Cruising returns to Van Nuys Blvd

Hi Alan,

I read your private message, but, I'm not an expert with using this site so I could not respond to your message. We have not met, my hell of a guy comment was for trying to help. I can speak to you more about the art, but, I really don't want to do that here. you can contact me through my website kentbash.com if you like.

I probably should have said nothing about that guys computer generated art work.

 

Hi Groucho,

Yes, I was able to copy it, thank you. I will keep you posted on when the article will appear in Rod & Kulture. It won't be this next issue, because my articles for that issue are already in, but, likely the following.

Anyway, I'll let you know here.

Keep Your Foot On It....

 

I used to look at your poster for hours back in England, it was like a dream sequence to me.

Thanks.

 

Retro Cars Mag from England is offically there to cover it.


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Hi Nads,

Thanks for the comment about the hot rod art, I like the way you put it and in fact nearly all my hot rod art comes from dreaming about hot rods and customs.

It looks like your hot rod dreams has brought you a long ways, to bad you can't join us for the next Van Nuys cruise. Hopefully, the pixs on the HAMB will convey some of the excitement of bringing back the world's once most popular cruising venue.

Best,

 

Thx for the flyer. Imma pass some out at the All GM Show this weekend.

 

I was at Fred Badberg's shop today, he told me that the reason the Van Nuys cruise was always on Wednesdays is because back in the 50's all of the car clubs would meet on Wednesday nights, and that it was actually the cops that invited all of the car clubs to cruise Van Nuys Blvd. afterwards in order to keep them all in one place

 

Hi MCM,

The actual reason revolves around a girls club from Van Nuys High School called the Debutants who met of Wednesday Nights. The Debutantes sponsor was actress Jane Russell who once attended Van Nuys High along with actress Marilyn Monroe, baseball player, Don Drysdale, and actor Robert Redford. Because guys like to case girls, Wednesday Night became a reason to head to Van Nuys.

The other ingredient in all this was the Bob's Big Boy Drive-in in Van Nuys, which opened it's doors on June 5th 1951. At the time, the San Fernando Valley was still quite rural, especially out on the west end, and if you wanted some night life you had to go over the hill, or head to the Van Nuys Bob's.

Bob's early on became the hub of teen and young adult activity. It is likely Van Nuys might have never become the world greatest cruising venue without the Van Nuys Bob's. By the late 50s there were primarily 3 nights that people cruised Van Nuys Blvd. Wednesday Night was girls night, or club night, Friday was Cruise Night, and Saturday Night was date night which was the night you cruised with your girl.

Anyway, that a small fragment of the history of how & why Van Nuys Boulevard came to be.

 

Never heard about the Girls club thing, but yeah, Wednesday was always club night. Royal GTO's parked at Prestige Pontiac, Vans at the mortuary which is now Keys motors. Mopars were by the Chrome house north of Burbank and the L.A. Street racers were in Hughes (now Ralph's) parking lot and that's all my brain will let me remember, cause those were they groups I hung out with. Oh yeah, and the custom guys (we didn't call 'em low riders in the 60's) were at Oscars up by I think Parthenia below GM way before the over pass was built.

I was 10 when I started hanging out on Van Nuys. We lived accross the street from GM, next to Carnation just past Blyth st. My friends brother had a cool '56 Chevy 4 door hard top. I'd walk to Oscars, A&W and drool at the cars at Johnny Angels used car lot. Always rods and customs there for sale.

 

Didn't the Corvettes park by the car wash across from Bob's?

alan

 

Wow, I forgot about the car wash. The bikers were at June Ellens donut shop south of the Ventura Fwy.

 

In the 60's, the customs or low riders hung out at a place called "The Office" which for the life of me I can't remember the street name, but it was more towards A&W on the east side of the Bl.

 

I don't remember the office, but Oscars was the place I would walk to in '61-'62. The office may have been later. Oscars closed down about then to, so the guys would have had to move to another place.

Oscars was between A&W and the train tracks.

 

Where did the Hot Rodders hang out??...

 

There really was not a hotrod club on the blvd back then that I remember hanging in a specific area. The few that came out cruised, but I can't remember any real group of traditional hotroders. When I was cruising it was the muscle car, Van and import era. The oldest car I had then was a 51 Buick woody and man I was the odd car on the block back then

 

Hi Alan,


My sister (Burbank High Class of 1966), hung out at the car wash in her day. She did have a girl friend with a, I believe 1963 Corvette (spilt window). My sister had a white 1963 Ford Falcon Sprint (260/stick) with
baby moons. Her husband (North Hollywood High Class of 1965), had a new bright red 1966 Dodge Coronet R/T (440/auto), that he used to cruise Van Nuys with.


Rob

 

In 1974, I went back east to attend school. Being from California, the land of nuts and squirrels (according to the Easterners), we Californians took a lot of verbal abuse for that.

One day, we are at lunch when one of the New Jersey guys says "hey, any of yooze guys (that's how they talked) ever cruise Van Nuys Blvd.?". Well, I went on to say that growing up 2 miles from the blvd. allowed me to cruise for quite a few years. The stories of the girls, Bob's, the racing, the cruising, the entire deal kept these guys transfixed for the entire lunch period. The few other guys from SoCal also jumped in with great stories as well.

After that, they never made fun of us again. I guess we had made to the place they could only dream about.

alan

 

I worked for a company in the 70's that was based in Montvale, NJ.

One of the guys came out for a meeting and I took him to Van Nuys for a typical Friday nighter. He was amazed at the old cars and NO RUST. He was like a kid in a candy store.

I had a Cal look style beetle at the time and was amazed it was legal (almost) to drive.

He also was shocked we could eat outside at Micky D. he said they couldn't back there.

 

Thank you for the history lesson. I'm a cruiser from 1977-1979, so this stuff is very interesting for me. I sure miss the good 'ol days (before drive by shootings), but it nice that we can enjoy this once again. Life is too short...gotta grab all of the gusto you can NOW!

See you on July 8th.

 

I believe the Office was across from the GM plant, and it was one of the places Elvis hung out with his boys during the filming of Blue Hawaii.

 

LOL, I remember when I got back east, some of the cars were so rusted out, you could look thru to the trunk from the holes behind the rear wheels and see who had a spare tire and who didn't.

alan

 

There were actually tons of clubs that cruised the boulevard, and I would be happy to share some of their car plaques if some one can tell me how to post larger photos than these small thumb nails.

Anyway, here are 3 as thumb nails, my club was the Head Hunters, and like the Dukes we were out of Van Nuys.

The difference between VN Blvd of the 50s, and the 60s & 70s was size. The population of the Valley doubled every 10 years. In the early 50s Van Nuys was down town in the middle of the valley for most of us who lived on the west end. The ultra-wide boulevard was originally designed to accommodate the Red Car line with 2 lanes of tracks that traveled in either direction.
Eventually, the Red Car line was removed by General Motors, the ultra-wide
Van Nuys Blvd. was most inviting. Shoppers loved shopping at some of America's favorite department stores, Sears, The May Co., Broadway etc.

Need-less-to-say ultra-wide boulevard was just perfect for cruisin' All the hanging spots like the car wash, and other empty parking lots of businesses after hours was more of a 60s thing, and it was one of the elements that led to closing the boulevard to cruising.

But, without a doubt, Bob's was Cruise Night Mecca. The line waiting to pull in at times stretched up to a mile. Bob Wian liked kids, he hired them and catered to them, and working there was the kind of hard work that prepared you for military service.

The success of Van Nuys Boulevard as the worlds greatest cruising strip is what led to it's demise.

 

The thumbnails are fine, if you click on them you can see the full size image.

Cool, I always wondered why that huge space was in the middle of the road...

 

The interesting thing was the VNB ballooned in width between Burbank and Oxnard, the rest of it seemed to be a normal width. Wonder why that was?

alan

 

bash,

please tell us more, more pictures would be great!

thanks.

p.s. i still miss seeing all you guys at bobs burbank you guys are a big influnce to me. ( bash, bruins, rick, pat, evil ed, ect, ect,)

 

Hi Miguel,

I still see Bruins Sr, Rick, Pat, and occasionally the Evil one. We've been hangin' at Star's Diner on Sherman Way at Mason. I may swing over to Bob's one evening in the roadster.

I would love to show more pictures, but, I have to be careful and save them for the book. My writing partner is going through a bad time now, and I need him to get it back together to finish this thing right.

Anyway, see you on the 8th Stay Cool

 

went by stars a month ago kicked it for a bit. but then left to go to bobs. some of us customs show up at bobs after 8pm now.

 

Kent, I would really appreciate talkin about the blvd and hotrodding in general with you. The Blvd is what made my car compulsions escalate and led me to the industry I love working in.

There was a body shop on Blyth just in from the blvd that was always doing customs. I watched them lead in stuff, section a shoebox Ford and pancake the hood. I was in heaven. I always wondered where the cars have gone that this shop did and who the guys were.

Customs were the greatest thing around for me back then. The little pages and all the stuff that cruised Van Nuys excited me. I can't nor do I want to stay away from it.

Van Nuys Blvd was an elixer and the place as a teen I needed to be. I have life long friends from there.

I don't know where I would be today without the Van Nuys Blvd experiance.

 

hey bash do you have any vnb shirts? if so bring me a xl tonite thanks

 

The bar across from the GM plant was "Chevy-Ho"