A lot of us had a first hotrod that did not qualify under hamb rules, but was a hotrod just the same.mine was a vw bug, done in the fashion of the california kid. I wanted a 1934 ford so badly, but this was what I could afford. It all went great until I added the scoop. Oh well, it was still a really fun car what was your first car that you fixed up and made cool?
Yes, I drove it to bible college for a year in sandiego . It was a beast,very quick and fun to drive.
My custom paint 4-cylinder ’61 Tempest. Color doesn’t show on the picture, but it is painted Jetglow Metalflake over black. My brother pinstriped the white flames. Closest I could come to a hotrod as a 17 year old.
My first car was a 67 Camaro convertible that I built with my dad when I was 12. But, I never drove it. I lost interest and bought a 71 Monte Carlo when I was 14 and rebuilt it myself. I stripped it, did the bodywork and painted it myself before I was 16. It became my high school car that I drove until I was a senior. I don’t have any pics scanned of it other than this one. I made it run decent with a healthy small block with a big solid cam, tunnel ram with two Holleys, 4.88 gears in a 12 bolt, etc. It was fun but I sold it when I was 18 to build the next…
My brother still has my first “hot rod”. ‘41 Chevy pickup… Sold it to him when I enlisted in the Navy. Haven’t been able to convince him to sell it back…
Mine in 1977 [I was 16] LHD and 2 Door was rare in New Zealand back then. It had all the good shit with it [ 289 , C4 , Air Shocks, Dual Exhausts, 14 x 8 Cheviot Hotwires, Blonde Hottie ] And it was cheap to run , 'cause all my friends would pony up the gas money to come cruising I worked long hours after school to pay for it, and caused a major family argument because I wouldn't take "sound advice" from my parents [to save my $$$]
My avatar, my first car at 16, 1964, purchased body minus engine trans, went to my local speed shop (junkyard) got a 348 with Tri carbs, 3 speed w OD, spray can rebuild, added chrome air cleaners, I bolted it in with friends help, added a Hurst shifter, Sun tach on dash, 3 gauge panel under dash, recap street slicks, locked 4:11 rear, (shortly after a posi unit) glass packs, took front bumper off, set ride/stance with twist in spacers, spray canned side inserts and the roof ivory white, It all turned out pretty well, fairly fast, fastest car at my high school, took many $10/20 street race money, what fun and excitement it was. Had around $500 in it, (the good old days) my saved snow shoveling/grass cutting/paper route money. This car put me on the map as a car guy and it's still going on to this day, I was cruisin my Caddy yesterday and luckily for me no sheriffs were where I was. LOL. Car Crazy I am, still love that occasional tickle.
My first hot rod. Built in 3 months time when I was about 19 or 20 for about 3 grand .turned 13.2 with a junk 350 and highway gears.drove it to Vegas on the maiden voyage
No pics of mine aside from how it sits now(not pretty lol). But what I consider my first hot rod(first car I took from full stock to bruiser) is my 86 Cutlass I bought when I was 19 and still have. Was a bone stock 86 Cutlass supreme brougham with a 307 ho. Actually didn't mean to go full bruiser with this car. As I tore things up it was cheaper and easier to hop it up. Last time I drove it it was hoodless with with a cammed 72 350 Oldsmobile, 15x10 and 15x7 crager ss wheels, straight pipes, gutted interior with Taurus buckets, and a now legal substance induced flame job lol. Don't really have any race stories about it because everyone in the hick town where I lived then was into stickered ricers. Though I did figure out on multiple occasions that I was faster than all the local crown vics lol. I had other hot rods before it but they already had hop up stuff done beforehand even if I still hopped them up more and this olds was full granny lol
I don't have a picture of the car, but this is me taking possibly the world's first selfie with a 110 instamatic in my '36 five window. It was my first "official" hot rod. Circa 1987. The chrome window frames evidence my eternal attraction to the shiny. Yeah, I am a sexy bitch. Sweet ass mullet! Women wanted to be with me, men wanted to be me. That light on my face is the sun passing through the glass moon roof I welded in the top of the 327, dual quad powered coupe. Yeah...the ideas wafting about in that young lad's mind.
My first hot rod was the yellow '37 Chevy sedan in the picture, which I pulled out of cop's backyard for $5. Put in a 265" with a 3 spd. Sold it to my friend and bought my brother's orange '40 Chevy coupe. 283" with a 4 speed. Over the course of my high school years, here is how it progressed.
Bought it when I was 14 for $1500. It was black primer with keystones. Did minor bodywork Painted it in the neighbors driveway in a Chrysler fire mist? color, freshened the top end of the 350, 57 rear, 53 chev front, put in early Mercedes Buckets, saved up to plate the bumpers. Sold the car and it became a full 90’s custom and was chopped, molded fenders, suicide doors, hidden headlights, side opening deck lid, Porsche red…..
The 1st car I drove was a 64 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 with a 394 4bbl, that would have been in Sept 72. Quite a hot rod for a 16 year old kid. It was faster then anything my buddies had, even with 4 of us sitting in it. I killed the transmission, and burned up a pair of rear tires. No pictures of it. The first car my name was on the title of was a 69 Buick 2 door hardtop. I owned it for a tear and put about 10,000 miles on it. I also put 3 motors, 3 sets of rear wheel bearings, 6 new tires, and killed the limited slip diff. I paid my dad $62 a month for a year for the privilege's of repairing it often. It didn't hold up to this teenager's lead foot, the car was low performance (especially after the Olds) but it could be driven fast, but it didn't fare well with those 100 mph 30 mile trips home from visiting my girl friend at the time. The day after I made that last payment to dad, that heap was gone. I replaced it with a 72 Plymouth Satellite that I beat harder then the previous GM cars, but it never failed me. No picture of it, but we drove the car over 70,000 miles myself over 7 years. My 1st real Hot Rod was a dirt track car. Me and 3 of my buddies pooled our money and I built the 69 Road Runner into a hobby stock car. The week we arrived at the track (about 5 weeks into the season), the track eliminated that class We convinced them to let us run with the late models, which they finally did. All of the Hobby stock cars ran in the semi Feature (the slowest 1/2 of the cars in the pits) Out of 20 starters we finished in 8th place, almost a 1/2 lap ahead of the guy that had won all of the hobby class features up until then. Our take home was around $50, which was more then winning the hobby stock feature paid. The Mobil station sponsor was the gas station I worked at. He left me work on the car there, so we put his name on the car without him knowing. He pretended to be mad, but he had a picture of the car and me with all my buddies posted on the office bulletin board for many years afterwards. At the end of the season my buddies gave me the car, they had no interest in continuing. I was not the driver. That started a 20 year run as me being a car owner at the track. A couple years later they started up the hobby class again, and I stayed in the hobby class (all I could afford). I started to build my 1st HAMB friendly car in the late 80s (before the HAMB existed). I bought a rusty pile of cut up tin with a good title (that called the pile a 35 Dodge 2 door trunkless sedan) out of an abandoned stone quarry, where it was left to rot away for the pricy sum of $75. Though I was dirt track racing at the time, I soon discovered the frame was beyond hope and I didn't have the skills to build one from scratch. It took me 3-4 years to gain those skills, then the opportunity to apply those skills became available to me. I was hauling cars across the country, and worked for an old guy that ran a little welding shop between car hauls. The guy built trailers, and did a lot of small jobber jobs, and I worked for cash when I was available. The old guy decided he wanted yo go on a week long vacation and asked me to hang around the welding shop so he could keep it open while he was gone. The deal was, any work I did, all the labor money was mine, and any money for steel I sold was his. I asked him if I could build the frame for my 35 Dodge on the trailer frame setup and he was OK with that. He was happy he could get away and not have the shop closed. I got real busy on the frame, then I brought the body pieces in and set them on the frame. At the end of that 1st week, I had the body sitting on a rolling frame. No pictures of that. The old guy called me up and asked if it would be OL if he stayed there another week (he went back to his old home town) and I said sure. The next week I earned some money for me and him. The 35 went home and sat another few more years until I opened my welding shop in 1994. Then the 35 came there for something to do when things were slow. I started that welding shop part time, I had a full time job at a production welding shop and my boss knew I opened my own shop. That pic of my pile of 35 Dodge parts was shortly after I drug the pile home. The little kid is now 42. just to show I really did get the car built, this next picture is about 7 years later. We drove the car 77,000 miles in 7 years. The next summer after that last picture I sold the car in black primmer with flames, but no picture of that either. The guy that bought the car wanted all the build pictures, these two are all I have.
No picture but it was a 41 Ford pickup. I drug out of a salvage yard and towed 16 miles home with a TO30 Ferguson. I still have the tractor. It was 1962 15 years old. I built a bored and stroked 312 Y block for it adapted to the original transmission. I had the chassis all rebuilt and the engine installed when I started driving. We built a hobby stock 55 Ford and blew up the 272, it wasn't fast enough anyway, so I put the 312 in that. It was raced two seasons, and the car was parked because the team broke up, girls you know. My grand dad needed an engine for his 57 Ford wagon so I let him have it and he traded it on a 63 Pontiac GP. By this time I was street racing my Nova and kept that up until I went in the service. While I was in Japan Dad made a trailer out of it, cut up the body, and scrapped it.
A 63 Nova SS AWB, straight axle car with a bolt in 3 point roll bar and a glass nose. Put a dual quad 350 with an automatic in it and proceeded to scare the shit out of myself. Behind the police station I launched it and it wheelied for 3 blocks before the front end came down. Wore about 2” off the rear bumper. It scared me so bad I went home and pulled the engine and trans and sold the car the next day. All my cop buddies were laughing their asses off at me for weeks.
I dont know if it qualifies for hot rod but it was the first car I owned that I drag raced. It was a 58 Chevy Impala with the 348 and three deuces, close ration three speed and fairly low rearend. Had a lot of fun in that car. Didn't take any pics back in those days (60's) so no "proof".
No pictures, but I had a 39 Chevy Deluxe 2 door with Fenton split exhaust and dual carbs that I ended up destroying it when I had a headon collision, luckily at low speed in town when I fell asleep and was passing a truck. I was lucky to not get more than shook up and a few bruises when the driver's door flew open and I ended up on the terrace of a friends house.
The Jalopy Journal
