Old Timers Unite---Give it Your Best Shot

[BO DUTCH]

How many of you old farts remember ? .........

I thought so........

How about "Big John and Sparky Breakfast Club" radio program on Sat. mornings ? In the early and mid 50's !!

Then there were Lake Pipes and Cheeter Pipes.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that ALL these thing we are reminessing here in this thread, were all in the past century!!!

Gad, that really makes me feel OLD !!

[Dan Semko]

Bo,
What about dual Glaspaks and Mickey Thompson cheater slicks.
Moon eyes/stickers and homemade plexiglass custom tail lights with the blue reflectors. Do you remeber the Sunbeam Tiger that originally came with a 260 cu in. engine then a 289 later. Screaming little machines. They used to smoke the old 356 Porsches on the street and always sounded mean. 63 GTO's with 389's and tri-powers... and 289 hipo Mustangs in 65. What a great era for automotive history.

[JimsGems]

Heck, I'm so-o-o old.... I forget.

[BO DUTCH]

Dano,

I had never seen or heard of the Sunbeam til one day it ate me and my "fast" bugeye sprite, Alive !!

I have been respectful of them sence !!

Especially the Red ones !!

[Rick Parker]

I recall the look on the face of a guy driving a 69 GTO after a friend & I blew em away in a Lotus Super 7. From stop lights and rolling several times! He finally asked what it was running for power. 1600cc Twin cam twin 40 DCOE Web's about 170 HP & weighed about 1000lbs. Pretty potent package in its day. Defined the term "Bare Frame".

Rick

[Dan Semko]

My brother had a Devin K Star powered by an Olds. The car was originally 1 of 20 made by Bill Devin and run on the Salt Flats. The front clip looked identical to a cobra and the rear looked similar to an Austin Healey 3000. The car weighed around 1900 lbs and was blindingly fast especially in 1969. My brother thoroughly enjoyed running SS 396's and earlier Goats because he could hook up faster with less wheel spin. Unfortunately the trans didn't have a blow proof bellhousing and we learned how dangerous clutch and pressure plate fragments were and how hot trans fluid is! Fortunately neither of us lost body parts but it really did a number on the tunnel and firewall.

[casaleenie]

Why I remember when you could ............................


Well, I don't remember, but I know you could do something...

[Rick Parker]

Complete 427 Chevy engines in the crate in 1966 for about $900.00. They were sitting on display of the partsroom at Frontier Chevrolet in downtown Fresno, it always caught the corner of my eye when ever I had occasion to drive by, which was often with all the cruising we did.

[Rick Parker]

Cheap car repairs:

In 1965 a friend brought his Mothers new '65 Corvair Monza to school, for oil change project in Auto Shop class. After he was done and during lunch; 3 or 4 of us in 2 cars went driving around and decided to cruise over to another highschool nearby. One thing led to another and we ended up racing around chasing each other through some neighborhoods. The guy driving the Corvair lost control and slid the car into a curb bending the wheel and the suspension arm to where the wheel was almost folded under. (Hello Ralph Nadar) Uh Oh! We limped it back to school, the guy was scared SH**LESS and hurridly gathered a monetary collection from everyone we could think of at school, the figure of around $45-60 seems to ring a bell. He called the dealer and they said they could take it in and had the parts in stock....whew! He cut class, had the car towed in, got it fixed and back home before anyone suspected a thing. Cost about $45.00
parts AND labor. Mom NEVER found out.
Good job Greg.........your secret is safe with me!

Rick

[Excaliber]

Oh boy,,,,,accident stories coming up, don't even get me started!!!

New girl friend. Picked her up in Grandpas 52 Chevy pickup. Showing off, I reved up the motor and dumped the clutch and broke the front u-joint. End of date, I HAD to get that truck fixed! Cost $10 for the u-joint (which was a LOT). Grandpa never did find out.

Ernie

[Edley Rondinone]

Did anyone mention "seatbelt interlocks" back in the mid '70s, where you couldnt start the car unless the seatbelt was latched!

[auto10x]

I can remember when a "rear end" rebuild resulted in multiple reverse speeds and one forward speed. The rear axle was installed backward with the drive pinion on the wrong side of the ring gear. Back then it could be installed either way. That was before brackets were welded on the housing to make it uni-positional.
auto10x
Bill

[casaleenie]

As kids we would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on.

As kids we drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors! We sampled cake batter and cookie dough with raw eggs in it, and survived. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, ice cream and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were not overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from it...

[petek]

"Be home when the steet lights come on."

Ah, remember it well.

Then again I grew up in gated communities ... Air Force bases!

Hey, remember those smudge pots things they used to use to indicate where they were doing road repair. Spherical things with a lighted wick at the top. Produced as much smoke as flame!

[KobraKarl]

Ernies driveline story reminded me of a hot hot date when i was 17..... I had recently purchaced a 61 studebaker lark from a little old lady down the road, after i had totalled my 57.The car was MINT with a V -8 and rather spunky. but I digress.

So the plan was ....as a matter of fact always was, to procure some reinlander or the like (very cheap beer) ,and head down any one of the local logging roads or old country dead ends....and set about solving that ever intrigueing mystery...So..... im driving down such a road with the fullness of of the evenings portent reflected in the headlight bouncing back through the windsheild off the hood ornament high alfalfa growing between the ruts in the road to the river...............then my car starts slowing down ....even with more and more throttle.....until the engine just wont push the car any more........after seriously weighing the urgency of the two tasks at hand ,...I errantly decide to first see what's wrong with my new chariot..

I step out of my car to a chorus of frogs chirping away and step into ankle deep water.....I have a look under my car and my drive line resembles a six foot bundled christmas tree....somehow I have snaged a piece of barbed wire with my driveline and then harvested a great cylindrical bale of hay in tranny tunnel l

The car wouldnt move ....so I spent my precious hours laying in ankle deep water ,slashing ...cursing ..,tearing my hands..,it took hours to undo it enough to back out ..

I got...., soakin wet , nearly froze, good and bloody.looks of pity.. but no comfort .....damn ::

KK

[BO DUTCH]

Street Lights?

Never knew what they were untill I went to the Big City, then they were gas lanterns !!
There was this guy whos job was to light them at dusk and snuff them out at dawn. That was keen !!

[Dan Semko]

How about brass spitoons in the old barber shops that had hard wood floors And glass barber shop poles that were illuminated and turned?

[Rick Parker]

Superman........Lois Lane, Jimmy OLson, Perry White, Inspector Henderson............and Kryptonite OH MY GOD!

Rick

[Dan Semko]

The Pink Panther, Inspector Clousseau and the great scenes with Kato. Other favorites were Benny Hill , the infamous Monty Python and Mr. Bean. They rank right up there with Tim Conway's rendition of "The Dentist" and my personal favorite W.C. Fields.

[G.R.]

how about Firesign Theater, early Cheech&Chong, or the Cisco Kid--Heeeey Ciiiisco--his sidekick Pancho, Hoppie(Hopalong Cassidy for you youngsters), going to Saturday Matinees at the the local theater $0.25, Buck Rogers or Roy Rogers serials followed by a cartoon or two, then the movie, Sugar Daddy's and Junior Mints for a nickel, buttered popcorn was dime a Coke was a nickel--