As a teenager here in the South I saw a lot of cars running around with the back of the hood,for a lack of a better term, jacked up,,,,was that a local thing or was it a fad in other states. HRP
Being an old codger I remember them well. Big in Indiana and adjoining states. Single central clear lens in grille, outlawed by government, later legalized using headlights. Mostly on GM and Toyota as standard equipment.
I probably was. ^^^^^ In the NW in the late '60s clearance lights in the grill were popular, and if you had a '58 Chevy and removed the gun sights from the hood and replaced then with clearance lights you were the absolute baddest. When I say NW I am thinking the Washington Valley and toward Portland. Another thing that was cool into the '70s was a pair of lights hanging off the punkin.
HRP : ah yeah, the old poor mans cowl hood trick...a stack of washers or plates between the hinges and the hood!
Actually Hot Rod magazine did an article about that very same thing in the early '70s. A common thing with the hod rod beetles ( for lack of a better term) was the push the top of the hood ( decklid?) out for better cooling. A common trick for the '49 and '50s fords even when I was really little (late '50s early '60s) was a fog light in the center of the grill. I remember one of the Saturday group at the old man's shop put an air craft landing light in there instead and got a ticket for which he spent an entire Saturday whining about to anyone who would listen.
What kind of lights did they hang off the pumpkin, and how were they hung??? I'm interested in this for my Maverick.
These were the most common, they used to sell them at any auto parts, I used to have a pair of 1000 hp lights from an old Harley that I used. On a ford or GM punkin with the drop out chuck you'll have to weld a tab on out use plumbers strap around the axle housing on either side of the punkin. These lights used to come in a multitude of colors ( maybe they still do) amber, red, blue green, white . . .
I will applaud you if no one else does. I still hang lights off my rear axle when I think about it. Old habits die hard.
It was called a daytime running light, so called safety fad that didn't last very long, also looked dumb to stick an amber light in the middle of the grill. Bill
I have a vague recollection of seeing those lights in Tulsa. Usually the kind of people who also used toilet paper oil filters, etc
If I strain my brain real hard I can remember a few of those clearance lights mounted on various parts of cars, but nobody in my group ran them. We considered those guys that did as JC Whitney gook wagons.
My old 51 Merc coupe came with those under the fenderwells when I bought it in 1963. They weren't a recent addition then and looked like they had been there since the mid 50's. I think guys hit it right when they said a lot of this was a regional thing. One of the "older" cool guys in town showed up with it on his car and all the sudden half the cars in the area had the same thing done to it. Some of it was good and some was a bit lame just as we see with some of the modifications and decorations that are on folks rods, customs and OT rigs today.
I had blue ones mounted behind the grill obscured. Gave the grill a really cool blue glow to it. Blue "lights" up front are illegal, but a blue glow isn't.
Pork, you mean 57 Chevys. The 58s didn't have the "gun sights" or "wind splits" on the hood. I also remember seeing "jacked up" muscle cars with those red lights hanging on the rear end. And this was back in the 70s,in SoCal.
I know guys used to put them on the lower shock studs on the cars when they jacked up the rear ends .
The "rear axle lights" thing was cool in Minnesota in maybe '69/'71. Airforce guys in from the coast were probably actually first that I saw, & maybe a year or so earlier. I don't recall people putting any lights on the middle of the grille though. Just little ones behind the grille for a colored "glow" like 31Vick mentions.
Remember them well around here - only on adult cars though. Didn't last very long - I asked my dad why he didn't put one on his caddy and he just gave me "the look" and I shut up.
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