Years ago i had several sidecars. i couldnt go any where with out people stopping me and asking questions.old people[men and women] who would not go near a greasey biker would stop me and tell me sidecar stories.i get that with the old cars now.and i love it.in my new chevy truck noboby looks at me or talks to me.but in the old chrysler i get people telling how grandma had a car like that. i get some leads from people on old cars.plus i know if one of those honda hybreds pulls in front of me 4000 pounds of american steel will send it straight to hell ha ha .they are fun.
I'll just have to quote one of the guys from the inliners site. He says there are two kinds of people who drive old cars: poor people cuz they have to, and rich pepole cuz they want to.
Well Young Buck.... The easiest thing to do would be to just copy this thread and start reading it in class. Read for 5 min. .....THE END! Why I personally like old cars. I enjoy bringing something back from the dead. I feel superior when I can take X amount of years of neglect and punishment and turn it into something strong and proud. (Note: I did not say clean and shiny! ) I HATE it that most of the population are so stupid that they literally DESTROY their cars in less than 10 years. I HATE to see a 3 year old vehicle with a caved in fender or rust in the fenderwells. People in general are stupid and I HATE that.....I work on old cars to keep from shooting people. I am neurotic. I hate the way people treat the world, I just try to fix a little part of it.... JT.
It's really cost effective also.A new car depreciates continually untill it's worth nothing.A old car has been through that cycle and is now on a upward swing of appreciation.Buy an old car smart and you'll make a profit on it when you sell. SD
also...... The "smell" of an old cars interior, Nothing like it!! Chick's dig it, the rumble of the motor, Chicks dig it, Smithy's sound like crap on a Cavalier, Chick's dig it......
shit man who cares about a back seat when you have a huge bench front seat with the shifter on the column weather its a manual or auto
I used to drive my '40 Studebaker Commander coop to work and out on sales calls (I sold commmercial printing in the 80's), I didn't have to ask to see a certain client when I pulled up in front of the building...he (they) were already "on the way out becuz they wanted to see the old car Roger is pulling up in." Always got the business orders becuz of it, I'd stand and BS with them about their old car memories! One day I was on 17th Street (Denver's financial "district") to see a client in the (at that time) Mountain Bell towers...on the 30th floor. I parked on the street at a parking meter...as I was maneuvering into the spot, an old gray haired guy stopped walking on the sidewalkand stood, watched me. I shut the car off and got out to feed the meter... "That's a 1940 Commander," he said, which was quite good since not many people even know it's a Studebaker. "How long have you had it," he asked. I answered I'd found it in a junkyard and rebuilt it in 1977/'78 and have been driving it since. "Ya know", he said,"I probably built that car for you." "How...?" I asked. "I worked for Studebaker, back before the war, got called up in 1942. Yep, I probably put that car together for you." We chatted for a long time about his role in Studebaker's assembly lines...and I never did get up to see the client! R-
Maybe it's because we're allergic to payments. Maybe it's because we like to show people that it doesn't take a ridiculous Escalade to get people talking. If we wanted, we could put all the options available in new cars in our old ones. In fact, we do it at a fraction of the cost. I like when I'm cruising the 64 Caddy Coupe de Ville with my girlfriend and two of her friends, and the guy in the Rolls next to me (by himself) is wondering where he went wrong!
old cars have soul, to be sure, but so do some new cars, and not necessarily vipers. they're a fast and nice looking car, but they come that way. my brother put oversized disc brakes on all four corners, has super-lightweight racing mags, short throw shifter, hellacious tires, high performance intake, and all sorts of other stuff in his honda civic with a B16A2 acura motor. NO ugly wings, NO ground effects, NO gay graphics, just gunmetal gray, black wheels and blacked out glass that moves very fucking quick. all business, no show. that acura motor has 170 hp in four cylinders with 1.6 liters of displacement. not bad. not my cup of tea, and kinda plain as style goes (admittedly), but you gotta respect something that will sheer an axle at the shaft in an 8300 rpm power shift. he took a weak, slow econobox and made a corvette-eating (no shit) all around handling racecar out of it on his own. not sure about cost effective. most of the time they are a money pit. my car is. big fuckin four door, but i like it, and i don't sell anything anyway. i don't do it for the chicks, all of the chicks around me just want some bling bling and an SUV, to hell with them both. i really was drawn to old cars in a realistic manner for the opposite reason when i got dumped bad by one. it was something to do so i didn't shoot myself! for me, i guess, it's that i would go to car shows when i was little (born in 1980), and to the harley shop my dad frequented (SE ohio guys know this dude, and so does a british HAMBer, T's a total packrat, has everything including a drag boat record), and see old cars, hot rods, huge engines sticking out of the hood, and all of that. i didn't even think of them as old, they just simply rocked hard, so much that it surprised me to no end to find out that they didn't make 57 chevies anymore! there ya go, stuck in the past from the get go. and all of the men in my family set an example as well. my dad liked the old stuff, my grandpa built old john deeres. for me, it was almost like a decision made without thinking. thanks to the HAMB it's possible for me too.
I can't help but love them all. I don't even really have a favorite either. My Dad always pointed them out to me when I was a kid and I got bit at a very early age. I love to see the art that was in early automobile design. It's at best a passion that I can't afford, but I just go for it despite the money and do what I can. I guess the single best thing for me (in my opinion) is how it brings us together. It's something we all can share and still be ourselves doing it. The challenge is to be yourself, have some fun, and let it roll. F*ck all the free advice and stupid opinions too. IF you can learn from a veteran builder who doesn't mind helping and do better on your stuff then by all means do so. I just can't stand these jagoffs that never had one torn down to the frame telling me I should do this or that. "That is what they would have done"... unavoidable in an old car it seems. On a lighter note... There is some serious snow here right now and I'm getting ready to move my 62 over to the new house we just got last month. I'm concerned about some of the roads, but just can't wait to go for a ride despite the weather. Good luck with your paper.
to keep the memories of so many freinds, so many role models, and so many family members alive in some way, and in a way they would love
There is a fascination with hot rods that goes back to my first issues of Hot Rod Magazine in the early '60s. Mom thought it was just a passing phase that I would get over. She still doesn't get it. Hot rods are the integration of art, science, modern technology, traditional methods, current trends, and tradition all at once. They are unique (no two alike), and at the same time have characteristics in common with every other one. Driving hot rods is not a sport or hobby; it is really a way of life and a particular view of the world that sets those that "get it" apart from those that don't.
most of my daily drivers since i turned 16 have been "old" cars...its a feeling you get,they have way more style and class that everything else on the road..and when you are sitting at the light there isnt four other cars identacle to yours driving past... if it breaks down on ya you almost instantly can figure out what it is,and i dont cost ya an arm and a leg to replace.and chances are your local parts store has it in stock..
well short bus....i know why i drive them... i can't talk about gettin some for 5 minutes to the whole class....well maybe i could...it's been fun well guys...i am calling it a night the speech is done...thanks alot for all the time and effort you put into by school work... hope everyone keeps posting i am interested to see if anyone goes into the cost...cause it is alot cheaper for me to drive my stude then my 91 s-10.... gotta love historical plates and insurance prices on the stude thanks again YOUNG BUCK
When I was a pre-school kid my dad managed two gas/service stations and came home smelling like sweat and 90 weight oil. To me, that's formed what a man was suppose to smell like. New cars don't even use 90 wt anymore, so they don't give a man the right perfume. Yea, that's it. The new cars don't have the right smell. Another thing. when I was a kid I was in love with new cars but they all changed around the time Harley Earl retired, even the ones that he had nothing to do with. I still like the new cars, but they are the new cars of my childhood that I like. The "magick" stopped when the cars quit being flamboyant, finned, spacemobiles, and became practical boxes on wheels. That was '61 for both Ford and Chevy and include Lincoln in there too. '65 for Cadillac, just a big ugly geezer transport, and they never seemed to recover. The Mopars with the light bodies and huge engines were "Awesome-Man!" but just admit it some of them were just plain weird looking with their headlights canted backwards and all... I like the Chryslers with fins so they're dead in the water after '61. Probably why I bought a string of British sports cars for transportation. That late 50s TR-3 still looked like a 46 Buick. I was selling new Oldsmobiles and GMC trucks in '67 but I've never bought a brand new car. (wife did 6 months before we got married, but that doesn't quite count does it?) Besides, it irks the hell out of me having to waste lots of good money ($70 last time, because I had to go to a "test only" station and that's what they charge) every two years proving yet once again that my less than 30 year old cars don't polute. (Even new cars are better than riding a bus or rail car though!)
[ QUOTE ] I like cars with a little HISTORY to them! New cars are just so sterile and lifeless...they haven't been anywhere and have no stories to tell yet...all that comes with time! The longer a car 'lives' the more character it builds, just like us humans! (Imagine if people were born fully grown...able to walk and talk from day one...they could get around and go places...but they'd be empty and lacking any real character until they've lived a while!). When you get into an old car, you see little reminders of the places it's been and the things it's seen...that ripped and tattered Yardbirds concert ticket under the seat, the 1964 World's Trade Fair sticker on the window, stuff like that. A car isn't really ALIVE until someone's made out in it, cried in it, puked out the window, bled on the seat, rushed a mother-to-be to the hospital in it, gotten their first ticket in it and so on....the intangible traces of those emotions soak into every nook and cranny, and just radiate out for all of eternity...collecting other such memories as time goes on.... Old cars have that to spare...new cars have to earn it slowly as they age to perfection! [/ QUOTE ] I could'nt put it any better!
The reason I do is becuse older cars have more body and style to them. The cars and trucks from the 40's are my fave. Big bubbly fenders, cool dash boards and everything is round. Not so cookie cutter! I've just bought a Buick for a driver, from the 60's. I think the 60's are cool to. Alot of designers were trying cool stuff with the bodys, trim .... It's when cars were cars!
Damn man! you have plenty of text here to make a kick ass paper. but what about visual aids?? Go ahead and print out any of the ones below, and your classmates can see exactly what were talkin about here. Personaly I like style, lines, shape and good taste. I also enjoy OWNING my own vehicle, and not needing to go thro emmisions. Something is said for a car/truck from the 30's to be pulled from a creek and forest over growth and brought back to a show winner. Thats when America had pride in their products, and I'm VERY proud to be one of the Americans continuing the life of these cars. All of todays cars, trucks, vans and SUVs all have the profile of a jelly bean. Ever notice that? Different colored jelly beans, cant tell one apart from the other. They taste kinda good too when I eat em up on the street with my American muscle V8 iron. (I like to see them get upset they cant listen to their cell phones cause my lumpy exhuast is right at their door ) Anyways, print these and get a A+ !!
I got my 35 ply in nov 74, do you have any clue how crappy the cars were in the late 70's early 80's? Back then if you wanted anything fit to drive you had to build it with the help of your friends and your own sweat. Once you have a hot rod why back up.
Because , I dont like the new cars... . Old cars have been apart of me since my drivers licence... I would not trade it for anything...
I think about who bought them new, even though their probally dead, and wonder what they would think of their car now. Have bought a few one owner family cars, passed through the family and it gives you a weird feeling seeing the original owners picture of the person who bought it new. They are part of our history, before places like iran, and all those other countrys that never entered our minds or ears. When made in USA, meant it and every part on it. This post was started in 2004, but seems worth posting our opinions again to me.
The Jalopy Journal
