out, he traded the Chevy in for a new 55 Ford Vicky! These wheren't rich kids either, just suburban NJ teens.
Remember, back then only the man of the family had to go to work, and make a living to support the whole family. Not like the "improvements" of today, where the mother, father, kids and dog all have to go to work to survive!

 

Easy.........he was pimpin out his chick.....

 

Now that is funny! Except it was Kurt who got the money.

"He'll make a fine Moose"

Hey I had a paper route at 12 and bought my first car at 17. That was 1977. The car was a 1964 El Camino. The price was $650

 

I can accept that his parents bought the car..but do you think they would have been okay with him leaving it with Toad, while he went off to college?

 

Actually the kid up the street bought a 59 Chevy convertible by saving his paper route money for several years before he could drive. This was in the same time frame of the movie...62-63 He worked his ass off for several years on big routes but he was the one grinning when he drove that white 59 Chevy with the top down and the red interior. We were all jealous as hell but he got up before dawn for many years. It took me a few years before it dawned on me what he had accomplished.

 

WTF....Its Opie, the sheriff got it in a drug bust.REMEMBER!!!!
"AND THE BOWTIE ROLLS ON"