Misconceptions of old cars.

LOL no kidding! I think my wife raced my old 429 4 speed '56 F100 more than I did, and she never lost!

 

I remember seeing a bug with a Mercury V6 hanging out the back at a car show in San Diego back in '96. I overheard some goldchainer asking his buddy, "Why would they do something like that?" If he couldn't figure that out he should have been elsewhere.

 

Most folks think my hot rod is pretty cool.
Of course, there will always be the tree hugging crowd,
with their regimented group-think attitudes.
Hot rods probably account for a millionth of a percent of
environmental problems. I say that it's not really a worry;
especially when I see a diesel truck floor it and it billows black soot everywhere.
Diesel trucks outnumber hot rod by a factor of at least a thousand to one.
So who's the big polluter?

As to unsafe. Well, there are a lot of fools in this world.
If you build an unsafe machine you are looking for trouble of the worst kind.
Taking out a family, or causing property damage, with an unsafe hot rod
effects us all. Drive safe, build safe, hug a tree-hugger, HAVE FUN!

 

Damn, me too! I was asked the other day if I had owned my car since new (a '66 Dodge Coronet I've owned since 1980), and I said "why yes, I was an extremely mature-appearing six-year-old and the salesman was most helpful, but my Dad had to drive me around for ten more years, though!"
The guy scratched his head. I think my answer hurt his brain.

 

Laughing my ass off!

 

I had an idiot tell me "Those original fiberglass Model T bodies are pretty rare" after i finished explaining to him it wasn't an original Model T body but an aftermarket body and the car was originally built in 1971.

The idiot that said "It cant be a 327 if it's out of a Corvette. Those early Corvettes had 283's".

"Is that a kit car?". "Yup. except i get to use tools and a welder instead of glue".

Or the idiot that argued with me that my '56 Chevy was a '55.

And why the hell does every idiot in a Preass try to race me?

 

I love it when it a guy who doesn't own your type of car tries to tell you what kind of car you own.

Like how many guys buy old cars with no idea of what it is? It's like they have pity on us, like we don't know what we're looking at. As if I just pulled this random car out of a junkyard and decided to invest thousands of dollars without a fathom of what it is.

I was watching some YouTube clip of a guy with a '57 Buick Super. A guy comments on the video and tells the guy the car isn't a Super, it's a Roadmaster. (The car had four portholes.)

I don't know why these people open their mouths.

 

What they said - "That's kids stuff to invest you money into a car"
My responce - "I'm 36, I'm not in debt, and it's a toy you asshole, not an investment"

What they said - "How much do these cost on Barret-Jackson?"
My responce - "That shitshow is for kooks, and you need to turn off the tube"

I actually like that not everyone gets it. It still keeps us on the outside where we belong.

 

I think it's a measure of a society, the basic right to do things nobody else understands. As long as one can do that, there's hope ...

 

I know what you mean about the year thing. I have a 1956 Ford and it is a Customline so it doesn't have the little lights on top of the fin like the other models do. I had a guy who was getting angry at me telling me it's a '55 because all '55 Fords don't have those little lights and all '56 Fords do. I just kept shrugging my shoulders saying well it's a '56. He was actually starting to yell "How can you own a nice car like this and not even know what year it is". He was really getting upset about it.

 

(Wow! alot of pissed off people here!)

I was thinking the same thing. Folks need to relax and take a deep breath.

 

I get the "light 'em up" hand signal a lot when I'm driving around town ... I just laugh. I don't have the heart to tell them that the old straight 8 probably wouldn't burn the tires when it was new.

 

Haha yeah I currently dont have my 55 chrysler in a drivable state but when I drive my 88 GMC Sierra (customized by Boyd Coddington) I get those stupid ricers and tortilla rockets trying to get me to race them. IN A TRUCK?? its not loud, doesnt look fast, nor is it that fast lol. its just a chevy 350 with an auto trans and a one legger. wtf do these guys think I have under the hood? a corvette motor? lol i dont get it. I can only imagine what cruising in my 55 chrysler will be like.. atleast with that its got a hemi lol

 

My girlfriend being from another country has a very different view on how things are here in the US. Like when I first started to introduce her to car shows and we would see a car in real rough condition, but it was in running condition, while I would be explaining how cool the car was and pointing out how they modified things etc, she would ask me "is it still working?" lol used to drive me insane. But in the process she has become much more aware of car culture, car customization, hot rodding, styling, and an overall better appreciation of all hot rods, customs, and the customization of cars. She can identify most 1950's cars when she sees one on the road, as I have car ADD and always identified the cars to her and she listened apparently to me as she remembers most of the cars we have seen while at shows, on the road, and or on tv or movies. Now she is like, "hey look a 56 chevy bel air!". And 99% of the time she is correct and when she isnt correct she does come close. For example she may label a 50 mercury as a 49 mercury or something similar. Which is an honest mistake for a car person in training. I have made a total non-car person into a little above average car person. And thats one more reason I love that girl.

Thanks,
Skrach
www.VividlyVintage.com

 

The one I get a lot is "what's It worth?"

I know what its worth. But I'll sell it to you for $100K

The other one is "why doesn't it have any badges?"

Cause I hate badges. Simple.

 

There is a little mathematical formula which the "door slammers" use....
"The force required to close a car door is DIRECTLY proportional to it's age..."
I tell people "close the door with your mind, not the force of a gorilla!"

Also I hate "roof slappers" when you leaving some place- it's not a bloody horse that needs "Giddyup-ping"!
When someone pulls up next to you and says "What's it worth?", I usually say "about 10 times what yours is!" and they beleive me- ...suckers!

 

I am 29 and drive the wheels off of a '65 Chrysler as in "daily". I didn't bother hooking up a choke and I can start it just fine.

I once met this old timer that was selling a '47 Plymouth coupe with a bilt to the hilt 360 in it. He said "yea it had the original flathead six in it with the Fluid Drive transmission which was before you're time and you would not know anything about it."....I said "Yep, I guess you are right considering that I have a '48 Dodge D24 sedan in my driveway!!"

The old guy looked like he had been slapped

 

Hahaha, I thnk its great when the younger guys and gals like old cars and understand the idiosyncrasies that go with them. We old farts tend to forget that not all of the younger folks cut their automotive teeth in mini vans and tuners. Good for you.

 

A few years back I found Lance and Muffy allowing their half-wit offspring to sit on my parked fxlr and make vroom-vroom sounds ... angry confrontation ensued. After that I zip-tied an empty holster to the tank strap ... it was funny to watch people give the bike a wide berth after that.

Barry
they would approach then back away while looking around

 

BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION EVER


"You'll grow out of it"

Never gonna happen, I'm a full blown addict.

 

1.) my '48 & '49 sat by the barn for 20 years, and they still look like it, so they must be pieces of crap that don't run...while I'm getting gas in town...and they wanna give me $500 for both of them
2.) "hey, the $$$ ya spend on that old truck, ya could'a bought a new one"
3.) "hey that old truck is bad for the environment"...yeah, if ya compare my '48 flathead 6 to any EFI V6, it is bad for the environment; but the real world is about sum totals, and this ol' dog was built to last as it has for the past 6+ decades...can the same be said for anything else made in the last 30 yrs?
4.) "where's the radio?"...didn't have one, nothin' good to listen to on the dial in these parts since they dropped the ax on the hillbilly country station on the AM
5.) "if it were my truck, I'da ripped that flathead out & dropped in a HEMI V8"...yeah, "drop" in a V8, easier said than done--btw, t'ain't yer truck
6.) "ya gotta run 12V if ya want it to be reliable"...nawww, if ya have the right cables and good grounds, that beast will run just fine on 6V
7.) the first time I took the '48 in to get a state inspection, I made the mistake of leaving the key in the ignition. the kid doing inspections that day nearly twisted the key off in the dash, barked at me that the ignition was no good and started to write me up for defective equipment when I quickly showed him that the truck would start...that moron had never seen a foot pedal starter before, and since the truck's power steering is in the operator's shoulders, that lanky so-n-so nearly turned it into a street sign on the drive back to the station...bless his heart

 

Soccer mom in a minivan with two nine year old girls in the back drives up at a gas station while I was filling up. Although she was quite complimentary about my car , her reason for approaching was to prove to the girls that it " really was a car". Until I drove away I don't think they believed her.

 

My "eco-tisticle" bro-in-law gives me that crap all the time. Untill I explained to him how the longer I drive an older car the smaller the "carbon footprint" becomes. I am not useing up new raw materials and resources to build a new car. I get twenty on the freeway and fifteen in town. and IF I wanted to I could put some aftermarket catalitic converters on it and get less emissions than his diesle chevy 3/4 ton.

 

Please explain that to my wife. She seems to get a new car every few years. I've been driving mine for 10! Kids fit fine in a two door sports car... don't need no stinkin suv...

 

Thats funny shit! The first time I got my 61 apache inspected it I hadnt put the full exhaust on so it was loud! It scared the shit out of this kid!! He started it, turned it off, and went in and got me an inspection sticker!

 

good thread. I didn't have time to read all of it so heres my list. (sorry if I have repeated anything someone else already posted)
1. A 283 SBC is junk you should have put a 350, a 383 stroker or an LS in it
2. why put a 4-speed in it? Put an automatic in it
3. a nova subframe is better than an i beam axle. or hell you could just swap in an S10 frame
4. you don't want 3 dueces they are impossible to tune correctly
5. your gonna run bias plys? I would get some radials with 22 inch wheels
6. oh its gonna be a rat rod
7. it would be nice with a/c and power windows
8. points suck use an HEI
9. why use FLAT paint? don't you want it shiny?
(the above comments came from conversations about the construction of my 40 coupe)
the next peeve on my list is if its old and rusty and sitting around you should just give it to some druggie scrapper so he can take it to the crusher

the las was when i owne my 56 chevy people were always fucking around with the taillight where the gas filler was. this kid actually shut my gas cap up in it and his dad just laughed. nitwits.

 

Wow.. I dont even know where to begin

 

Every time I hear the "Old cars lack safety equipment" line I like to point out that they were built back when people weren't fucking with cel phones, CD players, video navigation systems and the Big Gulp in their cup holders. That was back when people actually avoided accidents.

 

^^^ Soooo true!!! My 1940 plymouth pickup doors shut super easy also...two fingered click/click. It has not even been restored either!

 

"treehugger" fashion) I'll be that leaves a large "carbon footprint"!

I love the carbon footprint line from the greeners. I always answer with I recycled my whole car beat that.