Cruising returns to Van Nuys Blvd

Plus they didn't have license plates back in the old days.

 

YA Bullshit...why even post such a lie!!!

 

Knew a guy in high school with a 55 Chevy...Right side primer grey, left side primer black...Car was split down the middle...his version of "cammo" from the cops...Don't know if it worked for him or not...We got busted going light to light one night on Nordhoff from Van Nuys to Woodman...
I paid a $15.00 fine for that one...Still have the ticket too....

 

OK, 55 Chevy stories?...............I went to High School (N. Hlywd High) with a guy maned Gary that had a 55 Chevy. It was that crazy, horny green from a 70 Roadrunner and it had a tri-power 389 out of a GTO. What ever happened to him, Jim Thomas(Tuna), and Pat Campbea?

 

here is a story i can remember,, well it happend every wed nite,,,,, cops with tape measures yep checking bumper height .....i also remember getting no fender tickets

 

I WONT call bullshit on that one .

One of my Dads favorite old storys to tell . He was going to take out 2 different girls on different dates in the same night and they were both really good friends with each other , one lived here and the other lived in a town about 30 miles away.

He was driving a 57 ford vert , a black one . He took the first girl out on the date and after a couple hours told her he wasnt feeling well . Drove the car home , pulled it in granpas garage , Took a gallon of implement red paint. Rubbed vaseline on all the stainless and masked the windows and painted the car . By the time he got to sullivan for the second date he had bugs stuck in the paint but it was dry to the touch . His girlfriend back here in town told him about her friends date the night before with the nice guy in the red ford convertable . She dumped him when he came over that day and his car was red ha ha ha.

 

Perhaps calling everybody's story bull shit, is bull shit. Often the truth is stranger than fiction, and who really needs a thread judge anyway?

Each of us can judge for ourselves. If every story is shot down because someone thinks it's bull shit it's doubtful any one will post any, and we'll be back to who's going to meet who at In-N-Out Burger.

 

lotta crazy shit happened cruisin everywhere...and with the "altered" state some of us ended up in from time to time,things coulda shifted some.let it go,and read into it what ya will....as for Kent why would he BS anybody he's gotta solid rep in my book!.........did ya hear about the girl with the muscle car that said "if you beat me...................................................LOL

 

Whos going to meet at In-N-Out???? I still call bull SHIT two hours to paint a car are you fucking kidding me!!!!!

 

No, what I'm saying is why say anything. Yes, you can paint a car in two hours, however, it took a day to mask it, and a month to prep it.

So the story sounds like bull, so what, why bother saying anything, Why not tell a story of your own? I for one would like to hear a good story from you.

 

Muscle car??? I remember the story being about a girl with a Vette.....

 

Does anyone remember the Dodge "Lightning Bolt" van??? It was an early Dodge, blue with a large lightning bolt on the side. It had dual rear wheels with flares, a mid-engine 440 and 5.86 gears. He would race motorcycles 1/8 mile only. It would hook and pop a tall wheelie. He won most of the races that I saw. I heard that he later put a 6/71 on it. Never saw it after about 1981 or 1982. (I only know about the rear gear ratio after seeing an article on it in a van/truck magazine).

 

Because if no one said anything on forums there would be no threads!

 

When I was but a wee lad in a land far far away (East Los Angeles) there was a little church at the end of my block..
In this church at the end of my block was a lady that made everything nice and clean at the end of each day.. This lady drove a black 1964 Impala convert. She was of modest means and was in need of some mechanical help with said Impala..
Being the fine upstanding youth that I was, I offered her my services at no charge (I got to test drive the 'vert everytime I worked on it).. This became a regular thing.. oil changes.. tune ups.. so on.. I also would work on the church bus when it needed some attention..( '54 ford short bus)
In about 73 or so.. The church gave the lady a 71 Dodge Dart.. She no longer had a need for the gas guzzling Impala so she dropped it off at my house with the keys and title.. Mind you.. this was a very clean one owner car. black on black , power windows.. power seat.. cruise control ( yeah.. they had um in '64) the car had about 60 thousand miles on it..
Anyway.. back to the Van Nuys story.. Forget the '64.. About a year later.. The church got a newer bus.. Soooooo The old bus.. Keys and title ended up at my house..
I had no idea what I was going to do with this thing.. After looking at this grey lump of yuck for about 4 months.. A friend and I were talking about the Impala and how bitchen it was rolling around the "hood" with the top down.. Then it hit us.. A stroke of genius beckoning from above.. A CONVERTABLE SHORT BUS!!!!!....
Well.. as for being equipped to tackle this task.. We had a hacksaw.. hammer and other crap you would find in a 16 year olds tool collection.. And it begun.. 3 days later.. A bunch of bloodshed and some duct tape.. We had the ultimate cruzin' vessle..
About 4pm on the next wed. night.. I and two buddies headed for "The Blvd."
We borrowed a small generator from my uncle.. Snuck my mothers home stereo (big wooden Electrophonic am-fm- 8-track / turntable) out of the house before she got home from work.. a couple of strings of christmas lights and we were set.. We got to the Blvd. around 6pm.. Taped the x-mas lights to the top edge of the bus where the windows used to be.. hooked up the stereo .. Fired up the generator and it was on.. First problem was... The generator was so loud we had to turn the stereo up until it sounded like shit.. We didn't care.. We were cool ( read that.. 3 geeks cruzin a cut up church bus).. The attention we were getting was less than positive..

But as the sun went down.. People started to just kind of jump in the bus with us.. At about 9pm there were so many people in the bus that I had to use granny low to get it moving.. This went on until after 11.

Shortly People started to thin out.. I figured it was time to split.. One of the last guys (damn straggler) on the bus asked me if I wanted to sell it.. It sat around my house for months and I couldn't give it away.. Hard decission.. Hell yes I wanted to sell it.. I said .."make me an offer" I was hoping for 3 or 4 hundred bucks for it.. He said he had $350 cash and a nice 67 V.W. bug.. I told him that the generator and stereo couldn't go with it.. He said,,, "cool.. It sounds like shit anyway"
Deal was struck.. He followed me home with his V.W. so I could remove the "sound system" and generator..
He drove off in his bus and I drove the shit out of the V.W. for the next 2 years..
All in all.. That was a bitchen night on "The Blvd"

 

Yes, His name was Paul, He also had a Blue Motor home that he would pack with girls and cruz

 

Yup, she drove a Black Nova. On the back was... if you beat me you can ... me

 

Whay ever happened to him? He just sort of disappeared.

I remember one night at the Saturday night street races when we met on Sepulveda Blvd. It was propably around 1981 or so. He was behind me at a signal. When the light turned green, I proceeded across the intersection only to look in the rearview mirror and see his headlights disappear into the sky. All I could see was the underside of his van! And, all I could think about was the van coming down on the back of my vehicle. Needless to say, I hit the gas and quickly changed lanes.

Another time, I saw him at the beach (near Zuma, I believe). He had backed up to the edge of the sand to pull some truck out that had gotten stuck (in the sand).

 

While I never ever saw the vehicle, and as such, I have always attributed the story to urban legend. The version that I had always heard, was, that she had a Corvette. This dates to about 1978 or so.


Two other stories that I had heard, and never saw proof of, and that I don't believe and/or attribute to urban legend, are:

Mid-engine VW bug with a 454 (camouflaged) in the back seat. Fiberglassed cover made it look like a couple of suitcases sitting there. (I believe that this was in the Sundland/Tujunga area).

Mid-engine motorhome that did wheelies on the Blvd. (I believe that the Lightning Bolt van may have caused this one).

 

I remeber that van at Sepulveda and whatever and at Zuma beach cranking Jimi Hendrix.

 

I used to do that with my Camaro back in the days when it was primer. i primered it three different colors and two different sets of mags on it. lol

 

want to go to but it is like two milion miles away.
Boomer

 

The Blue with Yellow lightning bolt Van. I remeber that Van was always out at the street races in the SFV. I do have a story about it. This happened out at the Car Craft Mag Street Machine Nationals at Pomoma Fairgrounds around 1980 or 1981. The show was packed with Street Machines, Vans, Street Rods and some imports. (Datsun 510's, VW etc) When the sun went down Friday and Sat nites all the show cars and people interested in cruzing would go over to Gary Ave and cruz between the 10 fwy past some food places. it was about a 10 block long cruz but it was packed wall to wall with cars and every parking lot and the side walks were ten people deep. So Saturday nite hits and we are on Gary Ave right as the sun goes down. i think it was the Arbys that we parked at. Cops were all over the place as Friday nite people were doing burnouts and generally disregarding the traffic laws. so about 9 or 10 pm i spot the Lightning Bolt van working its way into the middle of the cruz route. as he pulls up to a lite he waits for traffic to clear in front of him and proceeds to hang the front wheels 1/2 way thru the intersection and slam on the brakes afterward. of course 2000 plus people are cheering him on and the 6 different cops that saw the wheel standing show are dropping there jaws wondering who the hell is this guy! so of course you know what happens, stuck in bumper to bumper traffic 2000 people witness this guy being loaded into the back of a police car. not sure what happend to the van. So Sunday we are back at the show and he is the talk of the day. everyone was wondering what happened to him. as we started to wrap up the day we wandered over to the awards ceamory and we watching who won what. all of sudden i hear the anouncer say "so and so" won for the best engineering award for the mid engine van with the lightning bolt. the crowd starts to giggle and people arre whispering. as the anouncer calls out again will "so & so" please come up i yell out "he is in jail" and the crowd around us starts laughing. They moved on to the next awards and i never did find out if he collected the award. the Car Craft nationals only lasted a year or two more in Pomona and they they moved them to Sacarmento which i went to many of those but that was one nite i'll never forget.

 

It would be great to see a photo or two of this one.

 

I've been trying to refrain from this...........But, FUCK THAT ASSHOLE!! I NEVER saw, or heard of him racing. But, he almost "wrecked" me during a race at Roxford.

 

.....nothing dried faster than laquer in August.


alan

 

Nope not an urban legand it was real. The Girl in the Black Nova had a friend that drove a black Corvette. They were almost always together.

The Blue motorhome was also Paul (Blue lighting bolt van) I don't know what happen to him.

Funny I do now remember him being at Zuma beach all the time. I didn't know him personaly. My cousin and her friend used to hang with him

There was a V8 VW that used to park in front of Vons on Sat night. I don't know if it was a BBC or not though

 

Does anybody remember the fleshy "Cock & Balls" car? The last time I saw it was in 1978 or 9 in the fall, it was driving up Van Nuys Boulevard at about 4 in the afternoon.

When I first saw it I thought: "What The Hell", and then it hit me, how
could anybody create something like this, and get away with it. Something I used to hear quite a bit myself.

 

The V8 VW, I had heard about from several sources, just as the chick with the plate. The friend's Corvette would explain the vehicle confusion too. Stories get changed when they go from person to person.

 

I remember seeing that on Ventura Blvd many times...My dad's office was next to Ralph Williams Ford...You should have seen that from a 4th floor view...The driver sat in the left nut.....

 

Originally Posted by Bash
Does anybody remember the fleshy "Cock & Balls" car? The last time I saw it was in 1978 or 9 in the fall, it was driving up Van Nuys Boulevard at about 4 in the afternoon.

When I first saw it I thought: "What The Hell", and then it hit me, how
could anybody create something like this, and get away with it. Something I used to hear quite a bit myself.

I sure would like to see a photo of that crazy machine, and the story behind it.