Was Anyone Here Actually There?

Bought my first car in 1969. 55 Chevy two door post. Eventually built it into an E/G with a 301 cu in (didn't last long) TR-1 tunnel ram with 2 - 660 Holleys, Racer Brown roller. Went broke as an 18/19 year old building it. Pumping gas on Main Street watching the guys cruise and eventually it was me as well. Gas was .29 to .32 cents a gallon for regular. Going to Island Dragway in 65/66 watching the races. Fx-er's, rails, coupes and such. What a great time. Oh well Thanks for letting me share.

 

Of course I know how to delete a pic with a reply but I think your car needs an encore.

I think one of the adventurous things about putting a non-stock engine in a car in the sixties was figuring out all the linkages, adapters and placement ..... a lost challenge that many folks dont experience today .... too much information and tech articles out there today. Crammed a small block into my B-truck back then and it was alot more fun than buying a book today.

The Uncle Sam "greeting", got mine in '69 , tried to join the Navy (lived in San Diego) but they said "Your already spoken for!".

 

Man have you got it right. 1964 we had Jack 34 coupe with olds eng.,
Kelly with 58 chevy 348, Herb 55 chevy with worked over 283 with 3 duces, and me with a 55 chevy post with straight six, 3 speed wide whites and red wheels. Those were the days.....Jim

 

Well I had pulled the engine and cable shifted TF from my 58 Ply. It was sitting in the club garage along with the body. Motor mounts were never a problem for me but nobody made fenderwell headers for a 383 in a 38 Chevy coupe. I must confess that I loved the way that the flames would lick the ground when cleaning it out on the line. It sounded good with a 310 duration Isky cam and looked pretty impressive but I never got to get it dialed in.

Back then nobody had a band saw so it was all hacksaw work. Finally a welder buddy told me to use the tin snips to get a good joint and it went much better after that. I was still learning.

 

Its funny but what I remember growing up in the 50s and 60s is totally different from what today's 19 year old remembers.

 

I was there late 50's droolling over hot rods until 1963. Got my drivers license and a job. This is what I drove in high school. Love them Roadsters!

 

i raced at island in 64 when big daddy don g broke the 200 mile a hour on the swap rat

 

I was car crazy long before I could drive. 50's I wa too young to drive, but hung out at the neighborhood garage watching guys build cars. Bought my first car in 1963, and I couldn't drive it for 2 years, but saved my money and every penny went into it. Guy at the garage took a liking to me and let me put it in his lot, and occaisonally we pushed it inside after hours so I could use the shop for things I couldn't do outside, but most was done out in the weather. Good experience, and taught me to make do with my surroundings and tools for years to come!
Car guys back then were either scarey tough to get info from, or wonderfully helpful. Don't remember too many inbetween types when I was learning back then. Seemed to me that those who wouldn't help with questions turned out to be not that sharp anyway. Guess that's really why they were so closed mouthed when I tried to ask them anything.

 

It's funny how the forties, fifties and sixties were cool... but from there up...

Why? GOVERNMENT! Funny bumpers, catalytic converters, air bags, shity gas, computerized this and that. Ya can't even put a custon steering wheel on because of air bags! Can't do a burn out with stability control!

If you younguns feel you've been screwed out of your inherited culture, thank BIG GOVERNMENT!

I thought Tommy and those guys went over to save us from that commie shit, but they got screwed. The commies came right in the backdoor.

 

I was and still is. Got my first car at twelve in '62, a '39 Chevy tudor that I hid in the woods from the folks and rode my bike to after school. Had a morning paper route to support it. At fourteen traded it and twenty-five bucks for a '46 Ford because it had a V8.

Funny, I knew then that those were the halcyon days and wouldn't be equalled.

 

I hit 7.0 April 27 I was there, still am I've been trapped in the 50's for over 60 years.

 

Got my driver's license in `59 ... although I'd bought my first car about 3 years earlier (long story). Played with lots of toys in those years -- a 36 Chevy, a 40 Ford p/u, 58 Chevy Impala, 51 Ford. There's lots of us here on the HAMB

 

Well I've been driving 50 years so I guess so.....started with a 50 Chevy and have ended up with a '32 and a '29 so I'm goin backwards.....which is the best way to go IMHO.....

 

Don't know if I missed it but didn't see any Cheese heads pipe up about the teen bars back then. 18 yo beer drinking age out of Milwaukee County, can you say high speed trips to the bars?? I moved to Milw. from Portland OR in 67, was 19, where it was 21 and 3.2 beer, thought I died and gone to heaven. Still ain't died, remember driving buddies 59 Phord/390/T-10 he was asleep in the back I couldn't see much past the hood, Hell Ya.

 

Oh yeah, every summer one of my friend's dad would pack up the family and go to Minnisota (yaaa!) and come back to San Diego with a couple cases of GrainBelt Beer ... thanks for sharing Russ!

 

I had a blast in the 70's. Cruising, drive-in movies, and cheap hot rods. I had anything I wanted with money earned pumping gas.....and a bit of judicious bartering.

 

It's funny....I just missed that time period, but I've always felt like I was there.

I was born in 69. However, I've been insane in-love with hotrods since I was old enough to crawl around, and have been hanging around my dad and his group of hard core hotrodders all my life. I can tell their stories from the 50's as well as they can.

I was fortunate enough to see and meet almost all of the big, historic names in drag racing in the early to mid 70's, while they were still pretty young and very active. I was the kid who was always assigned rubbing duty on those old school lacquer paint jobs.

Those guys are starting to fade on me now....I've been to too many funerals lately. It's breaking my heart.

 

We be talking 40s-50s-60s .... here is the 70s thread http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=671112&page=40

 

I was there Man!

I wrote a Loooong dissertation for this thread before, basically my life story.
It was so long, when I finally went to post it, I had timed out, and lost it.

So, I'll just say "I was there Man!"
...

 

I think I saw you there, man.......................

 

OK, I was there in the 60's too. Only with LOTS of models/HR magazines/slot cars. Believe me, my heart and head were all the way in it in the 60's. I just wasn't behind the wheel of anything yet

 

Just living the dream,
Detroit AutoRama model cars, and Christmas at Ford Rotunda in the 50's.
Drivers license, first car(56 Chevy for $150), pumping $.29 cent gas, and 3.2 Beer in the 60s.
Jimmy Carter, NO GAS, "hopping up" Volkswagons, and dirty diapers in the 70s.
Jags, Healeys, and 356s in the 80s.
Street rods and custom trucks in the 90s.
Heated seats, dual air, GPS, DVDs, and SUVs in the 2000s.
Searching for rusty 36 metal and choking on $5.00 gas in 2012.

Damm I wish I had time capsuled some of those early rides

 

Darn right,had my first car in '54, of course I couldn't drive it legally until '56 , so that gave me time to learn how to overhaul the flatty. ---Vegas back then wasn't known as the center of the car culture but So. Cal wasn't far away , Colton drags, the cruising drive inn scene , oh yeah , I was there !!

 

I was, kinda. Early '60s I used to hang around Bill M's garage. I was drivin' a hotrod fenderless Roadmaster, I was probably 8yrs old or so. It was the place where the older guys would hang/meet in this little one horse town. I'd put up with the occassional 'dutch rub' etc, and they'd let me hang as long as I didn't get in the way. Lotta cool cars. Bill had the most beautiful '61 bubbletop Belair, 409 4spd, honduras marroon. Damn, those was goodtimes....

 

I bought my first car in 57, I spent so much time at the drags or building cars that I completly missed the drug culture. I guess thats why my father let me evict him from his garage so that I could build my 33 Ford coupe. He knew that if I wasen't in the garage, I was out with my hot rod friends.

 

I bought my first car, a 1953 Ford coupe, in 1960 with money from my paper route. I was 15 at the time. The '53 was my daily driver through high school. I bought a 28 model A coupe in 1962. I got it running with a 48 flathead, but never got it on the street. I sold the 28 and bought a 29 roadster with another 48 flathead already streetable. I went into the Navy in '65 and the roadster was destroyed by a friend while I was gone. I'm on my 10th car build in what I consider my second childhood of the last 35+ years.

 

Bought my first car in'61; started driving it to scool in '62. I pulled the flathead in '64 for sbc swap and bought '57 chevy for transportation. In the summer I put 11 syncronizing drums in the 3 speed in the summers of'64 & '65... Bad rear main seal. The car I bought in'61 is my avatar.

 

Got my first car when I was 14, a 1930 Ford Deluxe Coupe. Kept me out of trouble until I got a driver's license and a '56 Studebaker Hawk.

Washed parts and passed wrenches for Bobby Allison when he was NASCAR national modified champion. Sometimes Huntsville on Thursday night, Montgomery on Friday night, Midfield on Saturday night and Birmingham Fairgrounds on Sunday afternoon.

Also took in sports car races, autocrosses, motorcycle flat track, had a '65 BSA Lightning which was the fastest thing around, between rebuilds for dropped valves. A friend with one of the first '65 Vette 396" 425hp. It was insane fast on those skinny little bias plys. The BBC solid lifter valve train wasn't ready for sale with a warranty. His dropped a valve every time it went over 6,500 RPMs. After the third blown engine, the dealer wouldn't fix it any more.

US Army Europe, sports car hillclimbs, Formula One, a Triumph Daytona, a BMW 2002TII. Passing through home on the way west bought another '56 Hawk, which I still have. Then Viet Nam, Dodge Power Wagon, Ford M151, usually with hydraulics problems, shifting without the clutch, driving without brakes, XM177E2 slung across the lap. Many trips as a passenger in UH1s.

A few years in NorCal, got into Sunbeam Tigers, small block Fords, toploader 4-speeds, Dana 44s, more autocrosses, sports car, motorcycle races at Laguna Seca and Sears Point. Had a Triumph Bonneville street racer. Some great one-mile flat track AMA at Santa Clara Fairgrounds and Oakland. Always considered myself somewhat brave, but watching those H-D guys pitch it into the corners twice a lap at warp speed, wheel to wheel; that was another level of nuts altogether.

For the past few years it's been back to Studebaker and Packard V8s. That's the closest to the old days, because there are no Summit/Jegs speed parts for them. Back in the '60s-70s, anything with a 426"/ 427" was the dream machine, but we all knew they were fragile and unreliable when run hard. I worked hard to build 289"/302" small block Ford horsepower, fighting the limits of the OEM iron heads. Today, without turning a wrench any kid with a computer and a credit card can own a 347" crate motor with half-again more horsepower than the best we could build back in the day. There are reliable 500"-600" crate motors are as close as your freight dock.

So yes, horsepower and cubic inches have gotten much more affordable and much more reliable. Five-speed and six-speed overdrive trannies are everywhere. Cars are faster, quicker, handle better, corner better, stop better. The downside is there is no place to use speed today. Highways are crowded at all hours. The citizen cell phone secret police will rat you out every time. All the racing associations have gotten so super-safety-fanatical, race cars which ran competitively for many years without a problem can't pass tech any more.

jack vines

 

Had a '40 Ford with a 283/3 speed on the floor in the 60's...traded a Motorcycle for it even up.
Just used the tags that came with it....wasn't about breaking the law, just a dif time and no one really cared...no insurance, whatever tag was on it and just drive around cruisin'....a few bucks and you could cruise for the week.

 

My Dad was a body and fender man when I was going through grade school and junior high in the late sixties. He painted a lot of beautiful cars, many of them muscle cars. My older cousins took me crusin with them and hit the drivins where cars congregated ( Dog N' Suds, A&W, ...) .
My Dad painted a helluva Heny J for a guy that sticks in my head and a burnt orange corvette for another. My cousins had the usual chevys from the fifties that we plowed around in.