Bring on the STREET FREAKS!!!

It was a "thing" in the late 70's, but not real common. Just before Pro Street. The Magazines that covered the big national street machine events featured some of them, but I never saw any roaming the streets either. They had to live in places where the law was lenient. These cars were mostly show vehicles, but I imagine some of them ran at the drags.

 

We had a lot of street freaks in the area when I was growing up, but not the Wild super high jacked up cars. Several really nice builds, nice custom paint jobs, jacked up tastefully, tunnel rams, some side pipes etc. Lots of Chevelles, Challengers, Camaros especially, but the best looking one was a 68 Road Runner named 'Son of Thunder' running a mean cross ram 426 Hemi in it (383 car) with a 4 speed. Beautiful red paint with a touch of gold metallic and Son of Thunder in gold leaf graphics on the quarter panels, very nicely done. Car had diamond tucked interior in it. He was frequently at cruise nights in Fairfield, Ohio at the Dixie Rib and attended the MoPar Nats in Columbus, Ohio in the mid-80s. Car was out of Middletown, Ohio, I'll see if I can find some old pics to transfer to digital.

 

I wasn't aware of any freaks here until one day this old guy who was a regular at the station I was working at had a dead battery so I got to do a house call. Had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I saw the straight axle 57, 2x4s, tilt front end, complete with leopard skin interior, in his garage.

 

Someones ""NightMare ""
Quote from Scare Face !!!

 

You asked for this @Bandit Billy

 

I wish I could draw.

 

A lot of the 70s in one pic here

 

This kind of stuff didn't get started until the mid-late 70s. Were not many jacked up front ends, those that were had spacers in the springs and that sort of stuff to lift the front end. There were very few beam axle cars in our area, we were about 40 miles from the nearest drag strip, and those mile high cars didn't fare well getting to and from the drag strip.

There sure were a lot of cars with the rear end jacked way up. Many extended leaf spring shackles and air shocks. Lots of cars running around with damaged quarters when the air shocks failed and the body came down on the ultra wide rear tires & wheels. There were a couple talented guys that would do the fancy paint jobs for pretty cheap (often didn't last long, but a lot of these car owners had a different paint job when the last one started looking funky). There was an early Camaro that sported a different paint job about every other year for several years (bondo over rust didn't last long, but it sure was pretty when 1st done, each time). Hacking up hoods so motor parts could stick up above the hood was also popular. I made a lot of money selling unmolested hoods a few years after that fad faded away.

Sorry you missed it, it was a great time to be selling used car parts, and repairing the cars afterwards. The cops in our town were pretty lenient until some yahoos with the street freak cars started doing burnouts in front of the Mayor's house. Then the fun and games ended pretty fast.

 

We apologise for what we did to that Chebbie, but you gotta admit anything with a running Merlin in it is cool

Cheers,
Harv

 

Not holding you responsible Harv but if any apologies are being thrown around it should be in regards to that Mad Max deal.

 

One pulled off the internet.

 

Heres a few more pulled of the interwebs.... i cant take credit for the pictures, credit to the posters...

 

Cool, a 500.... You don't see too many of those anymore....

 

This was in Bowling Green this weekend. It had a Lenco in it as well.