Neighborhood hot rods what was in yours??

No, He wasn't like Me , He was pretty laid back! Me, they would give Me life in the electric chair!!!

 

in my neighborhood in the late 70's to the early eighties. there was mostly muscle cars, nova's gto's, chevelle's, etc. there was a 57 chevy 210 2dr post that i could see from my bedroom window,shoreline beige and india ivory. i still love that style and color 57. there was a 69 427 4spd vette a few doors down, he also had a baby blue (yuk) mid year vette as a daily. in my parents garage was a 57 vette that my dad bought in 62 (still has it). it was dismantled until i was in high school, i guy i worked for had a 56 vette in same the condition. so when i was in high school i got to help build both vettes as hot rods. the 56 is in one of the vette hotrod threads on the hamb. red with a hilborn inject sbc now. when i was real little my dad had another 57 with a 427 and a straight front axle. also there was a super bird that used to visit the house across the street, i used to ride my Schwinn back and forth staring at it.
that's my story and i'm stickin' to it!

 

I was born in Detroit, grew up just North of there in Southfield and the neighborhood was full of interesting automobiles. Some that stand out in my mind are the Packard Carribian convert. that sat at a house around the corner. according to my late father they had pulled the straight eight and were installing an Olds engine, I don't know if they ever got it finished. On another street nearby there was a Lincoln, I don't know the year/model (I assume somthing from the 40's) that had a Caddy transplant, again I don't know if ever was completed I never saw it being driven. There was a guy with an early T-bird down the street with a lift in his garage to pick up the hardtop for when he wanted to enjoy open air driving. One of our next door neighbors got a new T-bird every other year, I remember the "rocket bird" he had. The neighbor on the other side had a big finned Caddy, and then a bulldog of an Imperial. Those are only the close ones, there were other of course but these were the neighborhood ones that I remember.

 

I grew up in a rather small town in OK, so there weren't too many hot rods around. The guy across the alley had a wicked, gasser style '55 210 two door sedan that I should have bought about twenty years ago when it came up for sale. About four houses up the alley, Mr. Hamby had a nice original '56 Chevy sedan delivery that he seldom drove and wanted a lot of money for. I remember that musclecars seemed to be the thing to drive. I had several friends who all had '70 SS 396 Chevelles in high school.

 

Worst part of that is the daughter is likely divorced by now

 

you are a correct x2!!!!!!!!

 

neighbor next door to me restored A's also had a sweet early 60's big window chevy pickup, 4 houses down 57 chevy pickup and a 55 car, couple blocks away was a few race cars roundy round and drag, then we had a 52 chevy a 64 caddy and an mid to late 60' chrysler imperial lebaron, and a 69 impala... my older sister and her first hubby always had something cool and loud... i almost forgot as a kid i recall a 55 gasser at a shop named the dirty dago i think
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when I was a kid, they guy 2 doors down had a 67 Mustang fastback that he drag raced, and yes i remember him tuning it. our next door neighbor had a roundy round car he used to time at 8 at night and one of the old guys down the street would come and yell at him about it....my dad did the same with our old neighbor who used to yell at him too...

The guy with the 67 stang then sold that for a 67 Barracuda, and the guy across the street from him had a 63 chevy drag car, and a 36 Plymouth coupe that he still has.

Plus all of those guys had friends with cars too so the street looked like a cruise night.


Then later after the roundy round guy moved, another guy moved in who had a slew of 55-57 chevys, a 53 chevy 65 chevy and a 67 olds...

 

Back in the mid 50s two brothers who lived across the street from us owned the local taxi cab company. They did all their own mechanical repair work in a garage behind their house and I use to hang around and watch them work. Their parts chaser car was a 28 Model A sport coupe and every chance I got I begged a ride to the local auto parts store with them and I've loved Model A's ever since.

 

growing up in a small town outside of philly i lived right next door to a shop that did nothing but custom work on corvettes an custom paint on all kinds of cars. they had a vicky hod rod that was beutiful. seen every kind of corvette you can imagine an custom cars an race cars in the early 70s it burned to the ground i remember them dragging 10 early toasted vetts out an the vicky to was fried too. around town there were tons of muscle cars but no real hot rods last car i seen before i moved was a 68dodge dart hemi clone wicked car

 

It wasn't until I moved into my current house that I found neighbor cars guys.

Hamber Forsakenfew lives right up the street with the Technicolor Dreamboat.

There is a guy on the opposite corner of mine that has 4 old darts. Guy up the street has a 68 gt dart and a 64. another guy has a GTS dart. Also there is a guy with a mustang fastback. A couple blocks further there is a COMPLETE Model T touring car in someones front yard as yard art....most of the houses around here have garages and larger lots.

and soon after I got my truck I found a guy around the corner with a Model A coupe and other projects. A guy at the end of that street has a 53 belair....

they are popping up all over. while most of these aren't hamb friendly they are still car guys.

 

My neighborhood was full of model Ts and As about 30 in every variation you could imagine. To bad everyone of them was bone stock. 4 brothers collected them. Other than that was a few ot pro-streets.

 

Growing up in NJ near NYC in the 50's and early 60's I never saw a true hot rod like a 1930's car.There were lots of mild custom Ford shoeboxes,50's Olds and a shit load of 55 -57 Chevys.

 

There was a friend of my Dad's Jimmy Hupflower had a 58 Impala 348/4 speed It was a Beast. Dad had a 61 corvair with a Olds motor n auto in the front this was like 63 or 64 But our neighbors where in to muscle cars

 

I grew up in rural NW Tennessee in the '70's/'80's. Needless to say, you couldn't be too picky then/there and I was easily impressed when I saw any "old car".

There was a full fendered '29 A coupe in town though. Red, no chop, wire wheels, and a nose down stance with all the stock chrome still on it. Clearly, the owner was influenced by the Early Times cars of that era. My uncle eventually traded for it, street rodded it, and sold it off on the east coast somewhere.

The thought of that car circa 1980 still makes my knees weak. To be so far-removed from any "happenings", the guy just nailed it.

I'd give $20 just for a picture of the damn thing.

JH

 

There was a late 30's Chrysler coupe down the end of the block from my parents house in the mid 60's. there was always four or five hoodlums playing with it, it had a nasty SBC and four speed in it. No front sheet metal or interior or glass but they took it up and down the block a lot, open headers and all. I saw it lift the left front tire a couple times and thought it was the baddest car ever! One day I saw it go by on a trailer and ran down to see them unload it....seems they had taken it to a road just outside of town where there was a quarter mile marked off to do a little racing for money. The cops had caught them and the owner got tickets for everything illegal on the car, the other guys thought it was pretty funny. Behind my folks house a guy was building a sportscar with a birdcage type frame and a Caddy engine. It never got done, but would have been pretty cool. The greasers on the other side of the block would push their pre war Harley's up and down our street to try to get them running, but they usually just caught fire!

 

There was a guy w/57 chev half way up the block: we'd ride our bikes up there on
Saturday mornings. He'd let us hang around hand him tools and stuff. At the end of
the block near the coal yard there was a 58 chev, yellow, always had numbers in the
window from the strip.....pretty cool to my young eyes still love 58 chevs!

 

In 1964 , a neighbor had a 1955 or 56 Ford with the fwd part of the roof being glass. I see they are quite rare.
The other neighbor had a 57 vette , black, silver cove, red/silver interior.
The rich guy in the neighborood had a 1964 Lincoln 4 door. His son rode a Vespa.

 

So in '75, my mom and step dad bought a house waaaayyyyyy out of Phoenix at 56th street and Shea rd. That's about 15 miles north of Phonix proper, and in those days, other than the other houses in our sub division, it was all open desert. First thing I noticed was the guy down the street from us drove around in a '38 Ford deluxe. His is Don Dore. I was out riding my bike around one day and he was washing it in the driveway and I stopped to talk to him about it. He probably thought it was a bit weird that an eleven year old kid kinda knew what it was, but he talked to me like an adult and showed me the car. Don then gave me a ride in the car, and we rolled over to another local guys house, Fred Adrian. He lived about three blocks away and ran a small carb shop out of his house. He was building a flatty powered T-Bucket, and as the two guys wrenched and talked and laughed, I picked up a broom and swept, and handed wrenches. Within a couple of days I was a fixture around Fred's house, sweeping up and helping with small stuff on the T-Bucket and around his busy shop. Within a few weeks the T was drivable, and Fred took me for a ride in over to another hot rooders house about three more blocks away, Frank Schafer. Frank had a '30 coupe that was full fendered and flatty powered that he had built about fifteen years earlier, and was sanding to paint his '48 Ford tudor, chevy powered. Everybody was soon sanding, and after a few minutes they showed me how to and again I jumped right in and helped.

Over the next five years or so, I think I probably spent more time with these guys than I did with my folks, and in that time I helped build some neat cars. When it came time in '77 for me to buy my first car, they helped me find a '35 5window I could afford, then all worked on my car just as hard as I did theirs. So much of my first car came as donations out of their stashes of stuff it makes my head spin! By the time I was 15, I started driving my car all over still rural North Scottsdale with the license plate from my mom's El Camino on the back... It didn't seem to matter back then, 'cause if I did something to be caught for I didn't even have a license yet.

These guys were the best mentor I could have ever had, and made me the guy I am today!

 

A Teen ager in the 60's- a few guys were buying the 30's cars and striping off anything they could- one very nice 32 done totally- most others were the fix them up and drive them kind- paint and interiors never a concern- friend in high school had a Model A sedan- we painted that with a brush- otherwise the guys were driving a mix of makes from the 50's- mild kustoms and stockers- I had helped my dad work on all the cars we ever owned- the family never owned a new car that I remember- my first car was a 53 Ford 2 door- had been a chicken coop- never did get all the stains off the interior- mild built flathead- shaved heads- mild cam- ran good but would over heat at speed-

 

I can only think of one hot rod in the neighborhood when I was a kid. There was a guy the next street over that had a 32 Vicky. When I was 11 or 12 I heard the guy fire it up one day after school so some of my buddies and I went to check it out. My buddies weren't into cars much. One asked what that old junker was. I said Junker??? Are you crazy? That's a 32 Vicky! The owner thought that was real funny...until I said too bad he put a Chebbie engine in it.
My brother is allot older than me. He had a 53 Ford, 57 Chevy, 67 Mustang,another 57 Chevy, 64 Lincoln, 61 Falcon, 53 Olds, 64 Fairlane, and a few more I don't remember. My buddy across the street had a much older brother also that had 2 or 3 57 Chevies (one was a conv), 65 & 67 GTOs, 68 & 69 Chevelles.
A few other notables on our street were a 68 El Camino, 67 Chevelle, 69ish Road Runner, late 60's Cuda. There was an early Econoline, two Vista Cruiser long roofs, a couple of 442's, a couple of 68 or 69 Torinos, a 61 F100 unibody.
There was a guy up the street with an early Nova drag car. It had a fuel injected 327 and a straight axle. Next door to him was a guy with a 57 Ford stock car then later a 64 Fairlane stock car.
When I was in high school a kid I knew bought an old AWB Dodge former drag car. The local LEO's suggested he get a different car. Another kid at school had a late 50's Chevy or GMC panel truck with a 421 Poncho under the hood.
Other than the 32 Vicky I don't remember seeing any other hot rods until I was a junior or senior in high school. A buddy told me he had bought a 32 coupe for something like $700. He went on to say the seller was a woman that had gotten 6 or 7 Deuces in a divorce settlement and they were all for sale. The only one that was left when I got there that night was a chopped 5 window for $1200. I offered 900 (all I had) but that wouldn't buy it.

 

Now keep in mind this was 50 years ago, but I remember a red coupe(Model A-like).
Sat at a service station on the corner of Grand Ave. and 13th St in Ames,Iowa. Had a sbc with multiple carbs, no fenders. I couldn't wait to go to town, hoping to catch a glimpse of that car. I knew the owners' name at one time, escapes me now.
Later there was a Henry J, jacked up with sbc, '55 Chev drag race style called "The Weasel", nice understated, but quick '62 "vette owned by an old guy(25)!!

 

I grew up in Philadelphia, east side along the river (Port Richmond). When I was a kid in the mid to late '50's and early '60's the older guy (about 19 or 20 y.o.) up our street had an early '50's Studebaker, nosed, decked, I think some frenching of lights, mildly built 327, I loved hearing that car drive by every time he drove up the street. A few other guys at the garage down the street where we hung out had cars like an early '30's Ford sedan, fenderless, zoomie headers, not sure what motor, this was the first car I ever saw painted "candy apple red" and it was called Lil Iodine, a beautiful hot rod of that period. Another guy had a nice '55 Chevy, looked neat and clean and sounded good but I don't recall more about that one. My buddy up the street's older brother had a '51 Packard and since he was such a big guy that car suited him well. A bunch of us younger guys would cram in there and he'd just drive us around. Another guy at the garage hangout had a '57 Chevy sedan delivery, straight front axle, set back 327, street car he used to get a kick out of lifting the front wheels on the street; another was a '58 Chevy sedan delivery with a nice 348; another was a '40 Ford sedan with a 265; a couple guys had nice mildly customized cars, one of my favorite was a '56 Crown Vic. My best friend's dad drove out to Missouri to visit family and surprised us all by driving back an all original '31 Ford sedan; as a kid I helped them with their Henry J gasser drag car. Those are the first that come to mind.

 

My next door neighbor returned from Vietnam and immediately crawled under the hood of a '40 Ford coupe. I was a punk on a Schwinn at the time. He'd work on it all day, alone, in his car port. Had a big Olds and bigger ladder bars, that's about all I can recall. Most everyone else out here was doing the hippy thing. Must have been tough for him. Good guy, I liked him a lot, gave me my first ride in a hot rod. He later married and had a family, last I heard they were still doing great.

 

I still remember watching the neighbors kid hacking the rear fender wells out on his cherry 59 Ford 2 dr post with a sabre saw and a hack saw....I also remember the last time I saw that sweet old Ford.. it was on the hook of a scrap yards truck when his dad got sick of it taking up space in his driveway....what a waste.

 

When I was 9 and really becoming aware of cars, our neighborhood was pretty full. On my street there was a 56 Chevy, 283, 4-speed, a 66 Chevelle SS 396 4-speed, the teenage girl across the stree had a 57 Ford wagon and her boyfriend had a 57 Ford 2-door wagon, 390 4-speed. The teenage girl next door to me, her boyfriend had a 65 El Camino, 327 4-speed. But the hero of the street was a guy maybe 20 years old, 62 Vette, 327 4-speed, Maroon with Cragar S/S and it was ALWAYS on slicks. In 1969 he traded it in for a new SS 396 El Camino. Around the corner was a 55 Chevy, a 64 Tempest wagon, 65 GTO and a 37 Chevy coupe with Radir wheels on the back, steelies on the front, blue tinted windows and "the Charger" painted on the quarter panel. This was the late 60's.
Later, my neighbor who was a Jr High school principal bought a 70 Chevelle SS 396 4speed, my other neightbor had a 70 Buick GS 455. By the time I was driving (1974) My brother had 2 66 Mustangs, my buddy across the street had a 69 Road Runner, 383 4-speed and I had a 65 Mustang GT. Also down the street was a 55 Chevy 350 4 speed with dual quads.
Lots of bikes too, but I have never been into them.

 

A 39 LaSalle sedan. Don't know what it had in it, but it would haul ass.

 

In my neighborhood, there was the original Lil deuce coupe of Chili Catallo, whose parents bought a grocery store from my parents. Also a Chopped 40 Merc convertible that my buddy bought from Bill Hines, Beautiful 50 Ford convertible semi custom, and my 56 chevy with Jimmy Jones bubble skirts, that Bill Hines customized.

 

joplin---4 block radius---1959 ---not including family cars---semi custom 52 chevy hardtop ,32 roadster,28and 29 cabrolets,3 36 coupes, 34 sedan,40 coupe,54 ford with an olds, 52 mg, 55 corvette, 33 pontiac coupe, 47 chevy coupe and sedan---residential neighborhood...

 

My neighborhood (including my high school) were amazing. I was a freshman in the fall if 1979.
I'll give you the SHORT list, and I promise you, If I'm lyin'...I'm dyin'.

1970 Plum Crazy Purple Roadrunner 3 doors down kitty corner
1970 Superbird Lime green three doors down.
1968 Shelby GT500 fastback in alcapulco blue 2 doors down at the gas station garage
1955 Chevy bad azz street machine across the alley.
The following were ALL in my HIGH SCHOOL (no lie)
1969 Mustang Mach 1 428 1 block away (in my high school)
1968 Charger RT car
1968 Charger RT car NASTY street machine.
Two Mercury Cyclones
1966 Mustang fastback (rolled on a freeway offramp)
1966 Mustang GT fastback
1968 Olds Cutlass with a nasty cam and a 4 speed
1970 Camaro in Candy apple red (that was owned by now Monster Jam-monster truck driver Guy Wood)
1972 Camaro in Candy apple red
1950 Mercury
1951 Mercury
1948 Mercury
1968 (I think)Buick GS
1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429 (yes, you read that correctly). The rumor was that after we graduated he took the car apart to restore and ultimately put it back together in the basement of his parents old farm house that had those outside cellar doors. Then found out it wouldn't fit back up again)
1971 Javalin
1968 AMX with 390 GO pack and 4 speed. I never ever saw him "get on it". Ever.
1968 Roadrunner
1968 Dart GT Pro streeted out with fenderwell headers, etc. (same guy owned the 68)
1968 Torino fastback restored with gold velour interior (yuk)
1967 Camaro painted that bright green with a white stripe (maybe 68)
1973 Chevelle with a big block (rolled in the parkway)
1966 GTO (4 neighborhood guys from the high school built it one summer, and within a week of finishing it all 4 were killed when they stuffed it into a tree about a mile from my house)
1968 Chevelle 396
1970 Mustang fastback cloned to a Boss 302 (the guy worked all summer restoring it, and when he took it to school somebody wrote "bondo buggy" in the dust on the black on the hood stripe. It never came off)
1970 Mustang coupe, candy apple red with a built 302.
1969 Roadrunner (was B5 blue, then painted white with velour interior) After high school, he became a well-known pro bowler.
...and that is just what I can THINK of right now, spur of the moment.
Ask me what I had for dinner tonight and I have no clue
1974 Camaro, candy apple red with cragars. One night at a party behind the school, he had a little too much to drink and drove it into a crowd of students. One girls leg got run over and she ended up in the hospital with knee surgery. Weeks later she was back at school with a "New" nose...the bird beak was gone.
1970 Mustang Mach 1 fastback, painted Bullit green. Lowered all four corners. Beautiful car. One morning while driving a little too fast behind the school he broke a rusted shock tower and the front end collapsed. They towed it back to his house. I had the opportunity to buy it for $400 including all the repair parts, but backed out because I didn't know a welder (yes, stupid 16 year old kid I was)
1963 Plymouth Fury 426 Max Wedge 4 speed car. This was a friend of mine, and to this day I can remember skipping school to run to whitlock auto supply and throwing those stupid black air cleaners in the trash like frisbees and replacing them with REAL aftermarket velocity stacks (yes, I know...dumb 16 year old kids)

(as a side note, Butch Brinza lived in our neighborhood for a while in his prime)