History So Stupid Car tricks how many did them?

I really pissed my wife off with this one: We're riding along in my 56 Pontiac and just as we get to oncoming traffic I keep my hands about 1/4 inch above the wheel and act like I'm turning directly into oncoming traffic. She shrieked and the guy in the other car jerked his car to the shoulder. Well, at least _I_ thought it was funny.

 

Back when I worked at the restoration shop there was a guy there that could do no wrong in the owner's eyes. Most of us would've been fired if we did half of what he did. So one day he was finishing up a 58 356 Porsche Speedster, and acting like he was the only one doing anything important, so we decided to drill a tiny hole in the back of the two headlight bulbs, spray a little starting fluid in them and cover them up with a little piece of duct tape while he went to lunch with the shop owner. Well that evening when the owner came by to pick his car up, the shop owner and the 'prodical son' went over the car with him. This guy couldn't talk enough about how much work he had done on it to make sure everything was perfect, and went on and on. The owner was happy with everything, and thanked them both. As he got in the car to load it in his trailer, he turned on the lights and BOOM! Both headlights exploded. The three of them went back into the office as the rest of us went home. They never did figure it out, and acted like it never happened the next day. Anyone else would've been packing their tools.

 

Well I was a 14 year old, car crazy, skateboard owning, Jan and Dean listening kid. So if I told you I watched the ABC Movie of the week and it was Dead Man's Curve you probably don't need to know anything further. But I will tell you anyway because believe it or not it was my Mom driving the car with me in tow! LOL Didn't end so well. Thank goodness DFS agencies were still a few decades in the future....LOL!

 

My cousin Fred had an old Chrysler ( like about a '49). It had no nut on the column. He kept a pair of vise grips under the seat. His favorite thing was the jerk the wheel off and hand it to you.

I was about 12 and used the vise grips. Him and my Uncle Wells ended up in the ditch and I ended up in the dog house.

We used to do what we called Hooky Bobbin when it snowed and the snow packed on the street. You waited until a car slowed down for whatever reason and grabbed onto the bumper. Guess if you ever hit a dry patch you would be the road rash king, but it was easier than walking. My gloves were wet and it was like sticking your tongue on a flag pole when I grabbed onto an old Ford once that was headed in the direction I wanted to go. I like to never shook those gloves off, I always wondered if the guy in the old Ford wondered where they came from.

 

I say this thread is worth bringing back


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My dad worked all night, coming home about 8:00 every morning. My Mom went to work at around 7:30 in the morning. Dad would say hi to all and then go to sleep.
I didn't go to school that day so I made the decision to take my Dad's NEW 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 XL out to cruise the city. After about 3 hours I came home, parked the car in the garage exactly how it was and walked over to the mall. Nothing was said for a few days until the neighbor, who was visiting congratulated me on getting my license to which my dad promptly replied that I didn't have a license. Then the neighbor explained that they had seen me on Beach Blvd.
The rest is to painful to speak of.....

 

Yep made me remember another story. LOL

Me, Jake and Nelly and Brooksey ( the two the two Randys LOL) went together and bought a 4 door Corvair for our winter drinkin car. If I recall we were in it abut 15 dollars each. It was a pre '62, you know the Corvair that made Nader famous.

So one night we are out drinnking and other stuff and it was my turn to drive. Ya know you really can't take an early 'Vair around a street corner @ 40. Who knew? I was Fireball Roberts in the flesh until I hit the curb, then I was just plain ol Beaner again. We ended up in this guys yard on our top.

It popped the windshield and the back glass right out, Nelly and Jake were in the back, and crawled out the back window hole. we all managed to get out and Brooksey says, "Is everyone OK?" Jake said "I can't find my shoe." The man that owned the house who's yard we were in was laughing so hard I thought he was gonna blow a gasket. He helped up get it back on its wheels ( one was bent ), we loaded the glass in it and got out of there, limped it to Jakes's dads farm. We found his shoe under the seat he next morning.

 

There was a cop I didn't like and he didn't like me. He had a farm and left his tractor and bush hogg away from sight of his house. so I poured a gallon of gas in the crankcase and shoved a plug wire down the crankcase breather. and It worked blew that engine apart like a hand grenade. Then I found a spot where he would hide and trap speeders. So I went and dug holes where his tires had left tracks when he backed in. buried strips of plywood with cement nails. flattened all four tires. And I got away with it because I was by myself and didn't blab until after that cop was dead and gone.

 

you guys all have me beat. I've done a few stupid things though. used to race my buddy around the back roads by my house. i didn't have my license yet, but I had my old beater rabbit ready to register and insure when I did. my buddy had a mid 70's impala that was his grandmothers. we used to drag race and when we got bored of that we would pick a spot and race to it. one day we picked another friends house. my little rabbit may not have been as fast on top end as that v8 impala but it would launch out in front and as long as there were turns that land yacht couldn't pass me. So, I'm ripping up this hill as fast as I can. my buddy lives just on the other side of the hill which drops off pretty quick. I'm probably doing 65 or 70 in a 25 with my buddy in my rear view. No way in hell i'm letting grandmas land yacht beat me!! I'm just getting to the top of the hill and realize there's no fucking way I'm going to hit the brakes and pull into this driveway. so I do what I always did in that car and cranked on the E-brake. rear brakes lock up and start howling... then they stop howling as the car goes airborn cresting the hill, then starts again. I crank the wheel over and get her right sideways. I can now finally see the driveway I'm trying to pull into. my buddies truck is all the way up on the right and there's one car width left open before you hit the post fence. I managed to slide that bitch right between the truck and the fence without hitting the house. My buddy in the impala realizes there's no way he's going to make it and doesn't get it stopped until he hits the stop sign 100yards down the road. my buddy comes out of the house laughing his ass off at the two of us idiots and points at the road behind me. I'd never seen a set of brake marks in the road that long that didn't end up in injury. lucky for all of us his mother had just left his ole man and his father just didn't have the heart to give a shit about it. my ole man would have beat me black and blue if he ever found out about the stunts we pulled like that.

 

My older brother was in the air force. and was stationed at homestead air base in florida. and when he got out he didn't come home for over a year. He was doing the Hippie thing. any way I had been to Hoxie Ark to buy some junk yard parts. And me and a couple of buddys where driving along on 67 about 15 miles from home and there was a scroungy looking hippie hitchhiking . Dumbass was carrying a clarinet? We passed him and pulled over he came running toward us. When he got close we threw empty beer bottles at him. And yelled tired of walking run awhile! So a hour later we where in my shop fixing something. When one of my friends says here comes that Hippie and boy is he ever mad. Yep it was my brother. Whenever the family gets together I like to tell that story. His kids really liked it . and his grandkids also enjoyed it. Once he was driving some pos ford maverick and following a flatbed semi. And this 40 ft tarp blew off the load went under his car wrapped around the driveshaft and wadded up and lifted all four wheels off the pavement. They had to lift it with two wreckers to remove the tarp.

 

Hey, aren't you the guy that hammered everyone on the "Best Burnout" thread for displaying such immature automotive shenanigans? Glass houses, dude.

 

We used to wire up a model T coil and attach it to our car. when someone touched it they got a good shock. run a vacuum hose from the intake to the inside of the vehicle. plug it with a pencil. and when you thought skeeters or people needed their lungs lubricated. stick that vacuum hose into a jug of diesel fuel. Put a nail into the brake line to stop the fluid from reaching the passenger side rear wheel. At a stop light hold the brakes and put it in gear and floor the pedal. even a 6 cyl could do a impressive burnout. Pull up to a stop light and rev the engine and act like you are gonna blast off at the last yellow. And when the light is still red Lurch foreward a few feet and stop and see the car next to you run the red light. Shoot out the Christmas display lights that are hung on the light poles with a 12 guage. save all of the infertile eggs that didn't hatch until halloweeen. Rake up a big pile of leaves in the road. and the cars at first slow down and creep thru them. keep doing it for several days. The put a junk semi tire or a big rock into the pile. Steal a 1/4 mile of clothsline. run it thru trees ect to the church belfry. And start ringing those bells at 2 AM. Did you know if you get those bells swinging too much they will jump the cradle and crash to the bottom? Ive got some more but cant tell them.

 

Mopar memories
Lived in a semi-rural area, and the local head loser lived down the street and around the corner. At the corner was a small plant that made fire trucks and the D-bag conniver that owned it also was the local fire chief, which explained the telephone pole mounted air horns beside the plant.

Anyway, was hanging out at the head loser's parent's dump as I said when this dude that knew him drove up in a '57 New Yorker 4 door and started BS-ing. Nice summer day, I was too young to drive but the '57 was already a beater. Turns out this guy was a volunteer fireman because when the insane air horns suddenly went off he says 'bye, cranked the 392, punched rewind and floored it. That old AFB could be heard above the air horn. Two perfect black strips right to the corner. 300 feet. We measured it.

Years later this dbag brother of a buddy gets me to build and install a 440 in his '64 Fury. I did some shit to the TF and it had 4.56s. I can't remember what the tires were, but they were real easy to smoke. I tried talking the idiot out of the crispy old W-H ducoil distribulator he had found somewhere but no go, he was in love with that turd and it stayed in the 440.

Shortly after building it, several of us malcontents were hanging out at the local Arf 'n Barf one summer evening and along comes the Fury and parks in the back row with the cool cars. He later gets the idea to fire it up, smoke the tires good and run through second and third before they can hook, then shut it down, like others had done. I was sitting back admiring the sweet sound of that 440 when suddenly the W-H drops 4 cylinders like it often did, the tires hook and before idiot brains could tie 'er down, it damn near hit the center concrete strip.

He stiffed me for building the 440, too.

 

I had never given the thunderbird a speed test, as I didn't think it would do much with the slushbox automatic it has. Turns out I was right. Buddy of mine took,it for a cruise down the circle (kinda a suburban main street around the entire city), and at a light this ricer pulls up in a messed up late model Nissan. He starts eying the car, and then revs his engine a few times. Since I don't know how much of an anchor the 450cfm carb that was on it at the time, combined with the Cruis-O-Matic, made the 390, I rev back. Light turns green, this ricer lights outta there, while me and my friend are just slowly putting away from the light, pedal to the floor. We catch up to him 3 blocks later, and he is laughing his tail off. Guess we didn't make much of a case for our hooptie Ford that day.

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We had a low-buck battery powered Go-Kart in the early 1960's that was really cool with a new battery in it. As the years went by the battery's would run out of juice and the kart was relegated to garage storage. Fast forward to about 1968. Long after the kart's normal life span a battery was purchased and for a time various family members would buzz around in it. For me I made the decision to head down a sidewalk that was on a very significant downward path, full speed of course, When I got to the corner to make the 90 degree turn I had so much speed the Go-Kart never turned and flew straight off the sidewalk, over the curb, and landed on its wheels in the street, about 3-feet in front of a moving car heading right for me. Holy Crap!! There is nothing more exciting than to be face to face with a radiator of a car that's about to hit you. Somehow my speed was such that I was able to cut across the bow of the car with about a foot to spare. In retrospect 2-things; I was lucky, and, feel the tension, man what a ride!!!!

 

Yep, sometimes, you just have to make the point. It is difficult to deal with those people that make their way on the backs of others.
Bob

 

Larry, David and I had camped the night at my grandfather's farm. That morning we cooked bacon and eggs over the campfire, and Larry had one egg remaining. As we left the farm, we were heading north. A southbound pickup approached, and just before he passed us and went through the one-lane underpass of railroad tracks at the corner of the property, Larry threw the egg at his windshield, just out of orneriness, I guess. Well, he missed the windshield but the egg went through the corner vent window and all over the inside of the windshield and dashboard. We raced away as it took a minute for the pickup driver to turn around and pursue us. We hit 85 mph in some hilly, no-passing zones and encountered four slow cars ahead of us. I saw an oncoming car that I though was far ahead and began passing, but up popped another oncoming car hidden in the next valley and we ditched the car left to avoid a head-on. Didn't know a 62 Valiant station wagon could become airborne and leap a low barbed-wire fence into a cornfield. Other cars went every which way but all avoided contact. The pickup driver came up out of the valley to see cars careening, but the car he pursued had vanished. We stayed in that cornfield for about an hour, figuring that he'd give up looking by then. We were right, and still shaking from the experience as we silently drove home. Dave died of a heart attack 18 years later. Larry went from a brain tumor in 2008. We all easily could have died that day in 1968.

 

In 1959, I had a cute, stock, 39 Ford Std Coupe. It was a Friday evening, and I was jacking around with a couple of buddies. I looked in the mirror to see the flashing red light of a cop after my butt. I knew that he was still too far back to identify the car, and it was dark enough that I dumped the lights and headed for the large WWII army camp that was now being used for summer cadet training. I entered the lot where the H huts were located, with the idea that I could hide between 2 of the H huts until the cop went by.
The plan worked perfectly, until I hit the telephone pole that was meant to mark the edge of the parking lot, broadside. I don't know how fast I was traveling, but it was enough to slam all three of us into the roof of the car, and feel that I had ripped the complete undercarriage out of the car. We came to rest on the other side of the pole.
After recovering from the trauma of getting headbutted by my own car, and after the cop had passed by, we got out to see what we hit and to see what was left of the car. I was amazed to find that there was no apparent damage to the car, and I went home that night a much wiser driver. That was one tough little car.
That was one of their favourite stories to tell on me when I would come back home to visit.
Bob

 

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We lived out in the country and we used to get 3 or 4 guys and some beer and take a pickup and go water ski in the canals-we were 16-17. It was very common in our area. All was good until you ran upon a ditch tender! The canal banks were very narrow and no way to turn around. They would usually just chew us out and that was it. After a while they got really pissed as a few guys ran into the ditch tenders pickups. The sherriff's started watching for us and we got nailed a few times. They took our beer and called our folks. There were more than a few that went into the canals as well with serious results. I ran my grampa's new 57 Chevy pickup over the edge of the canal running up and down the canal bank at night in the moonlight with no lights (dumb 15 year old kid) but it didn't go all the way in. Went and got a tractor and drug it out-no damage but ditch tender spilled the beans-got in big trouble for that one.

 

One summer day I went to hang out at my worthless friend Fat Richards place. He says "look what I scored." Seems a friend of the family was a spinster German teacher whose pride and joy was an expensive new 64 Merc [the Kraut kind] which she foolishly said Fats could drive if he washed it. BIIIIG mistake. I could tell stories
of what he did to his mom's Metropolitan [among other victims] but no one would ever believe them. So we
wash this thing and go out looking for a rat race. It was evening before we ran into the .... boys in their dad's
63 Plymouth and the race was on, us in the lead. Fat's went into a turn too fast and the Merc slid wide, so wide the back tires went into the shallow ditch. Fat's grabbed a gear and wooded it and cranked the wheel to spin the car back up onto the road but it didn't have enough power. He then spun the wheel the other way but it still wouldn't come out. So he said "F it" and let go of the wheel, with his boot still in it, of course. I think a rear tire hit something because it finally bounced back onto the road, with the Plymouth headlites right behind us. Although the Merc was supposedly high performance, certain techniques were required to keep the fat 318 from taking the lead. Then suddenly it lost about 1000 revs and we was out of the race. Never figured out what had happened but Fats never washed it again because he lost. Not a scratch on it, either. The leather interior smelled real good though.