Hot Rods Do you remember driving your hot rod or custom the first time?

I remember the first time riding in one. I was bugging my dad to get his '33 Ford woodie running for weeks and we worked on it for a while before taking it for a drive. I remember crawling under the car and replacing the gas tank with him and getting rust in my eyes lol gotta love east coast cars. We finally figured out the carb & gas line /fuel pump issue on the '34 21 stud that's in it and hearing that flatty start up is something I'll never forget. We took it for a short ride down the road and it was freezing but so awesome. I think I was 8-9 years old. We still drive it with the worn out springs and king pin.

 

There has been a lot of "first drives" in my life. For years I worked or other people's project cars, and often I was the guy that drove them for the 1st time after a major repair. Then I started buying old beaters and selling them, or parting them out. Pretty much everything that got trailered to my place in the country was a first drive for me, some were more exciting then others.

Probably in the early 80s I bought a 48 Dodge 4 door sedan for $35. I probably bought it because it was old, cheap, and looked kinda cool laying beside my driveway. One day, while looking at it I decided to see what shape it was really in. Much to my surprise, the crusty old flathead actually turned over by hand! So I threw the only available functioning battery I had, a 12 volt, onto the inner fender. The 48 Dodge was a 6 volt, positive ground car. Not even thinking about it being a positive ground system, I hooked the battery up as a negative ground. After a little screwing around, I could get the starter to crank the motor over. A jumper wire to the coil actually gave me spark. When you really don't care how long the stuff is going to last, minor things like 12 volts on a 6 volt system, or positive ground connected with as a negative ground are not important. The next thought was "Lets dump a little gas down the carb and see if it will fire up!" It was pretty loud, the exhaust ended about at the firewall.
My son was about 8 at the time, and as always, when I started messing with the car, he was right there to "help". We determined we should see if we could drive the car. By grabbing the steering wheel and moving it back and forth, I determined the steering was good enough for a short trip down the road to the neighbor's and back. The brakes were another matter, there wasn't any, the pedal went right to the floor, and looking at the master cylinder that was under the floor, I could see the only brake line rusted off about 6" from the master. It did have a pretty awesome e brake drum on the back end of the transmission, and it worked really well, we just wouldn't go very fast.

The next challenge was getting gas to the carb. I didn't even consider trying to use the gas tank, but the fuel line from the fuel pump looked good, and the fuel pump didn't look too bad. I had a 1 gallon can that I used to start up cars before. I hooked a gas line to the fuel pump and cranked the motor, and we had gas in the carb. I hooked up the jumper onto the coil and it started and everything actually worked! The carb and linkage even worked pretty well. I shut it off to get a seat ready for my son and me. The original springs were sort of present in the original seat frame, so I shoved a piece of foam rubber into the hole in the spring under my butt, and covered the whole seat with al old blanket. I remounted the coil so I could reach it from the seat, and I secured the gas can under the hood, out of trouble. I sat the battery on the floor on the passenger side, my son's job would be to be sure the battery wouldn't move too much. We have done this before. I hooked the jumper to the battery,k had to short across the starter to crank the motor, and it fired right up. Then I slid into the seat and slowly moved forward a few feet, then backward a few feet to be sure the brake was going to work. We backed out of the driveway, and headed down the road to the nearest neighbors house.

We lived on the top of a hill. The closest neighbor was about a 1/4 mile down the road, we would be going down a hill (a pretty big hill), then make a short right curve, then cross a bridge, and then go up a hill and make a sharp left into the neighbors driveway. To get back home, we would have to back out of the driveway, go down the hill, across the bridge, and up the long hill to our house. The road was a narrow gravel road. That hill was a long walk up if the "new" ride didn't make it home.

So we were cruising (pretty slowly) down the hill. Made the curve, and went up the short hill pretty easily where we turned into the neighbors driveway. Then we backed up, and headed towards home. I was really surprised how much torque the old flathead 6 had. It climbed the hill towards out house without any issues. Over the next few weeks, my son and I and a few others drove the old Dodge several times. The speedometer was actually reading, if I kept it under about 30, the e brake did pretty well. It was kind of fun to drive. One of the guys that drove the car bought it from me. He offered me $600 for it, which I just couldn't turn down. I don't know if he ever did anything with it, but it was one of my son's favorite first drive ride a longs, and he went on a lot of them with me.
He has had several first drives since then, his last one was a couple weeks ago with an off topic truck we heavily modified, I got to ride along with him on that one. Gene

 

When I drove my black 4 door 32 for the first time it was also my first experience with a flathead and I drove it at interstate speed for more than two hundred mile, I was unease the whole trip but when I arrived I felt confident and relieved, I remember telling Brenda if it blows up I won't spend all that money rebuilding it I'll put a small block Chevy in the car.

When I sold the car years later and shipped it to Tokyo it still had that reliable sbc under the hood. HRP

 

I first saw my '37 Chevy half-ton utility express at a truck show in Macungie. PA in 2007. It was built and owned by fellow HAMBer "Truckedup". When he put it up for sale in 2008, I emailed him from another truck show in Kansas and we made a deal. I couldn't pick it up for several months and he prepared it for the long drive from upstate New York to South Florida. When the time came, I drove a rental car to New York and Tony and his wife, Joy, put me up for the night and let me drive the hot rod truck back to South Florida with his plates and insurance. It was a great ride with the Jimmy 302 powered truck and my Navigator indicated I hit 87 mph at one point. Woo Hoo! A month or so later I was at a local cruise-in with the truck and a stranger walked up to me. He asked "Didn't I see this truck haulin' ass on I-95 in Georgia last month?" That made my day.

I blogged the whole trip on my website for anyone interested in the details

http://www.laroke.com/larryk4674/2008/dscruise1.htm

 

I just read your blog and I sounds like you had a ball, I wish you would have called me when you were in South Carolina. HRP

 

I remember the first drive in every car project I built. And that spans about 55 yrs. now. Every one of them unique for what did or didn't happen, and each of them a fun experience. There's really nothing to compare to putting huge amounts of time, and energy into building something that's really special to you, and then firing it up and heading around the neighborhood on that maiden voyage!

 

I do remember my 1st ride in my hotrod. What a blast. I could tell the whole story, but what i remember was my response to my wife asking, "How was it?" I said," I cant believe everyone dont drive hotrods, why does anyone want to drive anything else!"

 

Thanx, if I knew of you then, Danny, I would have. On my first cross-country roadtrip in my other truck, I visited several intarweb friends in the course of 23 days.

 

I took my first ride in this car a few months ago, it 's a screamer!

 

OK, I have another 1st drive experience.
I was renting a garage that had about a 5' high approach to get into the garage. That garage was about 2 buildings from the end of a dead end street. At the end of the street was a small junk yard, and between the yard and the building I was renting was a towing company. Across the street was a wooded area. There was always cars sitting all around the area. I was working on my 35 Dodge 2 door sedan I had built from the ground up, and had fired it up for the 1st time a few hours before. The garage was sort of odd shaped, the back 1/2 of the garage (away from the garage door) was about 6' wider then it was as you got nearer to the garage door, at the garage door, the garage was only about a foot wider then the door on each side. That made it pretty much a garage where anything you worked on had to have the work area at the back of the garage. I'd been working on getting the motor to run, and I had that accomplished, and I had just replaced the front brakes and had them blead. I was going to turn the car around, so I could do the rear brakes. Up to that point, any time I needed to turn the car around, I needed to recruit a few guys to help me push it back up the hill and into the garage. Most of the guys at the junk yard, or the towing company didn't mind helping.
This time I thought "Man, I can start it up and turn it around all by myself." I check the brakes, they felt really good, great pedal. I fired it up and put it in gear, the brakes felt fine, I started backing it up, and checked the brakes again before the car started down the hill, brakes were good, so down the hill I went. With the car at the bottom of the hill, the brake pedal went to the floor! No brakes! As one would expect, I was rolling at a pretty good speed by then. I cut the steering wheel as sharp as I could while I was pumping the brakes as fast as I could. I've driven cars without brakes before, but I knew there weren't any brakes, this one I expected to have brakes but suddenly didn't. As I was quickly nearing one of those junk parked cars, I threw it into park, but that didn't work, so I threw it into drive. The trans grabbed about the time I felt the bump on the back end. It didn't feel too bad, sort of a light bump. Without even getting out to look, I figured I'd better get the car back into the garage. I inched it forward, the backed it up the hill and into the garage, very slowly. Once back into the garage I put it in park and got out to inspect the damage.

The car had no rear bumper, and just a few weeks before I'd made a new rear roll pan that I was going to mount the tail lights into. Now I was going to be making a new rear roll pan, and straightening out the metal above the roll pan in addition to fixing the brakes. By the way, the reason I didn't have any brakes was because the master cylinder had failed. It was full of fluid, but the pedal went to the floor. I suppose that was probably the best place for the master to fail. Good thing I didn't decide to test out the traction that day.

Sometimes that quick turn around doesn't work out so well.
That old sedan was a pretty good car, we put 77,000 miles on it in 7 years. Gene

 

My first ride in this car was a blast and I drove the car over a hundred miles but when it was time to return home the ignition switch wouldn't do anything, it was like the battery was missing, we tried to jump the car off and still nothing.

Being out of town we opted to get a motel for the night and there was a auto parts house down the street so I walked to the parts house and got there just before closing and purchased a test light, that night in the parking lot I found a fuse made into the ignition switch, the next morning I bought a new switch, replaced it and everything worked fine. HRP

 

After years of tri-5 Chevys and muscle cars, I built a '32 pickup. Looking through the windshield at that '32 grille shell was one of my more exciting car moments.

 

DO YOU REMEMBER DRIVING YOUR HOT ROD OR CUSTOM THE FIRST TIME?

Hello,

Yes, definitely… My brother and I were just beyond the physical recovery phase of his 3rd degree burns from the Willys Coupe accident. It was a slow, sometimes painful way to recover and see our work drift away. So, we were in the search and wonder phase for our next step in our lives.

While he was recovering at home, we had gone out in his 58 Impala just to get the old feeling back, a little step at a time. During the day, we would just cruise down the coast to see the ocean for its healing qualities and with the So Cal sunny days, it just felt right. He had surfed prior to the drag racing build and thought it was a good way to go for him to get back into the sport.

Still, it took months of discussions and more coastal cruises to different places to get the full force of the ocean in the stage where he could actually go back into the water. I had been several times with my friends in a different old hot rod/cruiser and was beginning to pick up the action quite well.

So, our first journey was to pack in two longboards sticking out of the removed rear seat back of the 1958 Impala. They still stuck out quite far for 9 foot plus surfboards.

After going down to surf at the Huntington Beach pier, my brother enjoyed the experience quite well and as the old saying goes, he took to water like a fish. We did the similar road trips for the next month. But, each time we were getting a negative outlook to two big guys coming to a surfing beach in a black 1958 Impala that sounded like it could race down any dragstrip at any time. As soon as we finished for the day, talks went to getting something else to expand our surfing journeys.

Jnaki

So, one night at the local Bixby Knolls drive in restaurant parking lot, in comes this 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery with a motor that was shaking up everyone in the lot. It had a cool rumble, and idled all the way through the lot and under full acceleration, took off down the street. Wow, everyone was impressed, even though they did not know what kind of car it was making those rumbling sounds.

By the end of the evening, the talk was that the 40 Ford Sedan Delivery had a 348 Chevy motor, LaSalle transmission and was now a powerful hot rod. The owner was a friend from back in the junior high school/high school days. He lived closer to Lion’s Dragstrip than we did and got hooked on hot rods early, too. This was his first custom build and it was a “doozy.”

But, he did have a small “for sale” sign taped to his window. So, I knew it was the hot rod for me. I could see myself cruising down to the OC beaches to go surfing and enjoy the hot rod ride at the same time. The only drawback was that no one else wanted to pay the asking price. It was also way beyond my bank account total. So, for the next week, we bartered back and forth.

Finally, the 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery was mine, but lacked the power of the 348 Chevy motor. A simple Flathead motor was put in place and ran like a top.

From the moment I got into the sedan delivery, my mind was wandering all over and it was hard to fathom what was going on outside. My first real car I bought with my small amount of saved cash. It was a feeling of wonderment and joy. My brother and I now had a hot rod that looked fast and fit the bill as far as the surf crowd was concerned. Two surfboards sticking out of the rear window did the trick, too.

It was a great time to be a teenager with a surfboard and a sedan delivery that no one else had or wanted. Driving down the open Coast Highway along the So Cal coastline was a feeling of being in the best possible place for a young kid having fun.

 

I was lucky enough to be the passenger in a 29 Model A sedan for the first drive around the block yesterday afternoon, it was a different experience for me but the excitement is just exciting.

This car is going to be restored but it's like our cars just running and lacking the hood,fenders and running boards.

 

The big Chrysler the first time I drove it…Still dirty.

The first real drive outside my yard.

 

Man, that is one sweet Chrysler. What year is it? HRP

 

Great thread!

I’ve got my first drive and first fire of the 46’ on video around here somewhere I’ll dig them up!

 

Thanks Danny, it’s a 1964 Windsor, you guys got Newport’s in the US, same thing. There’s a thread on it, floating around somewhere…

 

After a three year build and many arguments with my son on who would make the first pass, I relented and let him make the first pass, I got the second pass which was my first time back in a racecar in over 20 years, the car performed flawlessly putting many of our fears to rest and has gone on to be a fast ,fun, reliable nostalgia race car. The pics below are his reaction after his first pass and mine

 

Congratulations, That must have be a fast past, your son sure aged a lot! HRP

 

Good thread, it looks like a lot of us had the same experiences.

 

Looking forward to more stories from everybody.

When Sandy and I still lived on the big farm, I put a 235 in this '37 Chevy coupe. Remember Pat Boone in April Love?... drifting through the curves on the dirt horse racing track? That was me. No brakes, sliding around the barns LOL.
Sandy took the picture from the upstairs window. This was a happy day.

 

First time it fired

first time it went down the road and back


Was a long thrash to get on the road I’m sure I rambled at length in my build thread when it happen.

I remembered driving it into the yard, testing the brakes back and forth. Seeing if it went back and forth etc.

then I basically got so damn excited that I thought fuck it let’s try a drive or I’m gonna puke.

I made it about a quarter mile up the road to a driveway to turn around in and back. The whole time my shifter went in out and in between gears with every bounce.

After the short drive it was easy to get me to pay for a brand new shifter. I had seen the road threw that windshield there was no going back!

 

I took it down to the shop over 15yrs ago now for it's 3rd & final inspection prior to licensing. It was the middle of summer down here and the upholsterer hadn't even done the roof. I recall that it was DAMN hot!

 

Here is the first time out in my Roadster, around the parking lot. I had the carbs working pretty good before I ever drove it. Gary

 

What happened to that car Rick? HRP

 

Small town Southern Alberta 1975…towed my 51 Pontiac to the high school auto shop where I replaced the flathead 6 ( broken crank) with a rebuilt 235 mated to the stock driveline. Thanks to a gearhead shop teacher who happened to have the proper bell housing and linkage setup we were able to get it fired up and running well. Some of my classmates wrote “condemned” across the trunk lid in chalk which was nice motivation for me to get it on the road. Once it was running nicely I had to get it out of the shop for other student projects so I jumped in…no plates, insurance or brakes… and headed home. Now the smart thing to do would be to go straight home..about 6 blocks… but no, I had to take a cruise down main street mid day with 3 friends. The emergency worked fine so I had brakes and at 16 I was smart enough to know the police were most likely in a neighbouring town at that time so away I went. Things went well until I pulled onto my street where I ran out of gas and had to coast the rest of the way and have my buddies push me up the driveway. The picture below is a few weeks later when it was on its way to the body shop..brakes working!

 

I had planned on keeping both the Chevy coupe and the model A roadster. But in a rare and sudden onset of a sense of responsibility, (panic) I sold them and all my other cars and parts. The Chevy went east and became a gasser.
There are times I could just kick my ass from here to there, thinking I should have found another way. But as it was, Sandy died not long after and I moved from the farm. So maybe it was best I had already gotten rid of all that stuff.
And now as you know, after being on the road for a while, I'm once again fairly settled, I've got a couple recently acquired projects, and we'll see how it goes this time.
I'd like to of course poop out at least one kick ass project before I ummm... poop out. And have a REAL maiden voyage! It's become a bit of a personal vendetta. But I enjoy the process, regardless.

 

You and me both Ricky.

 

Took me 3 years to get this '31 coupe on the road ... my first and only blower motor build ... It fired up so fast it scared the shit out of me ... then I couldn't help myself ... I drove it up and down the street running off of a gas can and virtually no brakes! ... it was great! ...