History Any photos of House of Hardtops Portland, OR?

Ha! Must be an "off" day!

 

Back in the 60's when we were in high school we used to cruise by just to look at whatever cool cars they might have added. They sold a lot of Corvettes, and it was fun to dream about owning one. Occasionally they'd have some hotrods too, and almost all of their cars were in really nice shape. Just north of Burnside on Grand Ave.

 

The business was located at 203 N.E. Grand Ave but I seem to recall the car lot actually faced Union Ave. (now MLK Blvd).

 

And if memory serves that building just north of Mike's lot was a Delco Authorized shop that used to fix my GM stereos and 8 track players. That was a hundred year ago or feels like it.

 

My memory is it is exactly as shown on the West side of Grand Ave. facing East. A search of the business address shows the lot is still owned by House of Hardtops, and overseen by someone named David Stoner.

HOUSE OF HARDTOPS, INC. is an Oregon Domestic Business Corporation filed on June 13, 1967. The company's filing status is listed as Inactive and its File Number is 080877-10.

The Registered Agent on file for this company is David Stoner and is located at 203 Ne Grand Ave, Portland, OR 97232. The company's principal address is 203 Ne Grand Ave, Portland, OR 97232-0000.

The company has 1 contact on record. The contact is David Stoner from Portland OR.

 

Wasn't the Delco repair across the street and North of HoH?

 

I visited the lot several times between June 1967 and September, 1967, before I went into the military.
It was a real small lot on the corner of 206 N.E. Grand ave. and it faced West toward Union Ave (MLK).
This is accross the street (EAST) of 203 N.E. Grand Ave. in the picture. The whole lot that they were using was about 50x50 and the cars were packed together like sardines. The buisness had just opened in June 1967 and they probably didn't have time or money to clear the rest of the lot when I visited.
The two previous posters show 206 N.E. Grand Ave 13 years in buisness and the poster that says 16 years in buisness listed 203 N.E. Grande Ave.
This tells me that HOH moved accross the street between the years 1980 and 1983.
I remember looking at HOH from the West side of Grand Ave. and seeing the start of the onramp to 84

 

Cool this old thread is breathing again.....well this the only contribution I have at the moment...saw it online.

 

Prior to cruzen Commerce, everyone crused 15th ave. in Longview. On the weekends , the cars would be backed up on 15th ave waiting to cruise threw Cap'n Yoby's drivein and around the building and back onto 15th and do it again. If you were lucky, you would get a parking spot to back into and watch the cars cruise threw. It got pretty rowdy on the weekends and they had a cop in the parking lot to break up the fights and keep the peace. Cap'n Yoby's built a second drivein in West Kelso and then the route would be between the two. It got so bad that the city put up a curb to divide the street so you couldn't turn left into the drivein. When I got back from Viet Nam in the summer of 1971, the cruisen had moved to Commerce Ave.
The street racing was on Industrial Way, a side street alongTennant way and the top of the Raineer hill. Whichever one was free of the cops.

 

I've got all of maybe 13 issues of the rod magazine that was published in Portland back around 40 years ago out in a file cabinet and think there were House of Hardtop adds in it from the lot on NE Grand.
It's too dark, cold and freaking windy to go out in the shed tonight to dig for them.

 

Yep , real cruzin was the life for me from around 79 to 85/86 roll in to Commerce Ave , due the up and down the strip...there was so much going on from girls flashing there boobs out the windows of upstairs apartments to little private groups gathered in parking lots ,then when ever someone would setup a race then it was off to Industrial Way...race time...we started at the intersection 36th and Industrial using the lights for starting then run towards Ocean Beach, Willow Grove, the it changed to the direction of the bridge.
I would usually show up in town ,from Oregon, around 9pm , hit the Sub Shop on 15th grab dinner cross over to Commerce , swing by Unique Motors when it was on the corner and see what cool stuff Jimmy, R.I.P , had on the lot ..then the night would begin and usually
end when the sun was getting ready to rise...but there was a few times when one of my cars had to stay in town because of a breakdown or had to hide out in a shop till I could get it back on my own side of the bridge, one time escorted to and across by the cops
and it was all good...it really was like the movie American Graffiti at times...really miss them days.

 

This makes sense. I just remember looking to the east at the lot when driving by so thought it may have been partially on the adjacent lot. But, being located across the street at 206 would provide the same perspective, albeit going in the other direction on Grand.

 

I'd give anything to have clicked a photo or 2 of cruising on Broadway in Portland in the late 60s-70s. Three lanes wide, down the hill [stoplights every block] to the gas station where we'd turn around and head up the hill on Broadway......still 3 lanes wide and parking on both sides of the street. Was about a mile of so each direction with wall-to-wall hotrods and muscle cars. Met my first wife there, cruising in her girlfriend's 65 Impala. I was driving this 57 Pontiac...had a '59, 389 and a muncie 4 speed....great times!

 

Its REALLY was an American Graffiti life style,
Everyone seemed to know everyone, mostly by the car (s) that were driven.
The early sixties were THEE BEST, late sixties NOT GOOD !!!

 

It could have been, that was ages ago. Accessing files in my mind is like using a hard drive with a 9mm hollow point shot through the middle. It's there but some of it is fragmented.

 

I live 170 Miles from Portland and never got to cruise there in the 60's but had a buddy who had relatives in Portland that he and his family would visit on a regular basis and he would come back with stories about cruising with his cousin and checking out those car lots.

 

My grandparents moved to Beaverton in 66. They were down in Oakland, Oregon before that and any trip where they had to come up to Portland had to include a stop to look at Tindle's and HOH.

My grandpa still talks about a 58-60 Corvette that sat on the lot with a 427 big block and no hood. That car has always stuck out in his head.

 

A bit OT......
I have some good memories from my time cruising Broadway in Portland in the late 60's.
Just not the first one!
In 1969 I got my first car at 15, a 61 Impala and had just finished swapping the three speed column shifter for a Hurst Syncro-Loc, shortly after I got my drivers license and decided to venture into the big city for my first real drive.
My pal could not go but I really wanted to experience the cruising scene on Broadway and reluctantly let another high school mate "fill the seat" (all the a$s#ole was good for).
Made no more than two passes and pulled to a stop at the light, was so distracted by a car full of girls that I didn't notice that the dork with me had nudged the shifter into what he thought was neutral, well, it was only part way out of first gear and in my zeal to impress the girls I blasted away from the light and the gears in the transmission exploded.
So, it was back to riding the bus to school till I could save up enough money for a wrecking yard transmission replacement.

 

Ive heard so good stories from cruising Broadway, lol. My uncle landed himself on the news one night when they stated clamping down in the 80s. He was in my grandparents car and not supposed to be there, lol.

They tried reviving cruising 82nd when I was a senior in HS, but its didnt last long, was not a good area to be around at night in 2009/2010

 

My wife and I expereienced the same thing in the late 80'/early 90's, not sure which.
We were on our way to dinner and decided to take our 66 Suburban and just drive through downtown instead of the freeway, unbeknownst to us there was "police activity" there and got pulled over, I guess the officer could not differentiate us forty somethings from the young cruisers.

 

I cruised every hot spot in Portland through most of the 60's and early 70's. Never noticed any real change until I came home from the military in the 70's. The newer factory muscle cars changed what we saw, but all the older cars were still cruising the same places all through the 60's.
Broadway was a "social scene" for cruising, and traffic was often really stop and go all evening. Same for Yaw's, Scotty's Drive In, Tok Tok, and the Speck on Foster/Powell. But the Speck was the easiest to get in and out of, and least crowded.
Of course if somebody wanted a stoplight to stoplight race then 82nd Ave. was always hot on Friday and Saturday nights; especially after midnight. If you wanted a longer distance you headed out to a couple of rural areas that had 1/4 mile marked off on the pavement.
I really miss all of the 1960's cruising, and seeing the huge variety of cars. American Graffiti caught the scene, but in Portland the volume of cruisers was much larger then.

 

Reading about these dealerships brought back memories of similar lots in the Milwaukee area back in the early 70s when I was in high school. A real big one was Dale Chevrolet in Waukesha NW of Milwaukee. Wall to wall Muscle cars and street machines. We would go on all day cruises on Saturdays to check out these lots at least every month or so and daydream about what we would buy if we had the money. Dale closed up later part of the 70's or so. Became a Honda dealership at one point. World would be a different place if kids could still dream about what could be possible like we did then. They were great time compared to what young people deal with today. Larry

 

I spent a lot of time there as a kid. I was there on the fist days of the new shop on the corner by clary’s as well. My step dad and Ray where good friends.

 

Verde742, do you have any memorabilia from U Neak? I’d love to have a plate frame or something.

 

Any chance of purchasing one of these plates?

 

I was told this frame is from House of Hardtops in Oakland. Anymore info?