Smoking indoors. I'm not saying that's a bad thing per se, but I associate certain smells with memory, and one of the earliest memories I have was sitting with my mother in the mechanic's waiting room while she had some work done on her old beater. The combined smells of new tires, oil, gasoline, WD-40, chicklets from the penny gumball machine and cigarette smoke has got to be one of the most intoxicating scents known to man. I've recreated it a few times in my own garage and it still makes me smile. But then again, I'm a sick puppy.
In the 60s the rust buckets (according to those standards) that we cut up for parts would be considered nice builders today. In the 60s 4drs were strictly thought of as parts cars, beaters were built to drive not for shock value.
Car dealerships used to be cool. I remember all the strings of lights hanging above the cars and the vinyl flags etc........With a lot full of cars that I would KILL to have any one of them. Now dealerships just look like the parking lot at the mall. And the dealership looks like the building of the mall. No more neon, strings of lights, flags, Vegas like signs........I wish I was a rich man, I would have a classic car dealer and make it look like an old time dealership with all of that cool stuff.
How about a phone booth. Shoot used to stand in one while waiting for the bus to go to school while it was raining. Still have a gas station in town that does full service check oil and tires for free and no extra cost on the gas. One of only few left....
..going down to the car dealerships in the Fall to see the new models, it was a big deal, around here they had spotlights in the sky and lots of freebies, the showrooms were actually crowded at times. Now if you can tell the difference between an '09 and a '10 you're lucky. Also my first real job was at a Buger Chef, remember them?, and we took orders and added them up on paper...no pictures on the cash register and we could figure out how to make change, called the order back to the cooks, they didn't have to look at a screen to see what to make. Only thing about burger places now that's better is the drivethrough...yeah there was a time when there wasn't drivethroughs...
How about a grill at a burger place instead of a micro-wave ??? How the hell can anyone say the world is a better place. In most cases, technology sucks.
Dealers had 1/25 scale promotional cars that they would give with the purchase of a new car..... Then they sold them.... Now they aren't around. FYI in these parts ( Oklahoma & Texas ) the peanuts went into Pepsi, not Coke and they were in embossed glass bottles with cork lined caps.
Wow this really shows how young I am. I don't remember a damn thing any of you guys are talking about. All I miss is slap bracelets and Vanilla Ice :haha:
Route 66 on TV, Ed Sullivan Show, The F.B.I., My Mother the Car, "Hot Rod's to Hell", Mr Ed, Car 54 where are you? "The Golden Rule" Children "being seen and not heard" "Respect your Elders" "When your father gets home"
If you had a beef with someone you duked it out and moved on,(No guns or knives required). Buying good running beaters for $25 to $50 bucks filling the gas tank for about $5.
Tennant-Robinson, the Chrysler-Plymouth dealership in Maplewood, NJ would put up a huge Lionel layout in conjunction with the new car introductions in October, and leave it up till New Years. I can remember a Town & Country woody convertable in the showroom next to the trains. Can't get any better than that when you're 10.
There are still Mom and Pop style restaurants, check out "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" on the Travel channel. How about "body shops" ? Now they're mostly collision centers. Do you go there to get in a collision?
Every auto parts store had a machine shop in the back. The first engine I built in high school (SBC) I screwed up when I tore it down and didn't mark the rod caps. The machinist from the parts store came out to my house with a circle gauge and matched the caps for me and showed me how to use this new-fangled stuff called plasti-gage. The guys name was Harley and he had no tatttoos.
Cars from different manufacturors actually looked different. Look down a parking lot these days and (at least I) can't tell the difference between the lexus and the honda and the Kia and the.....
Randy,,,your full of it. I'm from texas never bought a Pepsi in my life. Peanuts went in a coca cola.............
The 5&10 cent store, the ones around here always seemed to have crooked, squeaky, wood floors. As a kid, I used to love to sit at the counter with my mother and have a burger and fries. And hardware stores, REAL hardware stores, with the same crooked squeaky floors as the 5&10. They were stacked with everything you needed. As a kid I used to go there and buy carbide to build rockets and bombs. Yes, bombs, and back then parents considered that a good wholesome way for a kid to spend his time, but then again, we were also taught to respect others, so they knew we wouldn't use them to hurt anyone. Maybe that's what I think is missing most today, good parents.
I remember living in East Sedalia, I would get paid every friday . I would stick $5 in the glove box ,$1 a day bought 3 gallon of gas and a pack of marlboro. Go to work ,then cruise that night till I was out of fuel ,go home and the next day take a buck and do it all over again. I remember girls wearing skirts,especially the Catholic girls with the short plaid ones and nice white tops. Oh and we drank 3 V cola, ( vim,vigor and vitality) or so they said.
Shots of Red X, my dad saying, "I'll have 5 gallons of petrol and two shots of Red X." That was a lifetime ago.
I remember all the lightbulbs and vinyl flags, my Dad had numerous different used car dealerships and I spent lots of time at. We dont have one picture from the car lots! Only keepsake I have from those days is an old buffer. You know the real heavy metal case kind. Wish I had some of the paperwork from back in the day. Like what he was paying for cars at the auctions etc.
Okay, I'm 50. I remember the service station I grew up in.....Pete's in Auburn. Huge radiator tub we used to push pieces of wood across while the old man was working on his stuff. I remember the glass pop bottles and the time I used 15 pennies in the machine and what the mechanic said to me when he had to fish 'em out.....Can somebody explain the peanut thing?
Chrome! Cars used to have style and class.They had chrome bumpers and shiny trim on the windows and down the sides.And hardly any plastic. One other thing has changed.At least around here....you used to see a lot of older cars smoking and burning oil but still driving.I hardly ever see a car burning oil anymore.
Some things ARE better, the dissappearance of them damn noisy vent windows being one. The reason you used to be able to get a 4-5 year old car for $500 is because they were used up by then. All the great dealership promo's was because the cars needed to be replaced regularily (compared to today) so sales were good. A friend bought a 49 GMC and with it came the original paperwork. IIRC the warrenty on it was 90 days or 4500 miles. The owner of the local Ford dealership was telling me that in the '70's he had 5 or 6 mechanics working full time and the shop was full all the time. Now, he has a hard time keeping one mechanic busy. A set of spark plugs today last longer than a whole car in the 60's.
The Jalopy Journal
