History Your wildest street cars..

Wagon-- Not mine, but I saw it at a R.I. car show and thought it was pretty cool!
Model A coupe is one I'm doing right now, powered by a 327.

 

Mike,that wagon was owned by Micheal Williamson here in South Carolina a few years ago,it is a cool looking ride. HRP

 

Great thread.. Very cool cars...

 

TheMoose - wagon bumper added after painting? Wild & trippy car!
The ''hottest rides'' were out of my crowd's reach. There were a couple older dudes who had stuff sticking out of their hoods.

 

Yeah Moose, the Pontiac/Olds rear axles were the most bullet proof back then. The owner installed a set of hand fabricated traction bars. Bet you haven't seen a set of these in a while.

Your '57 Chevy brings back so many memories. A guy in our area had a burgundy '57 with the same stance and I lusted over it. Then he put it up for sale. I wanted to buy it but my dad said no. Had to graduate from high school first. So what happened? A fellow student bought it. Every day after school there was the car. Maybe buying this '54 makes up for what I lost.

 

wildest car I was around was a 34 Plymouth sedan owned by an older co-worker, Glenn when I was 18 in 1970. it was a black 2dr sedan with a 427-435hp tri-power, 4-speed, & 5.38 gears. unbelievable power & take-off. red & wht tuck roll interior, soft top insert was white with a big red diamond, chrome wheels. it influenced my vision of my current 40 Ford a lot. dont have a pic of it then, but its now owned by a guy in my car club running a sbc & newer stuff. looks totally different. pic attached is of the 34 now & my 40 now. Glenn always had cool cars, in addition to the 34, his daily driver then was a 68 XKE, his wife drove a 69 T-bird, Glenn had an original Shelby Cobra (the 2-seater, not a Mustang) in the mid 60's, numerous 34-40 Fords with Olds or Nailhead engines in the 50's.

 

I ordered an Olds F85 2-door, post, sedan in the 60's. It was plain as could be with rubber floors, bench seats, drum brakes and not an ounce of chrome. I checked the boxes at the dealer for Muncie/Hurst 4-speed close ratio, 350cid with W30 package, heavy duty radiator and suspension, limited slip 390 gear ratio and some other go fast parts I can't recall. I started with headers and raced it 'til I lost... then added something and raced 'til I lost..... added more, raced 'til I lost until I hardy lost anymore. It was my daily and at the end it had the biggest hydraulic cam from the 455cid, an 850 double pumper spread bore Holley, 11:1 pistons, 488 gears, traction bars, and air shocks, and a blueprinted engine. It launched like a catapult off the line but ran out of breath before the end of the quarter. This made it King Kong on the street, though. I had one friend who had a new 440 Charger and after I spanked him bad on the street, he traded it for a new 440 Dart. When I spanked that, he bought one of those 750 Kawasaki bikes but I don't remember racing that. I raced 427's and hemi's but because they always shut down after I put a freight train between us, they never knew that they could catch me at a thousand feet, plus or minus. I had the big kind of fun until my brother over rev'ed the engine. I was married with kids by that time and couldn't scrape up the cash to fix it. Later on, I traded the roller for a nice paint job, though.

RIP Olds F85

 

^^
I had a Nova with a 400 sbc, 2 barrel carb, sagnaw 4 spd., and 10 bolt open rearend. For what it was, went good out of the hole in 1st and 2nd. After 2nd it fell flat. But like you wrote Shift Wiz, guys would shut down after I pulled a car length ahead. If they'd stayed in it, would've beat me.
People asked what I had in my car. I wouldn't tell. I liked the remarks that I had a big block chevy.
I later redone the car with the usual performance stuff (355, Muncie, 12 bolt posi)
I still liked the old set up better.

 

I built this from plans published in Car Craft magazine ca 1968. 337 SBC, hydraulic cammed, Muncie 4-speed.

Surprisingly streetable.

10.36 @ 133 mph

 

Here's one I built. It's in Cali now.

 

My wildest car was a 67 gto with a stock ram air III engine out of a 68 gto. Close ratio muncie and a 4:11 rear gear. Stripped of the entire interior besides the 2 front seats. No heater. Just a tach and oil pressure and water temp. Was what I consider pretty fast. But not near as fast as the stuff you guys had. Ran high eleven second quarters on street tires.

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Dean, I miss the 60's as well, there was not a better time to be alive, I think about that often!!

 

Wow Chuck, very cool!!

 

This is a fun thread....

 

About 1980, had a 283 bored out to 292

 

An addendum to my earlier post:
In my town not many guys could turn a wrench. They bought showroom fresh cars and maybe bolted on a couple of things but they were basically stock. They made it easy for my 350cid to beat 400+ "big blocks" that had no traction. I was an 80 pound runt my freshman year. A late bloomer smaller than the smallest girl and still only 132 when I graduated. (I eventually grew to 6'3" & 200 lb) That car changed my world and I finally was able to start kickin' ass and takin' names. I got the confidence to start a business and date the prettiest girls in town.

That car was a benchmark car in more ways than one. I made it fast and it made me bigger than most for the first time in my young life. I still miss it 50 years later.

 

When the nephew and I built the 51 Chevrolet Business Coupe I gave him, and then used virtually all my parts and $$$ doing it, one of the things we did was raise the car up. The front was done with 2-1/2 inch spacer nuts (16 of them) and longer grade 8 bolts. No where near the altitude of this 54 Chevrolet, but the same principal. WHAT was used to achieve that lift? All I can see is the swap bar and LONGER bolts were used. Although this is a local 54 Chevrolet, I have never seen it, only photos. Seems to me it also has a clear sheet of plexiglas for part of the firewall? Our 51 was a Street Gasser build, using mostly parts I had on hand, and was my attempt to turn my nephew into a car guy. I was the most radical street car yet for me, but even at that, it was mostly the uniqueness of the car more than anything. After he started his own aerospace CNC machine shop, he lost interest in the car, but would't give it back to me. When I finally started building an OT car for the strip, he finally decided to give it back, but it was too late for me to use it for the strip, and I sold it. I miss that car and really should have kept it. I do keep trying to scratch up the money to buy it, but something always comes up. Maybe one day; then it'll get the 454/TH400/57 Olds rear we should have built it with the first time.; I am Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

I had a friend growing up who had an older brother who was always in trouble with the law. In 1978 he got the option of prison or the military. He joined the Army and promptly went AWOL, and returned home with a nice dark blue 1970 GTO. He went on a rampage with it for about a month before he broke something in the rear axle, and beat and banged the poor thing all to hell. Walking past their house one day, I mentioned to his dad I would like to have it for the motor and he said to get it out of there, it was going to get repossessed and looked like crap sitting in his driveway. I didn't know any better at 17, and had a '68 Firebird that I wanted a extra motor for, so the pile of beat up GTO went to my mom's driveway, making MY neighbors very happy. A few days later, I was visiting another friend, whose brother was a roofer (his roofing occupation became imortant later). This friend's brother had a '65 Malibu that had a blown up 6 with a 3 speed, also taking up space in the driveway,and was white with a black passenger side door. My friend and I were daydreaming about putting the motor and 4 speed from the GTO in it, when his dad overheard us. He promptly said I could have it if I wanted it, he was tireed of looking at this pile of crap in his driveway. We put the motor and transmission in it, and I drove it that way for a couple weeks. About this time, we read in a magazine about removing weight from a car. Every hundred pounds was worth a tenth. So my friend and I removed every piece that wasn't essential for the car to run ( I also did my Sportsters this way a few years later). We also decided to remove the radiator support, and replaced with some conduit, removed the inner fenders, hood hinges, the reinforcements on the fenders they bolted to, and covered the inside of the engine compartment with flashimg we got from his roofer brother. No wiper motor radio, heater, inner stucture on the hood or decklid, man, we thought we were big time Pro Stock builders. I ran this car into the month of October, when the motor spun a rod bearing, ending the fun, which was timely, since it had become a cold pain in the ass without a heater/defroster. It sat in the previous owners driveway until his dad got sick of looking at again, and went to the scrap yard before long. According to the info we could find, we had removed 600 pounds from the Malibu, but the nearest strip was National Trail Raceway, and it was 70 miles away, so we never did get a ET for it. That was probaby the most fun I ever had with a car, we thought we were Gapp & Roush riding around in it.

 

Had this one in the early 80's. Paid $800 for it, put on the mags I had laying around, put a tri-power setup on the 283 and added some scallops to the pearl white. Had a lot of fun with this ride.

 

high5
I have never seen a lift that high using control arms.
The photo is a bit dark to see how it is done.
Do you have any photos that show how it is all connected?

Not something I would actually build, but it is a real head turner, and I have come back several times to look at the details.
Don't sell it, it's a keeper!
Bill

 

My Wildest is this I built 30 years ago, powered by a 388 SBC backed by a 'glide w/ trans brake. Drove it all over the Midwest, put 30,000 miles on it. I built the body from scratch and still have it on the Purple 2nd version I built 16 years ago. A few weeks ago, I decided at age 60 it was time for version 3.0 and I blew it all apart and I'm working on another creation of it.

 

Same here, not much at scarpelli's but McDonalds on east Main Street, the commuter parking lot between elm and main across from Burger King and the Stars parking lot.

Worked for Milos (among others) on east Main Street off and on from mid 70's to '89. Al was a life long friend.

Cliff Ramsdell

 

Bill and Butch, thanks for your interest. I don't plan to sell the car. It was part of my childhood. The owner lived a few blocks from my parents. So I saw the car evolve during the late 60's. Butch, the owner cruised Alki beach, Seward Park, and Golden Gardens. He showed it numerous times at Clark Marshall's shows starting in 1970. But Alki was his favorite.

Bill you asked about the suspension lift. As Butch mentioned, the front crossmember could be unbolted from the frame. It was just a matter of what to use to slide between the two components. Some guys used 2 x 4's from the local hardware store. You could virtually lift the car to any height and retain the stock ride quality. Craig just took it to the extreme. Personally I am not a fan of how he did this. But this is the second car I've owned done this way. So here's a photo. The blocks are 7" tall and made of steel. The rest of the height was made up from spring spacers, etc.

The pitman arm was altered to make the stock linkage work. I've checked the welding numerous times and it seems good.
Butch you asked about the firewall. It is steel. He just carved the doghouse out to slide the engine back. The interior engine enclosure is also steel. There is Lexan plastic used in place of the door glass. The stock rear seat was removed and replaced with ski boat style seats of his own design. Thanks again.

 

Not as wild as some posted but my 33 Plymouth was pretty stout street car. 302DZ motor, forged pistons, pink rods, nice port polish work, Engle solid lifter cam. M22, 4:56 gears. Chrome moly chassis work, three link rear. 2400 lbs. I bought it from and and sold back to the same guy.



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Boy does this car conjure up memories. A guy in our neighborhood had a white one with the same stance. Also had mags. Thanks for sharing.

 

Wow, It's a small world.... My brother- in-law worked for Al Milo sometime around the early 70's just before he hot drafted.

 

What was his name? Al had a station at the top of east main street near torringford west (Flying A)and then the Amoco station at 882 East main street.

I knew quite a few guys from the Amoco station, he moved there in 1971.

Cliff

 

He worked at the Amoco station...His name is Bob Basso..

 

Mid 80's.....

 

WOW! That's quite the lif; 7 inch blocks! Like I said, on the 51 Bus Coupe, we only raised it 2-1/2 inches, and then I sided plated/welded the inside of the suspension cradle to the frame, but only with 1/2' tack welds (so it could be removed easily). The guy I sold the car to dropped it back down, and even lowered the rear with lowering blocks. Car's for sale again, and I'd like to buy it back, but too many projects and bills keep that from happening just yet.
I am Butch/56sedandelivery.