What's worst thing you've destroyed in your hot rodding history?

When we were 19 in '80, my buddy came into a bunch of money
- a little old lady cut him off while he was street racing and "caused" an accident. He "claimed" a back injury - what would be insurance fraud these days. so what does a 19 year old trailer trash with sudden money spend it on? Why a low mileage '67 Camero rs/ss. he then (and this is the part that hurts to this day) CUSTOMIZED it. The fattest tires he could get with molded on 4'' wide fender flares, a UFO mural on the trunk, and long blue fur glued through-out the interior.
The list of "improvements" goes on but it just hurts.........

 

Not a car but Ihad one of the first honda three wheelers in the us natually I modifed it till it wasnt recognizable, Now they are the most collectable atvs in the hobby. I have been gathering parts from fleebay to restore one as pentence.

 

Me and my Dad cut up a Perfect '66 Chevy II SS to put a body on his Dirt Car. It was a red car with white guts. Absolutely perfect car with the original 327 and 4-speed. Cut it up with a torch!!! Still makes me sick every time I think about it. The rest of it sat in our back yard, perfect white interior with console and bucket seats until I was in high school. Damn shame. The engine and transmission went into a '57 Chevy truck that I drove to school so maybe it wasn't a total loss. The Dirt Car was BadAss but, I'd still like to have that Chevy II back.

 

sliced and diced three 32 ford coupe bodies for modified racing. Did the same to five 29 roadster bodies. The racing was fun, but I wasn't that great at keeping out of trouble. Glad the bodies were next to nothing, or my saturday nights would have been boring.

 

In 1965 cut a 55 chevy hardtop through the flippers in half so we could lift it on to the(borrowed) high school`s flatbed got $12.50 for it and partied all weekend. beer was a quarter,cigs $.25 and gas was $.25

 

What, Recently?
Lessee...
Turned a 64 Tri power Goat into a race car. A REAL one. Patching up the 4 speed hole in the floor hurt a bit...but a th400 built right is technically, faster. at least it's still pontiac power.

48 Caddy Sedanette...Trans am Clip, trans am rear end. gonna get a great big caddy motor.

Rolled a 69 ss Camaro at the dragstrip...yep, I had the build sheet on it. (In my defense, it was a race car when I got it.)

removed COUNTLESS factory hi performance parts in favor of newer go fast stuff. (I'm a muscle car guy .) I usually throw the parts in the trunk of whatever I am playing with.

I am personally accountable for the demise of about 20 sets of Hi perf big block chevy heads.

I have thrown away probably 100 "good number" quadrajets (considering what they go for on E-Rape, I regret that.)

I have passed probably 3 dozen Dominators through a bandsaw. (get 'em closer to the runners that way) killed off a ton of Blowers.

probably 25 or so 9 inch rear ends.

I have cut the guts out of so many Chevelles, Camaros and Mustangs, somewhere, there is a mob complete with torches waiting to lynch me.

all in all, I don't regret it much. why do you think some of these cars are worth so much? if it weren't for me, L88 Chevelles would be a dime a dozen.

Working at a race car shop is bad for the collectors soul. after a while, the owners get so obsessed with speed, they lose sight of what they are doing. Sadly, I got to be the schmuck that actually did the cutting.

On the upside, I have 0 fear of Mr. Sawzall.

 

Me too...scrapped out my ultra-cherry 56 Olds convertible for the motor because the slim-jim tranny went out and nobody in our little town would try to repair it..
Used the 240 HP motor in a equally cherry $10 '50 ford two door sedan.

 

My brother and I took apart a 28 model A when we were kids. This car was mint, it still had cloth on the seats! Way did we take it apart... just to see if we could. All the parts were lost of course and my dad even made a farm trailer with the frame.
One good thing out of all this, I just went back 50 years later and found that old frame in mint shape hidden under that old bail trailer dad built all those years ago.
Merry Christmas everyone... WD40

 

in 1945 my uncle drove a 32 vicky to the scrapper, right in the parking lot he torched the interior, busted out the windows and put a screwdriver through the tank. They gave him enough money to buy a case of beer.

 

My uncle and I at one time thought it was cool to adapt car bodies to 4wd chasis. We did a few that were just jokes, an old Gremlin, 74 Vega, and an old Pinto. But then we started to eyeball this old '49 Olds 2dr his nieghbor had. To make a long story short we gave him $200 for it and in 2 weeks we had a '49 Olds with a '93 Bronco Chasis. We rolled it on one of the trails and ran it over with a D8 CAT. The one I regret constantly is scraping my '60 Effie, but shit happens ya know?

 

Well, we've all trashed cars in wrecking yards to get what we want - I personally ruined some cherry 30s tin...Also, from my youth: Got a free '56 Merc 2-dr hardtop for the drivetrain (to replace the blown engine in my '53 Ford 2-dr wagon) and lost my workspace (rented garage) in the middle of the project, so gave both cars to the landlord. Merc was black and perfect, with perfect white interior and trunk full of speed parts - wagon was also perfect, but in primer. I heard both cars went to the dump...
So I guess nowdays I'm overcompensating...

 

Parted out a 49 Merk. Convertible in the 70s just because it had a few bullet holes in it.

 

You name it and my dad probably scraped it. The family buisness was a towing service in the 60s and 70s. They would sometimes crush over 100 cars a month. Sometimes people would drive the cars to their house and just park them there because they didn't want them anymore. My dad and his brothers would take the cars up in a field behind the junkyard and race them. To this day he still talks about if only they put the cars into storage, than he wouldn't have to work anymore.

 

1976. Blew 2 rods out of a Ford 427 sohc. Little did I know that years later that motor would be worth almost as much as the 1967 Shelby GT350 that I sold for little of nothing to support my racing habit.

 

I was a teenager in the late 70's and one of my several projects that went nowhere was this Popular (Anglia). It was in great shape less engine and I bought it for $75. They were plentiful and cheap in New Zealand back then. I gutted it and started boxing the frame, lost interest after a while and pushed the shell down the bank at the end of the road where I lived. I really wanted an American vehicle.

 

A FRIENDSHIP, and actually I wasn't the one who destroyed it but the other guy (He will most likely say it was me though).
THE STORY: I met this guy a couple of years ago while out looking for Model T parts. We really "clicked it off". We went to many swap meets together, "Back to the 50s" car show, went to vendors, took each other to our other respective friends places, sold and traded parts back and forth, gave parts back and forth and just had a good time talking about old cars. We even rode our motorcycles together one time to go to another guys place to talk about Ts. When we rode together in his truck or my car we always shared gas expenses.
Sounds like great friends doesn't it?
Well I bought a matched pair of 1926 Minnesota License plates from him. They were wrapped in a Newspaper which was folded so as there was paper between them so they wouldn't get scratched. When he handed them to me I only looked at one of them but could feel the second one was there also (I didn't have to look at the other one, I fully trusted him that it was a pair and in the same shape), the deal was made and I thought it was the end that.
A few days later he says to me "I want my other plate back", I said "what do you mean"? he said that there were three plates, I said no there were only two (I looked at them when I got home the same day I got them from him and the two of them matched). I thought he took my word about it but a few days later he came over to my house to pick up a T radiator shell of his I was using for mock up, and said again that he wanted his plate back and while he was leaving, he says something like "well this ends our friendship then", I didn't hear what he said and my wife was there also so I asked her what he said. She told me, so I ran out in the street after him and said he could have the pair back if he wanted them, but in a huff he just left.
I called him and all he said was that he wanted his plate back and hung up on me. I even had my pastor take the pair of matched ones over to him to give them back but he said they wouldn't do him any good because I had registered them all ready.

A REALLY GOOD FRIENDSHIP RUINED OVER A STUPID $20.00 LICENSE PLATE THAT I NEVER EVEN GOT

I lended him two '35 Ford wire wheels and gave him two 33/34 wheels for mock up on his T coupe and I just left them at his place, I'm sure I'll never see them again. How ever the most distressing thing is that the friendship is over.

Oh ya, did I mention that he's a H.A.M.B.er also?

 

My family Economy

 

Well kiddies my best effort was with a friends car, he bought a running, driving '31 Chevy 3W coupe for $175.00 of course at the time no one that I knew wanted a stock 31 chevy or old chevies in general. So we decided to mess with it a bit. About that time a guy that was making fiberglass dirt track bodies ran us down and offered us two glass bodies if he could use our metal body to pull a mold from. So we began to disassemble the thing in earnest. The body was flawless, no rust and the wood was just as solid as the day it was built. We were in a hurry of course so we took a sledge hammer and skil-saw and beat or cut the wood out of the thing.
We never did see the metal body again, but we did get one body out of the deal. The gel-coat was dark maroon with twin gold metallic racing stripes running down the middle. Of course the car never went back together and I have no idea what became of the chassis and drivetrain. If ignorance is bliss I'll die smiling.

 

My 56 ford convert with a sledgehammer after smoking the clutch!!! that was back in 64.

 

Drove a 69 Cutlass 442 to the junk yard and sold it for scrap. Took the motor, rearend, seats and console out of a nice 69 Chevelle to use in a 58 Impala and scrapped the body. My Dad had a nice running and driving 40 Stude coupe that he let me and my brother totally take apart including removing the body from the frame. He then sold it for scrap. He also had a 64 TBird we did the same thing to. I flipped a 71 Vette roadster 6 times end over end. I had it in a show the day before and won a trophy. Rolled a 60 Impala 2 door HT. Kept the 283 and junked the rest.

 

Made a stock car out of a perfectly good 36' Ford coupe around 1962. Whatever was left of it became a doodlebug. Just this spring I went down in the woods behind the barn where it's been for 30 years and salvaged a few parts.

 

Nice thread at Christmas..after reading how thoughtless and stupid all y'all are,all I can say is you guys don't deserve anything for Christmas except a lump of coal...
Oh yeah,I parted a sweet 66 Nova SS,and...and...and...cut up and trashed a decent 51 Merc 2 dr about 25 years ago..
No matter how good I've been since then,I will be going to Hell for killing those cars

 

On the bright side, they'll run out of hose on those torches pretty quick, you don't have to run very far unless someone's manning the torch cart along behind.

 

Let's see...My oil pump died at a gas station that had a bunch of customer's cars. The owner said that other Fairlane over there has the same motor, I'll pull it and swap it for you. So he hooked a chain on a cherry 64 hardtop and rolled it over to get at it easier. It turned out that the guy who owned it, owed him a bunch of money. Hell it was in a lot better shape than my 4 door. I still cringe at the thought.
Oh yeah, I had 2 F1's at one time. I had to move, and had no place to put all of the flathead stuff I'd stashed away. I couldn't give the stuff away at the time, so I sent it to the scrap yard. 1400 pounds of mostly flathead V8 stuff, and a couple of spare tranny's. Now it's probably reincarnated into about 50 Honda's or minivans. That makes me weep!

 

1. I was pulling my '55 Chev HT up the street with my '29 A Coupe so I could coast down and start it by popping the clutch. The rope slipped and the Chev rolled down the street, jumped the curb, knocked the neighbor's sailboat off the trailer, punching a hole in the hull, then punched a hole in their house. Caved the whole rear end of the Chevy in too.
2. Stuffed my Thames gasser into the guard rail at Twin City Dragstrip in about 1967. Parted it out.
3. Let my teenage daughter drive my black on black '66 Chevy II SS and she totaled it.

 

the best thing I've ever helped to destroy:



good times.

 

Totaled a 1970 challenger running from the law in Arkansas. We had alcohol in a dry county in arkansas and somehow the law got to chasing us. If we only knew that challenger prices would go through the roof we might of pulled over. Ron

 

I parted out one of these, a runner driver in good shape, for the engine and trans. We cut the cherry body up with a torch and ran it over the scales for a penny a pound, back in '77 of course. Oh yea, the Star Trek aircleaner went into the trash. That 400 did make my '55 Ford pickup scream though! pigpen

 

Through the late 70s and all through the 80s I was into dirt track racing. Mopar was my car of choice. I was responsible for the death of 20 or more high performance Mopars for race car bodies, race parts, or parts to sell to fund the racing habit.

To make matters worse, in 2000 when we moved into town I "cleaned out" my 26 x 36 garage. Got $275 for 6,000 lbs of cast iron scrap, mostly big block Mopar stuff. Hauled off 13 car bodies also. Thing is, we transported 10 pickup loads of parts to my new shop, then 2 houses and 2 business moves later, nearly all of that is gone. Least between my son and I we built 5 cars.

Oh well, it was fun at the time. I never expected to be here still, how would I have considered that that stuff would have been worth more then it was then? Learn and move on. Gene

 

Virginity...