Best car related experience

If that's what floats your boat.

Here's the deal I know for a fact that some of you fellas could have posted major happenings. But I am seeing things done with someone else as the major player, dad or son or wife/girlfriend. Nice to remember those things when others were the major players isn't it.

 

My first solo road trip, I was nineteen and just bought a new 65 Ranchero. Left Portland Oregon and drove US 30 accost to Baltimore MD. Had a ball until I reported for duty at APG.

 

for me its gotta be the day I learned how to drive.

1970 and the old man was too drunk to get home from the parking lot of the local barfly parking lot so my Grandmother had me ride my bicycle down there to see what was up. The old man proceeded to explain the controls of his crappy brown 3 on a tree Rambler and I managed to haltingly limp the thing around the lot a few times then back to the house.

I can still smell that car and feel the texture of the brittle fraying seats...

 

Remembering this one week in 2010 still makes me smile. He missed getting out here in 2011 for health reasones but we got plans for another week long thrash in 2012...

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=473875&showall=1

I'm not a sappy kind of guy, time off work is hard to get, money is always tight, etc.... this was by far the BEST time I've ever spent with my father.

I looked over at him yesterday as we rolled on home from the shop, he was staring out the window of my beater chev truck rolling down the highway with a big dumb grin on his face.

 

So many for me.
Of course, buying my first car (75 Duster) and driving it home is near the top.

Having my Dad teach me to drive in Mom's '75 Torino.

Riding around in Grandma's 72 Duster, cruising for freshly laid asphault for the wonderful smell that we both loved. After that, a round of pool at Kirkwood Kue Klub and lunch at Spencer's Grill.

 

I think my first mid 11 sec pass in my 4000lb 57 Ranchero at Carlsbad.
(on the motor)in the late 80's.

 

When my wife and I went to Billetproof FL and she got to see real car people. Not those gold chainer lawn chair people. Once she went to that she got it.

When my wife said that her next car will be a shoebox ford once we are done with her falcon.

On a sarcastic note, when I put an isky cam in my 352 and went to break it in and found out that I popped the cam plug out of the block.

 

I guess it would be meeting up with my friends in front of Carl's Jr on Market & 13th st in Riverside,Ca every Friday & Staurday night in the late 70's & 80's and go cruising.

 

I had just met my future wife. She wanted to go to Yosemiti and Sequoia Nat'l Park, and camp out. Hmmmm. The '55 wagon's 3-spd stick tranny was on borrowed time. No way I was going to disappoint her tho. I took a backup tranny and tools with us. There wasn't a whole lot of room because this car was a 4 door turned into a two door "Shorty". With a massaged 348 we made it up there in no time. We had a great trip and all went well. The rest is history.

 

Excellent pic friend and the story aint too bad either.

My first real date with the missus was on a Norton Atlas, pretty funny story alas better for another time.

 

Getting my 1st car in High School (70 chevell). A lot of memories in that car. Another was seeing a 57 corvette drive by my brother and I at Carlisle and practically running after it to buy it. Then getting the call at work from the truck driver when it showed up at my door.
The last being the day the woman pulled up the garage door to show us the 32 coupe she had for sale...and buying it on the spot !!!!!

 

Thats easy my first Blow Job

 

When our family moved to Houston from New York, I had just gotten into hot rods. I rode in the back of the station wagon, reading Street Rodder the entire trip. That November my dad took my brother and I to our first show. The Houston AutoRama. I drooled the entire evening. Late that night, after everyone was asleep, I sat at the kitchen table drawing hotrods. My dad came in, saw what I was doing and told me, "If you keep focused and keep your shit together, you'll build one of those one day."

My dad was a gearhead, but being in the Air Force and rasing four kids, the closest he came was a '65 Nova that never really got done. So, 35 years later, on a challenge from my brother, I started a T bucket. My first hotrod. I wished my dad had been around to help, but he passed in 1999.

My mom showed up at my job one day to see how I was doing at work. My boss was letting me build my car in the warehouse where I worked. At first, I tried to keep her from the T because I figured she wouldn't understand that I was spending money on such a foolish thing. But finally, I showed it to her. I explained what it was and what I was doing. She paused for a while, looking it over and finally said, " Looks good, I wish your dad could have been here to see it."

So, on my first "legal" cruise, I stopped at an isolated section of a park, looked into the sky and told my dad that we finally did it. That was my best hotrodding experience.

 

Does banging a crazy ex-girlfriend in the backseat of a '68 Charger R/T down by the river count????

 

Dude, that's a given... The view of the stars out the back window of a 68 Barracuda with the seats folded down is amazing...

 

My cross country trip to California in '09 in my T tub. Went topless, got a great tan, surfed for the 1st time, ran it 100mph on the salt of Bonnieville, seeing the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, & attending Midnight Mass are the highlights.

2nd getting the same jalopy shot for Hot Rod mag in issue with the General Lee, because I grew up watching the show.

 

Mine was an 84 VW Quantum. Not quite as cool, but at that age, you take what you can get!

 

funny you should mention the back seat of a cuda...

the following was from around '69 or '70ish:
my first really quick car was a '64 plymouth with the 440/4sp drivetrain out of a '68 GTX in it. i bought it from my friend who had built it. he sold it to me when he found a baracuda. i don't remember if it was a 67 or 68, but it was a really good looking gold color with the quintsential bucket seats & console. but, as you all know, the home run that plymouth hit with those fastback cars was the fold down back seat that was pretty much the size of a twin bed.

ok, back to the story. occasionally when larry wanted an e-ticket ride we'd trade cars for the evening. i picked up my e-ticket ride and headed to the sticks pretty soon after dark. sweet thang and i were enjoying each other's company in the folded down back seat when we thought we heard a tractor coming up the gravel road. we were going to disregard it and continue our rollicking, but it stopped right beside us and turned off the engine. of course, at that point we had to sit up to see what was going on. there sat my plymouth. larry had uncorked the headers and mounted the 9" slicks that i kept in the trunk and went street racing. seems that he was just about to launch when they saw the car with the cherry on top headed for them. as the "starting line" of that particular 2-lane road was right at the intersection of a gravel road larry just turned and headed off on said gravel road. cops got the dude he was lined up against but larry got away. as soon as he saw that he was clear he slowed down to drive back to town on back roads in 1st gear, as:

1) he had no place and no tools to recap the headers
2) he had no tires with him so he had to drive on the slicks

anyway, back at the cuda, cutie and i climbed back into the front and we had a short gear-head bs session with larry. eventually larry headed back to town to return the plymouth to street trim and betty and i finished what we had started. wonder what ever happened to the little hottie. haven't seen her in 40 years.

ok; in hamb friendly cars, the 1st trip to the salt ranks right up there. 8 of us in 4 vehicles went and none of us had ever been there before. that was the 50th in '97. i didn't hardly catch my breath the whole week. just had to (figuratively) keep pinching myself to see if it was real or a dream. being the 50th they had invited hot rodders to attend and during a break in the action they let us all line up and drive down the course. we never got over 60-70, but the feeling that we were "on the track" was a real thrill. most of us will never get to strap into a salt flats racer and make a real pass, so that's probably as good as it's going to get for me.

i believe that it was that same salt trip that BenD & i were riding around the pits with HRLC. that was when big olds didn't have a top or back seat. ben & i sat on the package tray. denise saw gene winfield in his pit changing out flatheads in his whacked 26/27 T coupe salt racer and pulled right up and parked. they weren't going fast with the #1 motor so they were installing #2. gene's girlfriend was sitting on the steps of his motor home all alone watching. as you know denise has never ever met a stranger. i can't remember the girlfriend's name and don't know if she and denise had ever met before, but instantly the two of them were sitting on the motor home steps chatting like they'd known each other all their lives. ben and i stand and the 4 of us gab for about 15 minutes, never bothering gene or talking to him (he was obviously VERY busy). gene quietly put down the tools he had in his hands and walked towards the motor home, said "excuse me" and went inside. about 2 minutes later out he comes, hands denise a photo album, and goes back to work on the race car without saying another word. we open up the album and, lo & behold, it's his personal photo album of all those famous cars he had built in his lifetime. not professional pix, but the ones he had taken himself. it was really hard to keep the drool off of the pages.

eventually we all piled back into big olds and were about to drive away when kent fuller pulled up and stopped. he slowly walked around big olds and then quietly said "fadeaways... (long pause)... needs fadeaways" and walked over to chat with gene.

around that same time period i had helped a friend (many of you know him) when he was restoring a 1948 V-8 60 miget racer. i also went with him to several out of state antique races to be his pit crew. one trip to belleville kansas (the high banks of belleville) i got the chance to drive the car around the "worlds fastest 1/2 mile" a few laps. very cool. i know i wasn't very fast but it sure felt like it.

i went to the first 11 R&C Americruises. at the first one ('93) in springfield, mo, i had just finished the top chop on clarence. it had a windshield, but no door glass, front or back. all of you who were there know that it rained an hour and the sun shined an hour, then repeated over and over. i had brought along some plastic sheeting and a couple of boxes of binder clips. you know, the big paper clips. every time it started to rain i'd park and clip plastic over the tops of all 4 doors. then when it would stop raining i'd remove it. and repeat. and repeat. and repeat. but i was THERE! and i was driving my own hot rod! not the 1st big show i'd driven it to, but the first after the chop.

earlier that week, on the way to the a'cruise, the late steve osborn (weeds on here) and i stopped at a macdonalds on the way to pete & jakes where we joined up with the other cruisers. it was pretty hot. no, it was really hot. steve was in his '29 rpu with a removeable cloth top. he asked me if i had room in clarence to put the top, and of course i did. a couple of bolts loose and the top was in the back of clarence. steve and his son jack were in the rpu and the wife/daugher (lois & sally) were in his other wild custom pickup that we all just called "the white truck", since unless you were there when it was being built there was just about no way that you could tell what it started out as. well, after we got to and left pete & jakes we headed down 71 towards joplin. i always kept one of those spray bottles from wally world in clarence. it wasn't as good as a vintage air unit, but a spray in the face from it was better than nothing. so here we are cruising somewhere not too far over the speed limit when steve/jack pull up in the left lane and ask if they can have a squirt from the spray bottle. sure, i says. 80 mph and i'm handing jack the bottle. pretty soon he hands it back. then, as they knew that wherever i was there would be a cooler of pepsi, they asked if i had any. sure i says. 80 mph and i'm handing jack a couple of pepsi's. they drop back and i lose them from the mirror. the sky is getting black waaaay up ahead.20 minutes or so later the first sprinkles hit the windshield (remember, the only glass in clarence). next overpass i come to i pull over under the bridge. lois & sally pull in behind me a minute or so later. i walk back to the white truck and ask lois if she knows whether steve wants the rpu top. i don't know she said, "but i'll ask". she queues up the CB (remember, this is pre-cell phone days) and asks if steve wants to put on the top. "hell, no, there's a car show to go to" we hear over the CB as steve and jack roll past us at (again) over the speed limit. lois nails the white truck and i run back to clarence. it takes me 10-15 miles driving at insane speeds to catch up with steve. somewhere i've got a 35mm pic of a small dot in the middle of a wall of water; steve and jack in the fenderless rpu throwing up twin roostertails 25 feet or so in the air.

then there's the colorado trip when 4 cars of us went to the pueblo mini-nats and drove around the mountains for a week or so afterward. i could write a medium length book about that trip, but the biggest thrill probably was reaching the top of pike's peak in clarence. been there a couple of times since, but there's no kick in the head like driving up it in a hot rod.

i know you folks are probably bored stiff reading this, but, like most of you, i could go on for about a hundred pages or two. these stories are just the first ones that popped into my head. perhaps i'll add some more in a few days. i wasn't going to spout any of my drivel at all until someone mentioned a baracuda. that just turned on a switch in my head and i couldn't help myself. i wish i could write like roger jeter or jay carnine 'cause they could take these memories and nail you to your seat reading them.

the next thrill i hope to experience will be the actual commencement of construction on the T modified i've been collecting parts for. the one after that should be the first ride in it. that's assuming, of course, that i don't get any rushes in clarence first, which is always a possibility.

 

ok, i'll quit editing the previous response and add one more post.

this one includes 3 episodes from the americruise trip to snomass village, colorado. JD & mary in their big window, 429 '56 ford pu and me following somewhere westbound in the middle of kansas on I-70. we're chatting away on the CB's, as usual, when jd says "mike, i'm gonna slow down a bit, the truck's getting a vibration". about 10 seconds later it's "mike, i'm...." as i see white smoke billowing off of the front right corner of the '56 and the brake lights come on. they slow to a stop on the shoulder and i pull in behind. by the time i get up to their truck jd and mary are looking at the shredded front right tire with the most pitiful looks on their faces. i said something like "it's no big deal, let's just put your spare on." jd tells me that he doesn't cary a spare. "again, no big deal, my spare has the same bolt pattern. get your jack out while i get my spare out." to which jd replied "i don't carry a spare; why would i carry a jack?" long story short we get him back on the road with a new tire from the farm store at the next exit.

second is not really a specific incident, but the overall rod run. up in those mountains there aren't any "locals" to crowd around the hot rods with their pissy gf/wives (who just don't get "it") moaning and complaining; no dogs peeing on hot rod tires; no crowds; nothing but hot rods & mountain roads. each day members of the local car club who were helping out led day trips in the mountains, taking us to places we would never have found on our own. somewhere i've got two mooneyes stickers and a styrofoam antenna ball that chico gave me one day when we stopped for lunch together. i hope to find the stickers by the time i finish the modified. i'd sure like to put them on it.

thirdly is the picnic lunch that jd, mary & i had on top of independence pass on the way home. as you know that's over 12K feet high. we took food from missouri for the trip and there was a bag of potato chips that mary had bought in mo that hadn't been opened yet. we got them out up there and the bag was blown up just like a mylar birthday balloon. very unscientific proof that there just isn't as much atmospheric pressure up high than there is in the flatlands. anyway, there was snow up on top and mary & i had a snowball fight in our shorts, tee shirts, & sandals. jd just ate his sandwich and watched.

 

the best story yet; gave me a lump in my throat.

 

I have an OT car (a 1966 Marcos 1800 GT) that I vintage race. It is number 79 of a total of 99 of that particular model that was built by Marcos. So it is a really rare and unusual car. I am constantly having people come up and saying something stupid like "my neighbor/my friend/ a guy at work has one exactly like this." Yeah right! So against this background I am at a car show where the Marcos is prominently displayed and an elderly lady appears at my elbow looking at the Marcos. She is easily in her late 70's or early 80's and dressed in a suit like she had just come from church (it was Sunday). After looking at the car for awhile, she remarked, "I used to own one of these". So I humor the lady by saying something along the lines of "that's nice". She circled the car a couple of times, looking at the car but not saying a word. Finally she was back to by my side looking at the car but still silent. Finally she said, "would you mind if I sat in the car for a moment? The Marcos is exactly 41" tall at the peak of its roof and not easy to get into unless you know how. I replied, "sure go ahead" wondering where this was going to lead... The woman folded her elderly frame into the car without any problem. Then I watched in amazement as she "re-discovered" one item after another that only someone who owned a Marcos would know. Obviously, she had at one time owned a Marcos. I guessing she was from a rich east coast family and probably owned the Marcos when she was in college or immediately after college. The Marcos was more expensive than a E Jaguar when new so only a "rich kid" could have owned one. Watching this lady as she relived a part of her past was truly inspiring. After sitting in the Marcos for perhaps 5 minutes she got out, thanked me, and left. What a wonderful experience and I am glad I was there to be a part of it.

 

got laid in my camaro in high school...that was pretty awesome

 

damn...mine too...driving at that age can be a nerve wrecking experience especially with all the legalities...lol

 

lol...mine was in the back seat of a chevy blazer...while her mom was driving us somewhere...oh how i miss those days

 

My Dad wrecked a LOT of cars when I was small. I would "help" him work on them. He was a hot-rodder until he destroyed his 63 Impala ss 327 4spd. I was in 2nd grade when he wrecked it. I thought everybody wrecked cars. He did his level best to discourage me from being a hot-rodder. Too late. When cars are so much of your life you have thousands of experiences, good and terrible, which makes it tough to pick the best. Being able to shift my old Nova at 6500 rpm was a blast to me because I built the engine myself. I was 17 yrs old. peace

 

Atch
The other day the wife and I were talking about our first HAMB Drags. We showed up in the middle of the night on Friday night. A fella from colombia met us and paraded around the parking lot at the Ramada with a flashlight showing us everyone's car. Remember that?

As far as recent memories go that is a pretty good one.


That was a pretty damned good year at the Drags. Lots of good stories from that year.

 

My best experience was when I was a young father and my son was 2 yrs. old. I was in the garage under my '55 gasser trying to finish up a trans swap. I reached over to grab a tool from my work tray and felt bare belly. My son had slipped into the garage and was laying on the concrete floor beside me in nothing but his shorts and shoes. I still smile when I remember this, and he's 41 now.

 

Back in the mid 70's,my then girlfriend and I were cruising through the wilds of Vermont.
Had "Born to Run" blasting on the 8 track.
"Tenth Avenue Freezeout" starts and my girlfriend says
"I like this song,it would go great with a hummer"
Zzzzziippp.Hit the replay a bunch.
Can't help but think of that whenever I hear the song.

 

You musta had one of those "fancy" 8 track players....

 

Har har
Craig Powerplay
Replay back then meant hitting the rewind.