Hot Rods Automotive CARNAGE !...... What have YOU done ?

67 or 68 mustang GT 390/top loader 4 speed/ 9 inch w/ 3.90 and whatever Ford called their posi.
Blew up 3 390 engines in one summer- with the rise in gas prices we bought running motors for
$50 each. Finally found a 428 in a wrecked police car- rebuilt it to cobra jet specs with a healthy
overbore and a hotter cam. Best was 11.3 with belted 50 series. Sold it to a kid with more $$$ than
brains- he wiped it against a telephone pole within 24 hours, the front fender was into the back
fender and the rear axle was at a 45 degree angle to the car. The car was titled as a 68 but had
no side marker lights.........

 

LOL the first 10 years of driving in any time frame are glory years. I don't care what anyone says.

A younger friend bought a '59 Flat Top Buick that someone had built a custom out of when I was in my mid 20s. Root beer brown, subtle pin stripes, chromies with pinners, rolls and pleats, dropped about 3 all around. He said that it would make a cool "Hot Rod" so I took the front springs out of a big block Chevelle that I had parted out and made lift springs for the rear mounted to the top of the axle to the inside of the original springs, we threw a set of Craigers with Micky Ts on the rear and rattle canned flames on the front of it because all hot rods had flames.

Now everyone say this with me, "from the sublime to the ridiculous"

I was chatting with someone the other day, I have stuffed about one of everything in a car, a 440 in a Camaro, a 6 cylinder AMC in a first gen F 100 you know stupid chit. my next piece of automotive debauchery if I ever get the chance is going to be an FE in a Corvette.

 

This happened more than 20 years ago,so statue of limitations should prevent me from getting a arse whipping.

A friend and fellow club member Mike was building a 38 Lincoln Zephyr coupe and had bought a very nice original 4 door for it's pristine grill shell,hood and front fenders to use on the coupe.

Fast forward several years passed and he advertised trying to sell the old 4 door in a variety of publications.

A guy called him from North Carolina but only wanted the running engine and transmission so Mike was able to re-coop his original investment and kept the car.

A few more years past and I stopped by his house on a Saturday afternoon and he and his dad were in the driveway with a saws all cutting the car up and ask me to help.

Sadly no one wanted it and the body was perfect but he wanted it out of the yard so we hauled it to the salvage yard,we loaded up his dad's truck,my truck and his truck with the sad remains...today I think this is the worst carnage I ever inflicted on a old car. HRP

 

LOL I think you still deserve an ass whoopin'. Well maybe not for cutting up the Zephire but you must have done something wrong.

In high school my friend Tom (also known as the Mad Pollock (his own words)) captured his granddad's '56 Chevy 4 door hard top. His granddad was an aging gearhead and at some point had the interior done in diamond tuck ( no buttons) it had a corvette 2x4 283 and a four gear Muncie. We took the torch to it and made a dune bug out of it, basically a firewall with an engine transmission and long enough for the seat to sit directly in front of the rear axle. We were not at all gentle with it and didn't manage to salvage a single piece of sheet metal or glass.

 

In about 1980 I bought a BMW Isetta for $10 to cut up and make a go cart. I cut up the car but didn't ever get the cart done.

I am appalled at what they sell for these days. I'm hoping the high price on them is due to everyone else cutting up the originals; I'd hate to think that I was the only Isetta destroyer out there.

 

I bought a vintage 1962 Nova stock car a few years ago. Like many "late models" of the day it had been rebodied. It started life and racing for that matter as a 57 Chevy. I got it from the original owner/builder. It had the boxed frame like you find in a convertible. I asked the old guy if he had put a convertible frame under the 57 and he said no it was original to the car. That means he cut up a 57 Fuelie and went dirt track racing!

 

Harm - I love any story that includes the death of a Mustang, but the L-88 Camaro story killed me.

 

Back in the lat 70s early 80s we gutted a many nice 70 camaros for late model dirt cars and some real nice 67 chevelle for the hobby stock cars.
We never would cut up a rusty car always went for the nice ones.

 

i would be band from here if i told ya...

 

If only I knew then what I know now. After all, nobody wants that old crap anyway.

 

Back about 1973....I had a paper route, and ''my ride'' was a nifty banana-seat bicycle with handle-bar streamers & playing card in the spokes making ''awesome'' motorcycle sounds....one of my paper-route clients, had a 1956 Thunderbird off the side of the house, and he asked me if I wanted to buy it just to get it outta there. An old farmer, who had no use for non-running cars of any description... the ONLY thing missing on it was the carb and rearview mirror ...even the glass was pristine as well as the interior....he wanted $250 for it, and I could take it away down the street to our house 3/4 mile away. I hee-hawed around it every day for about 2 weeks, trying to decide...''wellllllll, ya' know....I ain't sure'' and I told the farmer I ''guess I'll pass'' on it. He had his 16 year old nephew visiting him about a month later, and they totally destroyed the car with shotgun and bb-guns one evening...having a great time target practicing at 25 feet. Man, I still wish I didn't have to witness that...I still think about it, especially when I remember riding my bicycle up to it the next day in the driveway, ....the car dragged out with a tractor, and hauled off unceremoniously the next day....I could have driven it outta there with a used $20 carburetor back then!

 

Like one of these I'm sending out for media blasting?
My personal faux pas was the '67 Nova SS with all options that I whacked up for drag racing, what is left of it is in my avatar.

 

Wonder how long before the traditional police lock or delete this thread...

 

In high school (1968) I had managed to collect several 55 Chevys of all persuasions, hardtops, posts and my daily driver Nomad (no converts tho). I donated a pristine 55 Black and White 2 dr Belaire hardtop, 265, automatic, to the high school auto shop for everyone to "practice, mechanics, welding, auto body and anything else we think we needed to experiment with at the time". Man, we managed to absolutely destroy this car...when we ended up with just a shell, the auto shop teacher donated it to the school car club, and we put it all back together with a tilt glass hood, straight front axle, typical gasser that the club was going to race on weekends at Raisin City drag strip. Got it all together and the school couldn't get it insured so we never got to race it....they sold it to a guy that graduated a couple years earlier and 2 weeks later he wrapped it around an overpass barracade. Man....memories like these make my head hurt!!!!!!!!

 

OJ, I was just about to post the pics I have of it. Beat me to it. ! Now it will be your fault Ryan pulls the thread. LOL.

Dino

 

oj -

Yes sir...
Looks like a bit of work you have there.

Mike

 

Here's a few more shots of it. It's such a rare car, it's testament to OJ's skills for the owner to entrust it with him.

 

ooops !

 

About the worst thing I ever did was mess up a set of headers trying to beat them into submission to fit a car they were't meant for; eventually they went in the garbage. The was a guy in my high school class who had a 150 55 Chevrolet Utility Sedan AKA, Business Coupe, with a dual quad 301, 4-speed, and 4.11 gears. He wound up losing his drivers license for a couple of years. He lived out on the edge of town on a small farm his parents had; the land was hilly with trees and open areas. This guy took a torch to the wheel wells, threw some snow tires with chains on them onto the car, and turned it into an off road sort of deal. Course he beat the snot out of the car doing that, and it did't take too long before the car was no more. He destroyed a good car he could of at least sold.
I am Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

It involves parting out a nearly rust free, off topic 1970 Buick GS Stage 1 coupe and mutilating a 1971 Skylark convertible at roughly the same time. Too young and in over my head.

 

In 1973 I owned for one summer, a 1970 hemi cuda, 4 speed car, had wide ovals on the back. Got it from an acquaintance who got too many tickets in it, mom made him sell it. Nice car, to go out cruising on Saturday nite took three of my friends to pay for gas, a quart of oil and a used set of back tires. Lime green, black interior, most uncomfortable car I ever drove, everyone in the car drove the crap out of it, we all took turns racing anything that moved. That lasted one summer, I sold it for less than I paid, couldn't afford to drive it, even though I made good money then. Watch Barrett-Jackson now, I am floored by what my old car goes for now. To think that they were relatively common then, and I had no appreciation for them. Such is life.

 

A friend of mine in the 90's asked me to come help cut up a 55 Chevy. We cut that car up into little bits. Turns out that it was a golden anniversary 55. Pretty rare I guess but it was just another 4 door we didn't care

 

Growing up my best friends dad had a 34 Ford Sedan Delivery body that he used as a chicken coupe... well I always wanted it, and he finally gave it to me when he quit raising chickens.... but it was rusted out pretty bad, and I was a lot dumber back then... so after it sat in the yard about a year I scrapped it...

 

Around spring of '68, one of the roomies in the house we rented got his draft notice and signed the title to his '58 Ford 4-door. A nice car and only 10 years old. He was gone and just left it in the yard. Well, it had a good 6 months registration left on it but no one wanted it. One Saturday afternoon in a beer haze, the roomie who was in vocy school brought home a torch. We cut it in half and shortened it up. The back seat became the front seat. There was a dash, the back seat with window shelf, hardly any leg room, no top, doors or front fenders. The transmission was hooked directly to the third member. We'd take it out to the country by way of side streets, the thing would burn that right rear to the cords. After a couple days the 312 blew so we sourced a cop spec 352 out of the junk yard. Whenever it was on the road there would be a line of tire haze following behind it. It would fry that tire at any speed.

 

I've only owned 15 cars in my life..I've parted/scrapped five, three were pre 66..Sold five, one was pre 66..Have five now running and registered, two pre 66..Of the three pre 66 I scrapped by today's standards were very savable but that was late 60's, the 48 Austin A40 two door the rarest...

 

no body cares what you wonder?

 

In 1964, @16, I took a 56 Chev Bel Air convertible in trade for my 57 210 coupe, 348 tri-carb, 3 speed, 4:11 rear end that I put together from junkyard peices. The 56 was a beautiful car from California, WAY nicer than my 57. Being a dumb ass kid I succeeded in totaling it within 1 month of receiving it and of course, NO insurance. Did some street racing, Went through alot of cars before head came out of butt. A little later, @21, jumped in my Dad's midget and went through a tough learning curve, tried to knock down walls, flipped it and hit everything but a winners circle for a few years, still have that car, under restoration. Removed head from butt again and raced for 21 years and survived it, great memories from all years, even the " dumb ass" periods. AND I worked full time through high school, Always paid for my stupidity, never had a silver spoon, just a Lucky Star, worked hard all my life to pay for my fun.

 

When I was 14 I bought a 34 Ford Roadster that was parked on the street about a half mile from where I lived. I paid 45 dollars for it. Anyway my father needed the garage space for an addition he was planning so it went to the junk yard. Then the kid who ran into my 55 Chevy! Bent frame.

 

In the early 60's
had a buddy in the neighborhood whose dad had a 49 Merc 4dr. My buddy would drive the hell out that thing. We almost got killed a couple of times. He put it into a tree a few years later. He then got an orange 69 judge with the 400 and all that. He told me he would over rev it when he was drunk and bend the push rods. He was drunk one night a while later and put that one into a telephone pole. He also had one off the first Honda 750 cycles. and wreaked that,too.