I was employed in a repair shop when the side pipes became a thing. I hated side pipes! I see all these pictures and it brings back those memories. Guys would buy the side pipes to look cool, but when most of the found out how much it cost to actually make then functional, they elected to just keep them as fake decorations. Those that sprang for making them functional soon discovered they and their girl friends didn't like the burned legs and melted pant legs the hot pipes caused, so they wanted to make then nonfunctional, or have them removed them completely. Sometimes the install, make functional, and making them nonfunctional or removing them had only a coupe paychecks between the two events. As the guy getting paid to do either (or both) jobs, I should have been a happy man, but I would have much rather been doing tuneups, or brakes and suspension work, that actually made the cars better.
The Jalopy Journal
