Event Coverage Did you cruise back in the day?

Absolutely. Telegraph rd was bumper to bumper on Friday & Saturday nights.

 

Grew up in a small Iowa town, maybe 10,000 population. On a Friday or Saturday night it was bumper to bumper traffic,
in the late 60's and early 70's. Everyone was there, and we called it cattin main street.

 

SS327… not all teachers are nerds or geeks. As a middle school math teacher who drives his hot rods to school and shares with the students the math involved to build a hot rod…it’s just the opposite.
As for the cruising…growing up in Waterford, Michigan in the early 80’s…it was pretty cool for racing, cruising, and trying to pick up the girls. We would cruise up and down 59 all night. What a time to grow up. You guys are right about kids not wanting their license these days… some could care less. Don’t really know what is responsible for this…helicopter parents maybe?

 

I was metro Detroit so Hines Dr. was another big one but that was daytime.

 

Well, I was born in 1946 so I pretty much had it good both with hot rods and muscle cars. I cruised Telegraph road and Woodward and street racing was the rage! Drive-in restaurants looking for girls and races. Oh, I forgot Stecker street also. I was there on stecker street racing video below plenty of times.

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOTlbpBoIlg&fbclid=IwAR2pUb2PIscFLYGl97C3ka_bGJJv2P8ovLz6Vy17XspHxy-zI4PGbiqRx9M&h=AT1N-FItt2M-jsbOjHte2JnD8BPHfCH4M0OVRpNU82aNJ0F-KfwvZdXOaM8st_jgAQyDEQPbcMhUOUntTP5bXONVvLg14__nVTiFycHBIrNw9bpwee02619cIaYmY12kdUwqUD5hXTfJCfPYgxs6

 

You're in the minority & then some !

 

I think there is a difference between "cruising" and just "riding around". I did a lot of riding around when I got my license in 1972. I was in rural upstate NY and there was no cruising strips in the area. I, along with friends would just go drive around all over.

I had read about cruising in magazines and of course, watched AG so knew of it but didn't get to experience it until I joined the Army and was stationed at Ft. Lewis, WA. I discovered the Renton Loop and would hit it up as often as I could. Experiencing it was amazing for a car crazy kid from the country. It was the chance to show off your car and look at other cool cars, like a rolling car show. And of course, our primary goal was to pick up chicks.!

Back then, having a cool fast car was a status symbol. You gained respect and admiration from the guys and the chicks knew you had capabilities and had the drive to get things done. Plus, banging gears and racing around was fun!

I do feel sorry for kids today. Social media and technology has replaced the face to face interaction of back in my day. In the '70s, if you wanted to meet people you had to actually get out of the house and go somewhere. You had to work up the courage to ask a girl out and then face the potential of rejection and public humiliation. It made us stronger people. If you were hanging out with a group of people you couldn't be a "troll" or you'd get put in your place pretty quickly. It made us better people.

 

As late as 96-97 we were "scooping the loop" in downtown Des Moines, and there were a lot of people doing it with us. My grandpa told me he would do the same thing in his 48 Chevy Convertible in the early 50's, and my dad told me he was scoopin' the loop one night in his 68 Corvette with the T-tops off and he was trying to smooth talk some girls when a bird pooped on his head through the open T-tops...

When I lived in Arizona in the 80's-90's lots of folks would cruise Central in PHX.

 

Of course! Whittier Blvd. There was a lot of other to do around here, so we might be at a party (any kids whose parents left for the weekend) or a concert, battle of the bands, etc. But if there was nothing going on, cruising Whittier Blvd was always an option. There may have been other cruises over the years but Whittier Blvd was the main location. You know, I'd prefer cruising to "Cruise ins". The authorities wouldn't like it though, they prefer when we just all park somewhere and sit in chairs. Ugggghhhh....

 

The freedom thing was a drivers license an a car to go with!!!,even if only your Mom or Dad's car at first.
In Florida in the 1950s ,Leaners permit @ 14 YO { for me that was 1956} an a Full Drivers License @ 16 { by 1958 @ that point could go cruise if* Mom or Dad would loan you there car },kid's could not legal own a car tell 21 YO=So Dad or Mom had to sign to buy a car,that was only called yours*,not legally.
It took me tell 1959 to get my pile parts ,running & driving,
I had worked on for better part of 3 years before { 28A hotrod } at least go around the block. Then in late 59 ,Dad did sign for a old broken "Henry J" ,I got driving by Jan. 1960.= I didn't think of it as cool car,but I could cruise when I wanted to! Not being happy with how that "J" looked,I started doing custom stuff to it right away! The trick though was,to do things so it would not stop me from driving it,for more then a few days at a time. That took planning out,before the mod was done! My 28A hotrod did not have a legal auto tag at the time or a top/roof =Rain was not nice in open roadster ever. I could run the "J" auto tag on the hotrod,but that was risky. So limited cruise that way ,too local Car Hop Drive Inn.
Longest 2 times not drivible for "J" was the 5 days it took me to add the Engine n tranny my buddy Bob Williams gave me.right when he went into the Navy. That Olds Rocket 88 n tranny was a tight fit,but got work done n driving in 5 days. The next was a 12 days of cutting off the roof,adding Study rear window up front and a little bit bent* from local bodyshop trash pile, 60 Chevy hood,trimed, skinned out n backward as a trunk lid/that was welded in,not made to open. The Chevy hood was bent in both rear corners pretty bad< Had come open when driving at about 60 mph ,I was told an bodyshop replaced it ,with new part,on what was a very new car. I lucked out getting that,an didn't need the corners anyway or under bracing at all.
The "J" was not very pretty ,at first,tacked together an being worked on,but was driving after 12 days, I cruised with some very ugly patchy primer work that looked different nearly every day.
So my buddys ether help sand at times n new,or just take note each time I'd cruise into our hangout.
By March it was looking awesome,an I made the first big auto show with it at Dinner Key.
That was hard an fast work,but loved it.
Turned out to be super good cruise full custom,** How ya know,is when a number of cute gal's ask for a ride !!!
Now that's CRUISEN an why !!!!!!

 

69 Model here. Yes we did in the 80s. LOTS of activity. It is still strong here. In fact the activity has been huge the last two summers. Kinda a big middle finger at the establishment abroad

 

There are a few threads out there already about cruising and hanging out back in the day, such as:
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/old-chicago-hang-outs.342875/

 

Lot of time spent rolling around in the mid 80's in a '55 Chevy wago. Me and my friends worshiped American Graffiti but it wasnt quite as rich a car scene in cow town, Texas. We made do, though... plenty of fun, tire smoke, stories to tell and gas burned.

 

Yep, Broadway street, downtown Portland, 1969-72, then after graduating high school and starting trade school, cruising was pretty spotty, first time was memorable but not in a good way.
I got my first car, a 61 Impala at 15 so had to wait a while to drive it but my pal had not gotten his first car yet so he was actually the first one to drive my car (legally), but he moved away before he had a chance to actually go cruising.
I also had a punk neighbor that actually talked me into going downtown for the first time.
I had just put the Hurst Syncro-loc shifter in the Impala so I was game for it.
This guy was always causing trouble so he thought it would be great fun to put it in neutral at a stop light when I wasn't looking.
I was oogling the chicks, well, he didn't actually get it completely out of first gear and when I let out the clutch the thing gave out a loud crunch and broke some gears, needless to say, I got my first lesson into how to R&R a transmission.
That kind of left a sour taste in my mouth for cruising.

 

Cruising was my regular summer evening activity from 1957 until 1962, by which time I was married. Sometimes I'd put 100 miles on my car in an evening (San Fernando Valley, Hollywood, West L.A.) without actually going anywhere.

 

Does a bear shit in the woods? 70s, 80s, 90s and now the nights before the organized "cruise" events like Telegraph and Woodward. As time wore on so did the purpose. In the later 80s and 90s it was to enable and participate in racing. Not in the cruise areas, but we'd cruise, park, shit talk, shuck n jive, and do our best to instigate a race somewhere. As the cars got faster we needed some "privacy" so we'd yell "OUTER DRIVE AND PLYMOUTH!" but go off to Eckles, "Cherry Hill Nats" or even Ecorse Rd out by Willow Run airport while the looking on crowd went to Outer Drive. Safer, faster get aways after. I miss it, but it wasn't always smart to run a 10 second car on the streets. Would I again? Whatca got...

 

Absolutely. From McDonalds down to the dock and back again. Got to showoff what you had done to your car or stereo in the last week. Meet friends and see if maybe the girls would let you touch them. Got my liscense in 1978, gallon of gas was three quarters, you might be able to find that in the couch cushions. After 7 pm you could park in the Brewers retail lot. In the early 80’s they paved part of the main drag with 4 lanes and 3 stop lights, that was even better.

 

76-77, I was working in a grocery store after school and on weekends until 9 PM. Cruised and raced between red lights on Main St when I could, other times a bunch of us would gather in the Grocery store parking lot after they closed. Serious races we went out to the river bottom straightaway, 1 1/2 mile long with a side road on each side to exit off on if the law showed up. CB radios helped us keep up with the cops.

Got married in 78, wife and I still cruised Main a few times on Saturdays for a while after that. Then it just faded away. There never was any push by the locals to stop it, just seemed liked people just quit coming. The sidewalks were rolled up after dark, well really by 5 PM, and the only thing open was Sonic until I think 11 PM, but it got so shitty nobody would eat there and it closed for several years. Now, you roll through there on weekends and it's like a ghost town. Still nothing for kids to do just like there wasn't back then. There is a McDonalds and Taco Bell , but nobody hangs out there. Sonic is back, but it's crappy again, so not many folks eat there. Nothing to do but walk around in Walmart.

 

Loved Cruising. Lived for it
Did it alot in the 80s till they outlawed it.
Drive past same spot more than once on weekend night in a cool car, get pulled over.
was considered a moving violation too.
Quit after my second ticket for it

 

Cops eventually busted down on cruising in my town. Always brought on racing (of course) but smart racers always ducked out and found a place out of town to do business. I never participated in the cruise scene, but hung with the race crowd to stay out of jail. Weekend nights were spent @ the drive-in checking out the competition rolling through town.

Joe

 

Yep, born and raised in Phoenix, AZ..got my license at 16 in 1964, but started cruising Central Avenue
with my older brother in 1960...great times. Back then you have to understand there were no such things
as cell phones or pagers, so if you wanted to find someone, you either called the land line or drove over to
their house. But, THE place to be or be seen was on Central Avenue on Friday or Saturday nights, either
in your own hot rod or your buddy's. On Friday night you lined up potential dates for Saturday night.
Best times of my teenager years. Cruised faithfully until I got married in '71.. And THE place to grab a
burger was McDonalds for the 15cent one, or if you just got paid, you went to Bob's Big Boy for a
55 cent double decker burger. Here's a shot of Bob's on Central and Thomas and what I drove back then.

 

When I went to get my drivers license, you had to go to Troop A and get in line at 5 and wait for them to open at 8.

I drove to the best Of my 16 year old ability and then Smokey the Trooper looked at me through mirrored sunglasses and his flat brimmed hat…..”Boy you did ok, but driving is a privilege not a right, so you fail! Everyone needs to respect that. Come back in 30 days and try again.”

I was crushed.

 

I don't care what anyone say's...There was nothing like Southern California cruising in the 1960'-70's. Hot rods, low riders, mommy's car, family's in the family cars and our own music from each car bellowing over the headers.
We had our places...University Ave and Magnolia Ave, Riverside...Brockton Arcade... E Street, San Bernardino... Parking lots, and then off to Whittier Blvd, Whittier if we had time. There were other spots but you can't make all of them in one night.
We had a Tuxie's Drive In, two McDonald's, a couple of Taco Bells, a Naugles, a Del Taco, A Der Wienershnitzel at the Riverside Plaza and near the Magnolia Drive In Theater and two Denny's to eat at and a Dairy Queen.
There was hardly any fighting going on. Everyone knew not to cause trouble or the L.E. would shut it down.
The authorities began to slow the cruising down in the early 1980's due to the complaints from the neighborhoods. They started to maintain a heavier L.E.. They started blocking off the turn around intersections and posted signs for no U turns. The L.E. began to park at the parking lots at the request of the owners. They cut us down to only a few cars to a pack. They limited cruising hours with a cruising curfew..."It was murder, I tell You. MURDER!"

 

I was born at Castle AFB in 53, so technically that was Merced, but in reality, the base was closer to Atwater, and we lived 3 miles out side of Atwater , which was Winton, and our house was another 3 miles further out in the country, past Winton !

Winton, back in those days, ( population 2500 ) looked a lot like the little town in the movie " The last picture show " it was a real piece of shit town, we kids, never let on that were from Winton, people would just look down their noses at you and it sucked.

Our High School was in Atwater, but Atwater
( population 12,000 ) wasn't much better, there was a Fosters Freeze and an A & W there, but they were not really a place to be seen or to hang out at.

The so called action was in Merced, ( population 25,000 ) 17 miles from Atwater, and that was where we as kids, in our cars, would go to cruise 17th street in Merced. I started high school in 68, and graduated in 71, so I caught the tail end, of the good old days of cruising in Merced, and that whole San Joaquin Valley scenario of what American Graffiti was all about.

George Lucas was from Modesto just 30 miles from Merced.

There were a variety of known cool parking lots that we would congregate in, The Bank of America parking lot, Merced Motor Parts, parking lot, if you could get there early enough in the evening to claim a space, the lot was small, but it had a perfect view of the cars cruising by.

Back then, gas was 26 cents a gallon, a pack of Marlboros was 25 cents, we could get Wolfman Jack on our AM car radios, and we all thought we were cool, by just cruising up and down the main drag, looking for the party, trying to attract the attention of girls in cars, etc, etc .

This area of the San Joaquin Valley, was a hot dusty little hell hole, of an agriculture based economy along with the Air-Force base, so it was a mixed bag of people from everywhere, and a lot of cowboys that were locals, and a whole lot of nothing going on, we had to drive to Fresno, 50 miles away, to go to a Pacific Stereo store if we wanted to buy any Hi-Fi equipment, there was a TOWER RECORDS store there as well.

All of that, is so different now, 17th street was modified and narrowed to stop the cruising, any of the kid's , that have graduated from the local high schools there, in the last 40 years, have no clue as to how cool it was to " drag the main " on 17th street back then !

I left the Valley in 79 and have been in Seattle, ever since then.

The vehicles I had back then were, and not all at the same time.
My first car, a 57 Plymouth 4 door savoy with a 318 and type writer transmission.
A 65 Volvo PV- 544
A 68 mercury cyclone
A 59 Dodge station wagon with a 383
A 63 Ford, 4 door galaxy
A 1941 G.M.C. K-18 signal corp panel van, which was my favorite rig, because it was different and we could party in it !
And we did party in it, a lot !

 

Been there, done that. 1962 till 1970 or so.

 

I tell my students a drivers license is necessary to work in the automotive business. A shop can’t insure a worker without one.
I rarely ever have one that leaves my class without one.

 

Cruised

Well said, these blanket denunciations of people are just wrong. Hot rodding is alive and well, and, as you said, most teachers are NOT nerds or geeks, let's stop the blanket mud throwing.

 

I grew up in the sixties and turned 16 on a Wednesday and got my drivers license on Thursday! I lived about twenty miles out of town and tried to get to town as much as possible! Loved going to town at night to cruise. But I noticed all the city kids were kinda bored, because the cruised every night! Too much of a good thing, I guess. Chased girls, raced cars drank beer! Must have driven a million miles over the same loop in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Still do it upon occasions, when we have a “ cruise night”! Still fun,but the wife won’t let me chase girls anymore!






Bones

 

Lived in Pasadena, CA, late '50s, early '60s, so cruising was not an option, it was mandatory. I cruised Colorado Blvd. just like the song, hung out at Bob's Big Boy on east Colorado. Met Dean Lowe at the Powerine one night, talk about a really nice roadster pickup! This was my ride, '31 roadster with a 324 Olds. My buddy Chris Winter took the photo.

 

I remember “scooping the loop” in Marshalltown Iowa in the late ‘60 and early ‘70s. Down Main Street, then a left down 3rd avenue with a stop at Henry’s Hamburger for a bag of 15 cent gut bombs. Back up 3rd to main and repeat. Usually a few street light hole shots in the process. Good times.