Posted these photos on another thread.... had a lot of questions about them.... My brother bought the car in 1977 ? - minus motor and box, from Te Kuiti, and at that time he knew it had previously ended up in a drain or creek or something, - at least that is how I heard it as a 14/15 year old. My two brothers and and probably some helpful friends did it up in time for my sisters wedding in March 1980. - See bottom photo. He sold it in late 2004 approximately. In the lockdown in April 2020, some one put some photos up on Facebook- Hotrod and Memories NZ I had never seen any of the photos previously, or had any idea of how wet it actually got. I recognised the car instantly from the colour, missing trim and missing front bumper, and from seeing it every day in the drive on the family farm, - see top part of bottom photo. I was surprised by the interest created back in April, (but we were all locked up/down and spent way too much time on the internet). Clemens. Tom Mason explains what happened.... My rodding days in Wanganui, I purchased this blue 57 Chevy for $1,100.00 Jeff Macintosh & myself did the road to pick-up the Chevy from Levin in 1975, I then sold the car to John Thompson who sold it to Jeff Macintosh. Jeff and Raewyn (Stevens) Thomson.. took the 57 Chev to Te Kuiti NSRA Nationals along with the Wanganui crew. One rained-out day at the nationals, Jeff, Raewyn and myself had a huge LION RED session at Te Kuiti Hotel public bar, good results . . . Jeff 110% Tom 110% Raewyn 75% was voted to driver the 57 to the NSRA camp ground/Te Kuiti Mangaokewa Reserve, the problem came when Jeff & Tom.. was URGING her to drift the arse-end on the wet gravel road (SHE DID ) next to the river, she got it sideways on the gravel, then sideways on grass.. over corrected it and 3-UP in the front seat we all disappeared into the river.....
The first pic got me thinking, all the toi toi’s. Had to be a Kiwi river. Lion Red will do that to ya! To much piss,and not enough corner.
When I first saw the pictures, I thought they were washing their car. Back in the forties and fifties before there were car washes, people in North West Mississippi used to wash their cars in the Coonewah Creek. It had a limestone bottom and you could drive right in. Summer car washing was part of staying cool. Guys would take their girl friends with them to help. I'd bet good money Vernon Presley washed his car there. Might have lead to the beginning of something really big --- that happened later. Who knows? Too bad the '57 in the photos didn't create a happy ending like that.
Don I agree , these stories are the most memorable . I'm sure there was a lot of laughter after it was over.
And you may ask yourself, "Where does that highway go to?" And you may ask yourself, "Am I right? Am I wrong?" And you may say to yourself, "My God! What have I done?" Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down Letting the days go by, water flowing underground Into the blue again, into the silent water
It's amazing what you can do the under the influence of some beverage, I along with some buddies when I lived in Flagstaff drove my 57 out towards the Havasupi reservation. We came to some forest service roads and found ourselves down at the edge of the Colorado river. This was pre cell phone and we didn't get in any trouble. We where lucky. Pat
That's a dead twin to the one that my uncle inherited from his grandpa in '68- along with the farm and a hand-start John Deere B that shared the garage with the Chebbie- both bought new and never slept outside until then. He hauled us kids all over in that thing, even towing us uphill on our sleds to go back down the hill again, over and over. My aunt kept a flyswatter on the front seat so she could crack us one when we were cuttin' up in the back seat... Six, treeonnatree w/OD
Had to revisit this, just too funny. Looks like the boys pushed down stream to gravel bar where there appears to be no roads. Would love to know how they got it back across again and if so are there pic's of that crossing.
If you haven`t driven down a dirt(mud) road and got stuck. Then pulled out by a tractor. You haven`t lived. Add that to your bucket list. Or driven into a creek(river).
Getting stuck and pulled out by a tractor was a regular part of my family's summertime visits to Saskatchewan.
It's good to know the only thing that might have changed in Te Kuiti in the past 40 years is their brew. Yeah right.
My best friend got his 68 Mustang stuck in the Republican river one Saturday night in the late 70's. Had it on a motorcycle trail along the river. He tried driving it from one sandbar to another like we did with the motorcycles. The river was always about knee deep between sandbars at the most. It didn't work out very good. Getting it out Sunday morning before church and so the whole town didn't find out is another story. Yup, alcohol was involved. Had almost forgot about it until these pictures brought back the memories.
Great pics, glad they had a camera with them. So many of these stories are lost without pictures. The cat-tails on the other side of the river look like they're 10 feet high!
Clem, did you figure out who took the pics? I didn’t notice that you mentioned it. What a trip and story!
Mike, Did you see it on Facebook, (link above in post 2), - your ‘55 is also in some of the photos, on our drive, although not sure if that was when you owned it or Kevin.
That was when Kevin owned it. Rear wheel archs were hacked when I bought it. I didn't realise Kevin owned the '57 as well.
no idea, although it may be mentioned on the Facebook post. This all happened before my brother bought it. I don’t know any of the people involved, and only saw these photos and story for the first time in April this year (2020) some 43 years after the event !
Thank you for filling us in on the story, as I suspected alcohol played a huge part in the '57 Chevy being in the river and survived the ordeal. HRP
love it...but at first I thought it was going to be that notorious pic that has been posted on the sitting and rotting thread 25 billion times
The Jalopy Journal
