Featured Hot Rods Where were you in '62?

I guess I was doing what any raucous 4 year old would have been doing. I know I was helping my grandfather (my stand in dad for my long ****ed off off father) who was a contractor. He had a Bedford van with sliding doors which were always left open, and no seatbelts. I survived. Different times.

Chris

 

I was in 7th grade, Our Lady Of Mt Virgin Catholic School, already had the car bug but not Hot Rods,That wouldn't bite me in the *** until the next year when my cousin took me for a ride in his 62 corvette and opened up the 4 barrel carb, in second gear, pining me to the seat and it was the door that opened a addiction that I haven't been cured of yet. The icing on the cake, same cousin too me to the Drivin Deuces NY Colosseum car show where I had my first experience of Custom cars and custom paint, Mind altering Thank you Fran

 

I was living in the town that inspired Lucas to make the movie, although beginning the 2nd calendar year of my life, so no recollections of anything.

 

My mom wasn't even a teenager yet........

 

I was 14 years old, had a paper route, shoveled snow for neighbors and cut their gr*** in the summer, saving money for my first car ( my avatar ) 2 jobs, a habit I had for years. My Dad had a Midget race car, Dad, Mom and I went racing on weekends. My teen years were great, discovered girls and their charms, the neighbor's son came home from Air Force service, purchased a 57 Chevy and a Harley, introduced me to cruising and bikes, I rode "*****" when his honey had to work. My Dad also was a big Milwaukee area "Modifieds" fan, they raced 5 nights a week, I went for years as a fan. A fellow paperboy parents had a home with a garage with a loft, club house, what stories I have from that. SO............ 62 was good for me, I have stated this before, I'm a Lucky man. The HAMB with my AM coffee brings up many good memories. Everyone Have A Great Day !

 

3rd grade in a Catholic grade school.
I started chasing the cute girls around the playground about then and remember day dreaming in cl*** and a teacher snuck up behind me, grabbed my shoulders, and shook the **** out of me. The only cars I was interested in were the hand me down tin ones like BuddyL’s.

 

Spent 1/2 of '62 inside Mom (born in June), the other half in diapers keeping Dad up all night! Still sorry Dad sold his hot rod '57 Chevy when I was born, but he did get back into cars with me when I was old enough.

God Bless
Bill
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ar-transport-hauling-open-or-enclosed.614419/

 

I was 16 and driving a 55 Chevy and working on my first 32 3 window good times

 

I finished Elementary School in May of 62. I would start High School in September. The entire summer was spent avoiding anyone already in High School. As an in between ( grade / high school ) you were called a RAT. Anyone already in high school could paddle your *** at Will with a wooden paddle. Yes, it was true ALABAMA culture.

 

My dad got a new job with the Pacific Missile Range in Hawaii, so we we flew out there on my birthday. If you have to move for your senior year, it could be a whole lot worse. Eleven months later I was sea sick on a troop ship headed to Ft. Ord for basic.

 

I was wearing diapers....and living in the frigid north....Minnesota.

I don't know which of the young ones is me, and which is my twin brother David.

 

Thule Greenland, USCG ice breaker WAGB 281 Westwind.

 

A junior in Dundalk High bagging groceries at Ft. Holibird saving quarters to replace the blown 265 ci. Chevy in my $250 mint 210 two door.

 

I was 16, bulletproof and driving this, lol

 

Miami Sr High School,driving my 28a on no rain days an my full custom Henry J on the wet days. Some Sat. nights was racing at Hialeah Speedway [ 1/3 mile black top,no banking at all,with Rob's an my ,Hudson #57 ] Or at a custom car show near by. I loved AG,,to bad MAG ****ed < Do to some fake foolish add on BS tacked on the very end of AG movie! . I could of done a far better story line for another AG movie ,being I lived the times*+,an had a super ball doing it, with lots of funny stuff ,we really did back then. A far number of old good times,I've noted in the p*** here on the HAMB > Can be found by looking for my storys ; labeled "Why Back Story" by me !!!

 

14 And Listening To The Man...

 

I just got out of A school in the Navy and sent to the Mojave desert for my duty station in California. Yes, sailor in the desert. Ha. Great duty.

 

9 years old in 1962. After school i was probably on the beach at Tootgarook or Rosebud, Victoria, Australia.

 

Pretty sure it was in the owners manual to leave those doors open at all times . Postie, Milkman, Grocer, Surfie. Always open except at the Drive-In

 

17years old, just graduated from high school, on my way to becoming a college dropout - I never did figure out the "maturity" thing, I did get pretty good at faking it in my later years...

"Growing up", I spent lots of quarters on the "Little pages".

With a few quarters in my pocket, these busses and the subway system would take you anywhere in the greater Boston, MA area. I never had the space or money for a car.

In 1979, I transferred from MA to Sierra Vista, AZ (@squirrel 's home town). When I got all done buying and selling homes, I had a little over $2,000 left. As a 35th birthday present to myself, I gave $1,500 and a slightly rusty Datsun pickup for the "Shot Rod" - a 1932/1933/1934 crudely channeled Ford 2-door sedan. It was a rolling mechanical disaster, but I was the coolest Cub Master in town.

This became an issue in my marriage - and Russ Jr became too tall for the back seat. I eventually sold it.

And the wife was still unhappy. In retrospect, I should have kept it and divorced her a year earlier.

Russ

 

Junior in high school. Just acquired my first 40. $90 and it showed.

 

You and I were pretty much living like twins apart. My walkin' around money was coming from endless snowy days of shoveling driveways and sidewalks throughout my neighborhood in Southeast Kansas City. I was 13, had a Schwinn Tiger bike earned from shoveling snow, which also paid for Boy Scout camp that summer. December 1961 through February 1962 brought repeated heavy snowstorms and a quickly fattening bank account. I sledded a lot, too. My transportation was the family 1953 Willys Aero Ace hardtop, which I would overhaul the engine two summers later. I'd hoped to get that Willys as my high school ride but my mom nixed that plan.

 

1962...was getting my picture in Hot Rod Magazine at the Great Western Exhibit Center 3rd Winternationals Car Show in So.Cal.


Page 39, Apr. 63 Hot Rod Mag.
A "coke-bottle-bottom" bespeckled Hotrodjack at the Revell Model Car display. That picture made me somewhat of a legend a**** my buddies at John Foster Dulles elementary school in La Mirada, Ca.

AMAZINGLY, 60 years later, I find out that @jnaki and his buddies were standing next to me. Maybe he will chime in.

 

Sitting out the second half of my sophomore year at Washington State and working at Boeing in Seattle to make enough money to go back in 63. Got married, had kids, did go back and graduate but gave up hot rods for 25 years until kids grew up.

 

Approx 1 year from being conceived.

 

I was 9 years old and can remember riding to Sunday School in Mrs. Roycroft's '57 Volkswagen in in that little cubby hole behind the back seat.

 

I was 15 and driving my $40.00 Mercury convertible up and down the alley beside our house. I couldn't wait until I turned 16 and get my license.

 

Hello,

It also amazed me to see the actual photo. I probably saw the same Hot Rod Magazine and were happy to be able to say, “ I was in Hot Rod Mag.” Then, life got serious as our other friend got drafted and had to join the Marines. So, college was an alternative at the time. That car show was the last one we went to until my wife and I started to go to car shows to take photos of the custom motorcycles and hot rods later on during the last year of college.

Jnaki

Those were fun times and if the seriousness of the next year or so did not happen, who knows. My tall friend with the 57 Chevy and I probably would have built his car into a super fast car with the addition of a Paxton Supercharger and larger 352 c.i. SBC block. He had a great paying job and could afford it. We saved tons of money in that we did all of the hot rod build mechanics. But, as things go, he finished school that year and then he, too was gone to another college to study dentistry.



Here is the complete story from @hotrodjack33 and my reply from a long time ago:
posted by @hotrodjack33
That photo always gives me a weird feeling. My friend who was 6 feet 2 inches tall owned the 57 white Chevy Bel Air Hardtop with the most modified of all of the cars in our group. We were under and inside his car in the driveway/garage more times that in my own 58 Impala. He had a dual quad carb set up from a 60 Corvette, a 4 speed, headers and Traction Masters. That 57 was fast. Not as fast as my own 58 Impala, but he was never defeated on any encounter during our high school teenage days.

We would go to the local So Cal shows, including the ones in L.A. that were freeway close. When I first saw that photo, I was shocked. My friend stood taller than most teens and always wore a sweater that only had several ****ons on the bottom. His dad, also 6’2 or 6’3” tall always wore those sweaters. Like father like son… ha. No one joked about it except me as he did look like his dad.

But, here is the tallest teenager.
Now, who is that guy with dark hair in the background? Wearing what looks like a blue nylon jacket. Yikes, is that me? In the same building of the car show as @hotrodjack33 in 1962? YRMV

 

I was hanging out with dad