So i know there are a couple of threads that talk about how we dont cruise streets any more and whatnot, and since im a bit of a 'youngin' iv never experianced real cruisin, i was talking with my grandma about how she use to cruise in the 50s and early 60s in Sac alot in what is now my 53 and her friends cars and i was curious if anyone had some original footage or photos from back then cruising the streets. i think it would be so cool to do an actual cruise, not just a parked in a parking lot "cruise". My grandma said she has some pictures but she had to find them, when she finds them ill post them for anyone else interested that has (or will) never gotten to experiance it. anyways lets see 'em if you have them love them old photos!
You've seen the movie American Grafitti...??? That's what cruising was like in ANY city in the US in the '50's & '60's... R-
ditto..................i grew up in Anahein ,Ca in the 50's and that movie coulda just as well been shot there at that time,same scene
ohh really. I knew that it was close if not dead on, just was curious if there was anything else out there to show how it was in the old days
Happy Days, Grease; when I was young I remember everyone singing and dancing all the time. OK I'm being a sort of an ass here, but I believe if you asked him Rog would agree with me when I say that memory is selective. It just makes life easier to swallow. We for the most part had a lot of good times, but when you get older you will also have good times to remember they won't be the same as the ones that we remember but they will be good times none the less.
American Graffiti was exactly the way it was in the early sixties. Too bad it just doesn't exist any more. In those days there were no car shows, it was cruising to see and be seen along with street racing. The lawn chair events of today are a joke. I NEVER saw anyone in a lawn chair back in the day. Also never remember hoards of people walking around looking at our cars like the parking lots of today. It was just a different time period. Gold Chainers and Bronzers just didn't exist.
There were car shows...they were just inside the buildings and cars were displayed with angel hair and other stuff. But you are correct...cruising was the way to see and be seen. They did...they weren't as obvious...there was always someone in town that had the newest, hottest, baddest -remember...back then, the above labels were non-existent... R-
we would go cruise NEARBY towns...in case we could find somebody new to race....or girls that thought we were cuter than their local talent. Plenty of fun...and the road trip was good too... dj
I was lucky enough to come onto the scene just before the drastic change away from American Graffiti style cruising. Smaller Eastern city, but we still had two car hop drive-in diners on the dual lane hi-way going out of town where most of the cruising took place. 3 old indoor theaters within a block of the square. The drive-in movies were on the edge of town and 4 more within 20 miles. The bad ass rides, hoods, nerds and cops were all right off the movie scenes. Chasing, racing, rescues and romancing just like in the script. Then the movies came along later to fairly well copy the very things we enjoyed more than we realized. Still many good times to be had for sure due in part to the Hamb keeping us connected. But nothing will ever beat the good times in the early to mid 60's. "Where were you in 62 ?"
Our gas was 29 cents a gallon...sometimes 19 cents when a gas war was happening...along with 19 cent hamburgers....our $ .75-1.25 an hour went pretty far....picked up beer bottles @ a penny apiece after the college weekend partys and for two bucks could cruise Fri & Sat nite on 4 gallons of gas...Our local KASH radio station played cowboy music during the day but at 9-midnite was "TOP POPS"; all the cool rock n roll & DooWop, Willamette Street 1959...during the day but on Fri/Sat nite was the teenage "GUT" and we drug the gut almost every weekend in Eugene,OR until the city shut down cruising in the 80s...(whatever it is, if it's fun they'll make it illegal)
man i reallly wish a time machine was invented......... i want to experiance this old style cruising soooo bad but i doubt i will ever get to...
I am born and raised in the San Fernando Valley. The local cruise here for me, was Van Nuys Boulevard. Although I was the youngest kid on my block, and didn't drive in the early sixties, a neighbor across the street would now and then let me come along. The guy's name was Frankie, and earlier in the day, on cruise night, he would be sitting on his front porch, "spit-shinning" his shoes. Lookin' good was part of cruising, 'cause you might meet some girls. I remember all of the cool guys wore Sir Guy shirts too. If memory serves, cruise night was on Thursday back then, I could be wrong. Eventually, cruise night was on Wednesday night when i got my driver's license. I had a Model A coupe, and, for a short time, a '34 coupe. I remember seeing people parked at the curb here and there, with mag wheels and such in the back of their Rancheros/El Caminos, for sale. There were guys with black jackets that had big white letters on the back that said "RACE?". These guys were organizing street races to be held later elsewhere. I would cruise the entire length, maybe two or three times, to check out the girls, the other cars, and be seen myself, then, I'd go down to the south end of the strip just past the Ventura Freeway, and park in June Ellen's Doughnuts parking lot, with the lowered cars, of which i had a handfull of friends, even though my car was a hot rod. Holding a clutch in during bumper-to-bumper cruising gets old , so I parked with other car guys. It was fun, mostly innocent. People were different back then. We were cool. Most kids, and for that matter, adults, today, don't know how to be COOL. It's not really something you're taught, you either are, or you're not. I cruised Whittier Boulevard once, years after it peaked, just to check it out. All the kids who cruised are now older adults, the cars today don't have the same alure, and the music today is too fragmented and doesn't speak to the car cultured. Still, there are kids cruising somewhere......
The only thing about Graffiti is I remember more cars. Just bumper to bumper on the strip in San Leandro Ca.
http://www.viddler.com/explore/kripfink/videos/1/ No, I guess they didn't have showsgrab a beer or six and enjoy Paul
I was a member of "Race?"...Lived on Van Nuys Wed, Fri and Sat was race night..Still cruising the 2nd Wed of each month..Got some cool pics of June Ellens too...
Hey Fink, I have NO IDEA how cruising was done in England and don't particular care. I live in the USA.
I missed the fun when cruising was at it's peak but some of us were still doing it in the late 70s in Erie, PA. I still had my '63 longroof and a bunch of us would meet at McDonalds on Friday nights on East 6th Street out by GE and cruise back into town to the square then down to the Public Dock overlooking Presque Isle, circle around and head back out. On Saturdays the cruise was a bit more lengthy and involved a trip out to the New York state line for beer (back then the drinking age in PA was 21, NY state was 17 or 18). Every once in a while we'd head out to the drive-in that used to stand at the entrance to Presque Isle state park. Man, those were some fun times.
Perhaps minor differences from one place to the next but Rog has got it right. Get a CD crank it and imagine.
I started cruising in '71, southside of Indy, go from the White Castle to the Steak n Shake to The Teepee to the beer gardens. Then start all over again. Some of us would park at the Steak n Shake and suck on a cherry coke for hours and watch the traffic go by. Of coarse it wasn't about kustoms or hot rods by then - we had the muscle cars with the big engines, AC, AT, am-fm 8 track, and raised white letter tires. But we still had some drive-ins and also drive-in movies where it wasn't about what movie they were showing, but how "far" you could get with your date in the back seat! Then the next day the guys bragging about getting "lucking" or they "scored" of coarse it didn't happen just wishful thinking. The kids today are too busy with Ipods, chat groups, and sexting - too bad - really too bad.
If we wanted to street race we went to the next town, because everybody knew you in your own town and there was one cop that would find you. Hooknose Tony was our local cop.
Hey vncruiser! Small world, if you live in North Hills, were only minutes away from each other. I finally found some photos of my '34 Ford coupe, which used to make the scene on Van Nuys Boulevard. It's a 3-window, chopped/ channeled all steel coupe, painted '67 Chevy Marina Blue metalic. Power comes via early Chrysler Hemi, two AFB four barrels, Howard roller cammed, 13 to 1 compression Jahns pistons, Hunt vertex magneto, hooked to a Cad/LaSalle stick trans, and a 4:11 Olds rear end. This thing would scoot! I believe the pictures are from '72.
In KS, we were still doing it in the mid 80's....different cars for the most part, but the same thing. I got my first ticket on homecoming night when I was 15, exhibition of acceleration in a 289 3 speed 1967 ranchero, the guy next to me is the one who spun his tires....That cop is now my favorite parts guy at NAPA, I still give him shit about that.....
whoa GMan.... its obvious that you stopped by the venom store this afternoon and filled your tank... easy on the bloke...
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