Hey Newrider your right i was cruising in the late 60,s and 70,s I had a 1960 ford falcon 6 banger 3 speed every one else had roadsters or hotrods of some kind comero or roadruner or mustang but i had my friends to hang out with I,m 59 years old and just started building a 1929 model A in may of last year to of my friends that road with me on cruise nights that are my age are also building car,s Hang in there Kid you and your friends are whats going to keep this hobby alive
The spot to cruise when I was in high school was Clearwater beach. My buddies and would drive about 20 miles to get there, cruise the strip and then park and chase tail. After a while the cops would write tickets if you cruised the strip more than twice. After the parking lot closed we usually went somewhere else. The police ran us out of the beach with the tickets and such. Nowadays the beach is nothing but high dollar condos and nobody really cruises there. Unless I'm missing something there isn't a whole lot of people interested in traditional rods and kustoms where I'm from. Lots of muscle car and resto mod shows but mainly rude old guys that bought a car already restored. Not to mention the dumb ass 85 regals with 30" wheels.
right now here, there isn't much, they have the bridge closed to rebuild it, so two roads of cars jammed onto two lanes, everyone is driving up and down the road slow and stopping all the time, but they are pissed off about it. It's supposed to be open by next summer, so we shall see, we have the huge Moultrie swap meet and car corral every year, but once you park, you aren't supposed to move your car, so that kills the whole idea, we have a historic district too, so you think they would WANT to have the cars cruising downtown. A lot of the entire scene has been ruined by the,well as we call them in the import community, flatbillers, You probably know what I'm talking about, thats a teen about 16-19, with a smartass attitude, who drives a civic with nothing done to it but a wing and a fart can muffler, they drive up and down the street driving like idiots and revving at every light, these are the ids who piss off the cops, and make them pissed at those of us just trying to drive and enjoy ourselves. As a kid We used to cruise Geneva on the Lake in Ohio, it's dying now, but I think I was one of the last generation to cruise it before it went downhill, the amusement park is gone, whips magic emporium is gone, I think the outside dairyqueen is still there, but a lot of stuff is boarded up, it was a big draw for people from Pittsburg in the 50's up until maby the mid 90's when it started to go away
I can see nothing cool about Facebook, Iphoes etc., they have there useage to keep in contact with friends and that's OK. But cruising in a cool custom on a warm summer night was cool, it's like catching the period wave. The police closed down cruising on Pacific Avenue in San Pedro, Ca in the early '60's and would bust you if you made more then one pass. My friend and I were taking in for stopping at a car dealer on a Sunday after noon just to look, the police were very heavy hand at the time. CRUISER
It's against the law in Milwaukee. go past the same spot 3 times in a certain amount of time and the cop pulls you over. And yes it has happened and it sucks.
Hey , you live in the wrong part of the country. Here in Maine we go where we want , when we want , and as often as we want.
It's not, and never will be. Just costs alittle more. Get's to be a bit of a challenge though when you live in a town that you can cover 3-4 times in less then a half-n-hour
Newrider3 brings up a good point. Some of us old farts (me included) have generalized the younger generation. During the summer months we have Cruise Nights at several locations here in Reno, Nv. Summit Racing has one every Friday night. A local oldies radio station has one every week at different locations around town. A&W have two locations & put on a cruise night twice a week. Point is, what we are doing is crusing to a spot where we meet, parking and hanging with our friends, checking out and talking about cool rides. I have noticed some younger generation with their newer cars joining in. Hell their making high dollar car payments & can afford to buy old iron. Most of us old farts want $1,000 to $4,000 for a shell (WTF Over). Times have changed & so has cruising. We use to cruise the main drag over & over again. The lawman has changed all that for everyone. What we do now is cruise to a parking lot & cruise home again, except from time to time the wife & I take a long drive (cruise) out of town. What makes the younger genaration different is they have more toys to play with, such as cell phones, computers, oh & by the way, the laptop computer can make the rice burners blow the doors off allot of the old iron out there, LOL. So cruising has changed because of the laws created, not because of the younger generation, but back in the 70's when we were crusing. Its not DEAD, just Changed.
When i'm not racin' and it's not rainin' i go out every friday nite. Often i'm the only one and end up hanging out w/ the imports for a while. Everyone else must go home before dark, i don't even show up until after dark. I figure if at least somone is out after dark it's not totally dead.
Its not completely dead...but I think its nothing like my dad's day ( he graduated in 76) When he tells me stories I'm like a little kid on the edge of my seat...then I get sad when I realized it'll never be that way again. When I was in high school (I graduated in 04) we cruised almost everynight...every friday and saturday for sure when it wasn't snowing. There were mostly imports...but a couple of us had mustangs...there was one camaro...and one 76 vette. We had fun...but we didn't have cell phones. Now I'm in my mid twenties...none of my like-aged friends cruise anymore. If I go out i might meet up with some more high school kids rocking some modern angry 4cyl...and they're cool. But guys my age are in with their gf watching a movie...or at a bar or club looking for a girl. I wish it was like it was when my dad grew up...that would be amazing. But like its been said before...if cruising was fueled by finding chicks (which...we have to admit...the large majority of what we do when we are young is fueled by finding girls)...then the guys go where the girls are. There are still nice cars...albeit most of them are new....they are just at a bar parking lot instead of rolling down main street. I do find it kind of cool when there is a "cruise night" at a local dairy queen or diner...and all the cars leave at the same time and lock up traffic for a few minutes...the looks on peoples faces hearing cammed out V8s, mean looking cars, and paint jobs of the not-silver variety are awesome....so deep down people do like it.
Back in the late 70's my buddies and I would cruise in Bethel Park, PA from the McDonalds up RT 88 to the Danny's Pizza, U-turn at the end of their lot, back down RT 88 into Eat-N-Park, around the building and then back down RT 88 a few hundred feet back into the McDonalds. Every handful of laps you'd see someone that you knew and would stop & talk for a while & then go and do it again. Kinda dumb, really, but at least you got to hear them run and occasionally someone would lay into the throttle hard enough to make the car sound good... In Virginia Beach though, you make more than one or two passes past a certain spot in a certain amount of time and they'll write you a ticket for cruising. The VB cops cater to the tourists and to hell with the locals whose tax dollars are paying for the street, the cop's paycheck, etc... I USED TO go to Star City Motor Madness cruise on Williamson Rd. in Roanoke, VA EVERY year until the last two years when it turned into "Let's cruise Mom's minivan" and the kids with the Neons with fart pipes on completely stock engines... Ruined it for everyone.
around here it was outlawed in a large part because of gang activity. The last time i drove my 59 El Camino on a Friday night, i got pulled over for"driving an (Impala) lowrider on a Friday night" by a rookie cop. He had nothing on me,(supposedly one of my 4 taillights was out.) and didn't write a ticket for the things he could have, but sure harrassed me and my girl for a half hour. And I was polite. They have speed bumps downtown that can only be described as anti-lowrider bumps, as the are so tall and long, that I had trouble getting my stock 97 El Dorado over them without scraping
I think this is the best answer yet! Back in the day we didn't have to organize a cruise, we just did it. We didn't need no stinkin' organizer, and we didn't always call it cruisin' either. Usually just runnin the strip, doing the idiot circle or 'trolling for chicks'. Growing up in a small town, we knew John Law and he knew us. I remember passing the deputy one night at a not-so-legal speed and thought 'Oh S***!' but he let me go, never said a thing. I have to agree - those days are long gone.
Cruisin' is still cruisin' Cruisin' doesn't involve organization. It involves a hot rod, a drop dead good looking woman and a killer night, winter, spring, summer or fall. I'm 68 and that hasn't changed since I was 16. The want-a-be's still wish they had your car and the other chicks wish they were riding with you instead of that new SUV. they are in. Thats being a hot rodder and having the hot rod to cruise in. Regards Greg Hornbostel
We hold a remember when cruise in Brantford Ontario once a year. Last year 200 cars showed up, retail businesses at three locations in city were involved. The cars cruised between locations and recieved tickets at each location for a prize draw held at 11pm. This year it is being held in July along with the downtown Blues fest.
There wasn't much cruising, as it is known today, going on in the early 50's, probably because we were driving our cars all the time every day to work, to the store, everywhere. It was the only car we had..We drove to the "barrel" almost every night to hang out..Friday or Saturday nights we did a little street racing...Quite often we drove to Tacoma to race the locals on the tide flats...Several times a year, usually in the summer we would decide about 9 oclock Saturday night to drive to Portland to get a cup of coffee. (No freeways then either) When you went to one of the 3 barrel hangouts in Seattle any night, you never knew who was going to show up...Sometimes no one did but that was rare. Usually there were at least 10 cars around. The rods are used differently these days. They are a second car to be taken out preferably when the weather is nice etc etc.... I still think the best times were when the meetings were spontaneous and close together.
I cruise every chance the weather allows. For me, cruising will never be dead. Second Best form of relaxation I can think of. ...
I'm with you on that one. I cruise every weekend and every stop for gas or food is a car show. Cruising doesn't need to be organized. I just needs to be done. Like back when... just get off your asses and drive.
We started doing cruise nights on Lake St. last Summer. There has already been one in MPLS this year. Our club is trying to bring it back to Lake St.
Rolling car events are the Greatest! Personnely, I think that's when cars look their best, when their moving. We have gotten' some cruising events going on here in Reno. The freakin' cops here have gotten' wind of our organized cruises, and have been sitting in wait for our cars. To stop the cruising. So now when we get together, there are several different routes we might take, and only at the last minute is the info. released as to where the cruise is going. Ha,Ha,Ha...Cops! ...
I thought by the cops, it was considered cruising when you drove the same bullevard more than twice. Instead of cruising the same bullevard over & over, just make the cruise longer by cruising more streets.
Cruising in my area didn't die - it was killed off in the late '80s by the hand of do-gooder city councilmen who got heat from 'concerned citizens' and local businesses that got tired of cleaning up strip mall parking lots of broken glass bottles, trash, stop-light racing, fender-benders, burn-outs, loud exhaust and stereos at 2 am, underage drinking and illegal drugs. Signs are still up on the 2-mile stretch of road to remind people of the anti-cruising ordinance, even though the drive-in movie theater is now a delapidated low-budget grocery store, the McDonald's is a vet's office, and the building where the radio station was now is where you go to get the 'scope run up your innards. In the late '70s-early '80s I at least was able to participate in the cruising scene and witness some of the stupid stuff that led to the crackdown later in the decade - I say witness because I didn't have a hopped-up Camaro or Chevelle, but my '63 T-bird and '63 Galaxie did partake in their share of curbside activities. Today's climate of nanny-statism has stifled a lot more than cruising and threatens a whole lot more than what we may want to believe can happen. I'll get off my soap box now...
Lake Street was always fun - Is the Hi-Lake shopping center still there? That is where we use to pull in and check out the other cars.
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