Art & Inspiration Fuzzy Dice and other Add On's 50's-60's

When I got my roadster ready to drivr a few years ago, my grandaughter gave me some fuzzy dice and they're still hanging on the mirror. But I think I'm going to privately ask her mother how to go about telling her I thinks it's about time to take them off and hang them on one of my trophies

 

"Organ Pipes" over the speakers. I was born 20 years too late but I grew up at "cruises", car shows, and around a car club. I've always liked the mild customs so I run curb feelers, organ pipes, and a shrunk' head in my lowered 52' Lincoln.


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I sometimes rib my friends by staring at their ride and solemnly stating "I've found the J.C. Whitney trim-out to be highly underappreciated."

 

When I was Cruising back in the 50's I had a Girl's Penny Bracelet on
my Rear view Mirror ( which I still Have ) in the Glove Compartment.
now but almost everybody had Smitty's muffler's
Just my 3.5 cents

Live Learn & Die a Fool

 

I graduated in 2005 so my '70 camaro I had, had a 383 stroker, Muncie 4 spd, diamond tuck interior. Yes it had fuzzy dice but those were from my dads 70 camaro when he was in high school. Now my '63 wagon , '51 Coupe, and '30 A roadster all have fuzzy dice. I'm a gambler so it seems appropriate.


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up here the dingle berries were only found on cars running with red green and white flags on the antenna.we also called them wop balls

 

Boy, I had a lot of 'stuff'... Favorite was the shrunken head, my Mom hated it! Gearshift knobs...(piston out of the lawn mower, Briggs & Stratton pressed down over my melted Ford gearshift knob...Piston was dull aluminum, the real thing.
Heavy 'skull' gear knobs, once I cast a 'Johnny Speed' head from a large doll, attaching my 'trademark' handlebar moustache to it. Many double-takes on that one! "Hey...your head's...like...on your gearshift...Wow, Dude..." Ha! Looked just like me!

Norm Grabowski was displaying his 'Kookie Kar' at the Normandin's Chrysler dealer showroom, 1960 (?)
Norm was there with the car, but the skull gearshift knob was now mounted in the rear, on the 'U' bolts at the top of that tall 'A' sedan spring. Norm had carved a wooden knob in the shape of Natasha Badenoff's head (Femme Fatale from Rocky & Bullwinkle)
I talked like a Dutch Uncle, but Norm would have none of it. None of my money, either. KOOLEST knob I ever saw.
Yeah, so I'm carving one now. Bass wood, 4" high. To go in my '27 tub.
Some shit never changes...

 

Back in the day one of the worst things that was pretty common was Lake Pipes that were not hooked up to the exhaust system. We called them kick stands.

Gary

 

I remember some of the guys in our town ran those ugly blue clearance lights on their rear lower shock mounts. They also had "hi-jacker" air shocks so they could run N-50's tires outside the fender openings.

We've come a long way since then!

 

There were guys that hung baby shoes from the rear view mirror. I used a playboy bunny shifter knob. Some guys bought Candy Apple brand window tint and sprayed their windows blue, red, or green. There were also the famous Little Trees air fresheners.

 

No fuzzy stuff here.
Bought a tachometer with my first paycheck @ 16.
Later on, win decals from Ct Dragway.
Couldn't buy them at J C Whitney. ;-)

 

What about naked lady suicide knobs?

 

Somebody build this:
Tri-5 Chevy 2dr post car (you pick the year)
Drag racer/gasser but not a tube axle nose bleed street freak
Minimum 8pt roll bar unless HP requires more (!)
'Glass front end, no front bumper
Race buckets and stripped interior
On the back of the car, one of those white circles with a red line running through a pair of fuzzy dice hanging from a mirror. The car's name? "No Dice", of course.

 

Highlander - I like it.

 

Back in the mid 50s, I had a girls silkkirchef hanging on my mirror, early a y pipe for exhaust, before I could afford duels. 2 Inch echo cans exhaust tips. 6 inch lowering shackles on the rear of old Fords. The name, Night Mare written on the trunk lid. Oh to go back to more simple times. My first car was a 37 Chevy, now I drive a 37 Terraplane. I'm 81 years old and still can't afford a new car, I guess my dad was right, kid you'll never amount to anything,

 

How about chroming your dash? And old three spoke steering wheels?

 

I forgot about the 3 spoke steering wheels, I bought one (metal flake) for one of my cars back then, 15" replaced a 17" no power steering, made a big difference in effort required. Some guys would chrome the inside window trim, windshield trim, front and back, always liked chrome. Nice dashboard !

 

Thanks!

 

Hello,

When I first got my 58 Impala, the AM radio was the best thing to have, cool sounds, variety of stations, and a rear speaker in the back seat, center emblem for early stereo. But I saw a custom car at a show that had a record player mounted on the hump under the dash.

I had some 45’s like all other teenagers. The record player had special springs and mounting stuff to make it glide over small bumps…or so the information stated. A older friend had one in his car and we drove it all over the area to see how nice the sound was from your own music. It was good.

The record player did its job of playing the music. But the slightest bump made the needle skip. Not good for 45 style record longevity or sound quality. The local installer said that there were adjustments to be made to allow small bumps and not have the needle skip… I was skeptical but after the mechanic/installer did some adjustments, the player did its job on most bumps. When a big bump came, it skipped as usual. So, it was a no-go on this add on music player.

Jnaki
I decided to add more speakers under the dash instead of the record player. The next new add on was a reverb unit ("This was short for reverberator. This was an electronic device added to the receiver designed to electrically delay the signal from the radio to rear speaker and created the illusion of a stereo signal. In essence it added a depth to the recording, almost like a concert hall with a bit of echo in it.") in the trunk that made a clunk, hollow sound when turning on the power. It also made it sound like music in a hollow chamber. I disconnected the reverb unit and when I sold the Impala in 1965, But, it went with the car. A little silver box that made funny sounds with the music from the AM radio.

My dad’s home hi fi/stereo unit for our house had a record player, an AM/FM radio, a reel to reel tape player and two big speakers below, all in one unit.


So, since I recorded a ton of top 40’s music off of the radio onto the 7 inch reel to reel tapes at home, I wanted to get something to play the continuous music tapes in my car. I also recorded a couple of reels of my own small 45 collection. So I had the tapes, but nothing to play them in a car. A neighbor allowed me to use her older reel to reel portable player at my house. So, I put the portable unit in the floor of the rear seating area and hooked up the wires to the stock twin speakers. I had a 12v converter that allowed me to play this reel to reel player in the car.

The sound was outstanding, but again, when I went over small bumps, the tape sometimes skipped because the portable player moved. Yes, I should have strapped it down, but I wasn’t supposed to be experimenting with this tape recorder/player in the first place. The continuous music was…music to my ears, but the format was not conducive to taking people around in the back seat. Back seats were important in this Impala, as I had to take 3 people to school every day, among other things. I had thought that trunk had plenty of space, but it wasn’t handy to just reach back and change the reel to reel tapes.

Jnaki

So for the next several years, I endured the AM only radio for my music. But the sound of the powerful 348 Impala was music to my ears. Now, about those Buick Skylark wire rims and conversions…

 

Winky the cat

 

Crowns over the speaker grill were popular when I was a kid. I think they are still popular with some of the Cholos.

never had fuzzy dice, but until I met Mrs. beaner there was a pair of panties in the back of any car that I owned. When we bought our merc (two weeks to the day after our first date) me being the wise man that I am took the panties and threw them on the package shelf. She just smiled and when we were headed down the highway on our way to the swimming hole she just crawled over the seat and tossed them out.

I have always had a little Christmas tree hanging off my mirror. I don't know that it was a "custom" thing, but lots of cars had them the whole time I was growing up.

LOL I have been known to hang a red light off my punkin. Not sure why, but I have done it off an on for a long time.

I try to keep a compass in my cars these days. The little round ones. Not a custom touch. When my granddaughter moved in with us the first time (when she was about 4 I think) we had an '80 Power Wagon that we called the bump 'n' bash truck. We used it for hauling stuff and driving the snow and other stuff. it had one of those compasses on the windshield. For what ever reason it fascinated her and any car I have had since then has had one. She usually buys me one if I don't have one (the first one she bought for a nickel at a truck stop (grandpa helped a little bit))

 

Hey Beaner, those little green christmas trees just hid the smell coming from those lost panties

 

Just like the old joke - shithouse door of a tuna boat.

 

Well they did come from a really nasty girl.

Double quilled porcupine comes to mind.

 

Early 60's EVERYONE had a Clay Smith Cams Mr. Horsepower decal in the quarter window.
Blue clearance lights under the dash were common along with your girlfriends scarf around your rear view.
Don't think it's been mentioned yet but real cool would have been white floor mats, impossible to find now.

 

Mrs beaner said she didn't need to mark her territory (although I ended up with her sandals and a beach towel). That is what your girl friends stuff was for, same as the fuzzy dice originally. I never gave it a second thought at the time, girls have always confused me. About 2 or 3 days after she told me that one of the girls grabbed me in the hall and pulled me into the girls bathroom. It skert me a little. Then she said, "just look at this." In lipstick on the bathroom mirror in big letters it said, "Don't mess with Ben he's mine!!!"

I still tease her about that and she still acts like it wasn't her.

I see repop white floor mats from time to time but there is just something off about them. I can't put my finger on it.

 

I know, right?

 

By about '68 in the part of the country I was in all the sticker racers had Champion Spark Plugs and Perfect Circle piston ring stickers.

 

♪La Cucaracha ♫ horn
A padlock and a length of chain latching your hood and hanging a bit below the front bumper..... 'cause you've got more engine upgrades than NASA and you don't want somebody stealin' yer mojo

There were fuzzy dice but they weren't widely used. So they shouldn't be considered mandatory for the current crop of rods. 1 or 2 pair at a car show is the saturation point.

 

I think if you could actually find an old knit or crocheted pair of dice like they actually used to have it would be cool.

All this has got me thinking though I really need a pair of panties for my back seat.