hey von tingler did you finally sell that rpu project you had? i'm the one that drove up from atlanta. i bought a 31 chevy pickup from a friend of a guy on here.
After growing up around hot rods and (GASP HERE) turning down my Dad's offer to BUILD ME ANY CAR I WANTED after high school, I made it to the ripe old age of 31 having never owned a pre-1981 car, or American car for that matter. Before you all jump on me for turning down my oh-so-generous Dad... you should know that I was about 16-17 at the time of the offer and spending lots of time clubbing in not-so-good neighborhoods. And having spent most of my life going to car events and weekend rod runs, I knew all to well the practicality issues of having an old car with respect to reliability. This coupled with my complete lack of knowledge on fixing cars led me down the path to my first car and bona-fide tank, a 1981 Toyota Celica. A couple of years ago, I bought a new vintage-looking scooter which led ultimately to the purchase of a vintage project scooter. It's at that point that I discovered the joys of working in a garage, handling tools, making things work and above all getting dirty. So I guess once I got a taste for it, the next step was to get a car. After all, my whole life was leading me in that direction! So around summertime this past year I started looking for a car. I wanted something running that I could drive right away although perfection was certainly not expected. I didn't want to spend more the 7k and so I looked for months at lots of major projects, rust buckets, and just "not right for me" cars before I found "Faye". I was starting to get bummed out as one car after another failed to pass the "dad" test and then one night I came home and my hubby said we were going to take a drive and look at a car. Oddly enough the car was not far from where I lived and had been sitting on the side of the road for sale for about a year. Of the cars I looked at, it was the first one that I thought might actually pass the stringent screening of my father. A few days after checking it out, my Dad and I went up and drove the car and ended up buying it for just $5750, enough under budget to get the car and all new wide whites. Not only do I feel like I got a great deal, but I also have fallen in love with this car in a way I've never fallen in love with any car before. It's so many things that make her special I can't even begin to describe it (although you all know what i'm talking about). And of course now I can't imagine not having an old car ever again. Of course, my dad and pals are enjoying the fact that the apple didn't fall far from the tree, even if it took me 31 years to land So.. now I'm a living, breathing car and scooter obsessed gal who CAN'T wait for spring and all the wonder adventures Faye and I will have on the open road. So that's my story...how'd you get YOUR car?
Auction for rough 1934 Ford truck Ebay $1275.00 Shipping from Iowa to eastern NC $750.00 2 years of hard work and help from the HAMB..... Priceless!!!!
I have wanted a 49 to 54 chevy for a long long time... I would look around in yards/driveways for one and could not find one in my price range... I finally just broke down and ran an ad in the local paper saying I am looking to buy a 49 to 54 chevy car...BAM the phone calls started rolling in!!! some people are insane about the price they want for a car sinking into the ground... One guy had a 4 door 54 in what USED to be his house...he has sold the house but the car is still in the side yard sunk up to the body in the ground (but it is covered in a tarp!)...there is a garage built behind it and a HUGE ass tree that has grown in front of it. I would have had to of hired a helicopter to get it out...the guy said he would LET IT GO at a loss for 5k!!! I told him I would think about it and ran away as fast as I could... I ended up trading a dirt bike to a guy for my 52...the dirt bike ended up getting stolen from the guy My car had been sitting for a few years across from the high school I went too...in a drive way. After I bought it my kid told me he had been walking past that car for a couple years...he didn't know that was the type of car I wanted so he never mentioned it to me...
I was one of the last hold out from the mini-truck/compact car club I belonged to. All my buddies had begun buying 50/60's rides but I had to wait until I bought a house (either that or become divorced).. When the time came I decided I wanted a wagon so I looked around and got a call from a friend that his friend has a 53 wagon forsale. Got a description from my buddy and a phone number. (previous owner is now a HAMBer also as well as my buddies). After getting my buddy to agree to store it at his place in Seattle (I lived in SC) and let me get it running. I made an offer and bought site unseen. The day came and I flew into Portland where my buddy met me and took me to the car. It was a happy and sad moment at the same time. IT was not in the condition I thought it was but it was mine.. Damn ugliest thing I laid eyes on and more of a project then expected. Today I am glad I bought it and but it cost me three times what I thought it would...
i saw the '49 Chevy i bought at the Long Beach swap meet and the next week i bought it. simple as that.
I traded my 1995 Jeep Wrangeler for the current one I have now. I am still a Jeep nut and want another one really bad...
$150.00 down and three monthly payments of one hundred bucks a pop, that was for a body, frame and title. Man I was poor then, it was all I could scrape together and still eat. Paul
Both my 55 and 57 Safaris came to me in a rather strange turn of events: The 55 was purchased shortly after I had moved to Michigan and gotten re-married. I was in the market for a car but didn't really know what I wanted. While scanning an auto trader magazine one day I came across the ad for the 55. It sounded interesting so I gave the guy a call. He asked me where I'd heard about it and I told him. He said that was strange because he had placed the ad nearly two YEARS before and never got one response! He was getting ready to re-advertise it when I called. He described the car very accurately,I drove down to see it,liked it,we came to an agreed figure, and he delivered the car two weeks later.I've often thought that this car and I were destined to meet. The story of the 57 is even more weird! We had driven the 55 to Massachusetts to attend the Ty-Rods show and I went down to see a friend about striping his Deuce phaeton. He hadn't seen the 55 before and made a comment that a friend of his had a similar one for sale. I told him I'd like to see it and he made arrangements with the owner. We got there and the owner couldn't find the key to the garage which was across the street from his house.They were a row of cinder block structures partially covered with dirt.Got the key,spent about an hour trying to unseize it(hadn't been opened in 7 years),unburied the car from under a pile of trash bags and old bicycle frames,opened the door to check the floors and noticed the lettering on the dashboard.I had painted it on there in 1963! It was my buddy's old race car! It had a 1979 inspection sticker on it(the last time it had been registered)and it was now 1997.The body was excellent,all 4 tires were flat(later fixed by cleaning the Cragars and putting on new stems)but it was all there.I left it there until spring and came back to get it in April. I paid $1000 for it(plus $180 storage fees;that's what he was paying to leave it there:$30 a month for 17 years!).I got it home and eventually broke the engine free and ran it a couple times but the 4.56's in it weren't very good on the street! Hopefully one of these days it will hit the streets again.This one and I were also fated to meet! Ray BTW the whole story was written up in Ron Kowalke's book on wagons awhile back.The enclosed picture was taken the day after I brought it home and washed all the dirt from it.
I probably got a few years on you. My first brand new car was a 63 Fairlane hdtp with a 271 and four speed. Bought from Tasca Ford in RI. One of the best cars I ever had. My first rod was 31 roadster and for the life of me can't remember where I got it. My second car, a 48 Ford, was found by a friend of mine in the boonies of Connecticut. It was a real POS but I've had it now for about 25 years and have gone lots of places with it, some real long trips.
I've had several but here's the story on the 2 that matter most, that i will NEVER ever sell for any amount of money. Lots of people say that. I mean that to the very core of my being... My '67 chevelle SS convt... Dad bought it out of a junkyard in '77 and I was 9. We worked on it off and on until it sat in a body shop for a couple years cause the guy was flaky (and a friend... so it sat LONGER) Jump to '87. I've had my license for 6 mos and have a '67 SS hardtop that we built to be my car. It was corvette yellow and had a screamin' 283 . Dad decided the convertible project needed to be resurrected and he wanted to buy a '48 coupe so he told me to sell my hardtop and I could finish the convertible. It was in the paper the NEXT day. Worked on it and debuted it at my senior breakfast on the first day of school. Now 10+ years after that, I've been fixing all the little shit that doesn't matter when you're 17. Now it's less of a high school kid's muscle car and more of a "make it as bone stock looking but mean as fuck" as I can. The finishing touch was ditching the rallyes for dog dish caps and redlines. The '36 Ford coupe was my Dad's first car that he bought in '64 for $150. He drove it every day until he left for the Air Force in '67. While he was in Vietnam, my uncle blew the motor and it sat in his garage for years. I remember climbing all over it, sitting in the rumble seat, pretending to drive. Dad decided to get it running again in the 80s. Tinkered with a new flatty. Then decided to rod it. Got one new frame for it with a small block. Decided it wasn't good enough. Had another frame built, a nice one with a sbf. It sat again. In '97 he decided I should have it and finish it. So I tinkered with it for about a year. Then I got divorced. So it sat again until the end of '02 when I found a group of guys into the old stuff, went to the first hunnert car pileup and found the HAMB, all within about 2 months. Joined the Czars, made a crapload of new friends and started in on the coupe again trying damn hard to make the '03 Pileup. Alas, no luck. As soon as it warms up, we're going to start thrashin' again, and hope to have it hit the road in April. And believe me, I can't WAIT to see the look on my Dad's face when we first roll out the driveway in it for the first time in 35 years. Priceless.
i bought them on ebay...i typed "RAT ROD" into the search engine,...then wiped out my credit card and got crazy. most fun ive had in years.
Some guy had to beg me to take his '32 3W...really. In '99 I had a patina'd-out '40 ford stnd coupe that looked pretty cool and everywhere I went the usual ford crowd was there. I started talking to this one guy and said I'd like to get rid of it for a fenderless car, preferably deuce. He starts calling me trying to talk my cash price down, and finally says he cant get the cash, would I like to trade for a '32? Disappointed it wasnt a roadster, I still drove over to Fullerton to look in this tiny garage in a slummy neighborhood at a complete primered unmolested fendered 3W minus-engine that hadn't seen daylight for probably 15 yrs. I had to think about it for 2 weeks with him calling and bugging before I decided to go. I thought I was pretty smart, turns out I didnt know SHIT about deuces. Thankfully it had everything, but if it had been missing anything I wouldnt have known it. As Im pulling out the drive with it on a trailer he keeps running out with more parts for it. Finally I go "What about window mouldings?". He goes back and gets them and I say "Just throw em in the back of the pickup" and I drove on home, with $3000 bouncing around in back on the 91 freeway. Now Im gonna be buried in that car.
i got mine dirt cheap. why? nobody else wanted the rat basard. its got more speed holes (or bullet holes) than i can shake a stick at. there was probably 6" of dirt built up in the bottom of it. wyoming wind makes dust. i still have the wagon wheels that it came with. trey
The moredoor had been in my family since the day I was born. Up until the age of 6, it sat on flat tires, dead battery, and covered in spider webs in Palm Desert CA. One day I decided it would make a great canvas for my green crayola masterpiece. I was truly an amazing artist at the age of 6, because when my father found me, he was so excited he whooped my ass all over the garage. A month later, it was beautiful and shiny, with only a smidgeon of my green crayola masterpiece on the rear fender. I was hooked the first time I rode in it with the top down at 80 degrees out at night. Fast forward to the age of 23, it had been sitting and he asked me to help him sell it. No WAY. After 4 months of on and off convincing, I got him to sell the boat to me. "Now its your problem..." Fair enough, it's worth every penny I make and more, and will be passed onto my son for the original purchase price of $1100. There is still a 1" line of green crayola I avoid everytime I wax as a reminder. This ones a keeper, but a Lincoln Zephyr is somewhere out there waiting in the wings. You guys with multiple projects are nuts. I can barely handle one for NOW. -Dane
since we're on the subject of fairlanes I'll tell that one, as like you I didnt know what a fairlane was or anything about 60's fords except mustangs(thats my first car). I kept seeing this fairlane in the high school auto shop parking lot and started asking my instructor about it. He told me for 2 years that one of his sons was going to fix it up, yeah right. finally after I got out he let me buy it from him for 350 dollars which was a little much for the shape it was in. I drove it across town with a bowling ball size hole in the windshield and started working on it. someday it will be painted white and will look like a thunderbolt fairlane until then I drive it in three shades of primer. the story of how I got my mercury will hafta wait till next time.
Wifes 49 Merc, several years ago havin a BBQ a some rich friend of the wifes. This guy says if you come across a 49 Merc to build he will pay the price. I say, might as well look for a 32 Ford........When we arrive home I have a message from a friend in Montana, says, still lookin for a 49 Merc Coupe? Wife says, yer not going to tell my friend are you! $500 and 2000 miles later...the rest is history.......OLDBEET
Fairlanes kick butt! I brought my 33' home in veeeeeery tiny pieces. My dad bought the 40' Dodge vert from a guy in town when I was about 5. He paid somethin like 500 bucks for it.
Ok I'm 17 at the time.My best friend calls me up one morning and says I was tripping last night and I drove my 70 cuda into a ditch somewhere in Manville. I hitchhiked home and now I need help finding it.So we found his car,Pulled it out of the ditch.On the way home about a block away I see a 57 chevy.I still own it 24 years later.Thats one,I could go on all night.
i was 15 and wes gave me what should have been a parts car....if i only new then what i know now i would have known that "hey its urs if u come pick it up"isnt always the best idea
Mine was a gift from fellow Gay Bitch member-for-life, RocketJ2! He was snickering as I looked the car over and uttered those three tender little words so dear to the hearts of gearheads everywhere... "I'll take it!" (I think I scored BIG Brownie Points with his wife that day, too! ) Thanks again, Bud!
I usta know this pimp dude who worked sometimes for this Italian "business man" in Vegas, well this guy was over at my place for cocktrails one day and he asks me if he could leave this chrome gun at my place for a while because he was moving and didn't want to misplace it. So, about a year later he asks me if he could have it back and at the same time I was looking for a work car and he had this Sedan Deville that was bout 5 or 6 years old and the chrome spokes was getting rusty but that didn't slow it down so I says to him, can I have the Caddy for taking care of the piece for you, And he thinks about it for about a second and a half and says sure. So I got this super fine pussy packer to drive to work in. but then after about 6 months me and my Bro is cruisin up Colorado Blvd in Eagle Rock when the tranny decides to take a shit so we coast it to the curb and get out and call a cab. Ain't seen it since.
My '40 Chevy coupe: Gift from my Uncle when I was 12. Later he gave me a 454/TH400 to go in it. a man I still admire and am very close with today. My '54 Ford Wagon I stole from my sister. hehe, thanks sis! My RPU I got in a trade with Dan from here on the HAMB. My '50 Stude has the longest story.... Drivin home from college in Dads '89 Cutlass Ciera, I take a longer look at a '64 Olds 4dr sitting behind a garage on the highway. While looking at it, I look up and there are about 15 old cars lined up beside the woods that are cleverly hidden from the highway. I investigate further by peeping my eyes into the open pole barn to see if anyone was around. When what to my wondering eyes should appear? But 15-20 MORE cars inside and these are mostly all restored Studes and other orphan cars. My bullet nose was sitting right up front like a pound dog begging to be brought home. I went up to the house and this 82 year old man answered the door with, "You got car trouble?" "No, sir." "Good, we'll get along great then!" So we talked for a while and I asked him about the '50 Stude and if he would sell. He told me that he would give me $1000 plus the Stude for the aforementioned Cutlass that I was trying to sell. Since I couldn't do that because we needed the money from the car, he told me to save up $750 by the time he came back from Texas in the spring and it would be mine, Title and all. So, I drank a little less that year and saved up the money. Come May 2nd, I paid him the cash, towed the Stude beind my faithful pickemup, towed it home and got it running that very night. Took my high school sweetheart to prom in it three weeks later. Story still makes me smile.
picked up a Bargain Trader, Wild hair and an income tax refund check, Next thing I knew there was an engineless 46 Ford Tudor carcass in the back yard.
It was Oct of 2001 and I was at the GG Charlotte show in my continued search for another fat fendered ragtop. I had lost the love of my life, my 1947 Chevy convert, in a shop fire in July of 2000 and had still not found the perfect replacement. I was running around the show with my very good buddy Craig Suman from Melbourne, FL who had a red 1947 Olds covert. As we're walking around checking out cars he asked me if I had ever heard of "Project Big Olds" from a rag called Rodder's Digest . I told him I hadn't and he proceeded to fill me in on all the details. He wasn't sure what had happened to Big Olds after the mag folded but said he might be able to find out from Garry McWhirter who just so happened to be at the show. We stopped by and chatted with Garry for awhile and I was told it was a running, driving hot rod but it was still in "project" statis. I gave him my card and asked him to pass it along to Steve Hendrickson who actually was the owner. He said he would. Well I really wasn't looking for a "project" as I knew my skill and knowledge level wasn't what it needed to be to "finish" a car but I knew it wouldn't hurt to talk to the guy. I had had no luck in finding anything that yanked my crank in the previous 18 months and was getting bummed out not having my own hot rod. It was the longest 18 months of my life. Well a short time later Steve, better known as "Just Steve" on the HAMB, emailed me. I was not a HAMB member at the time. We went back and forth for a couple of months, him sending me photos and info and me asking more and more questions. Before I made my decision I went down to FL and spent some time with my buddy Craig and his 47 Olds covert. I kind of just wanted to pick his brain about what I was getting myself into. Another buddy in Florida named Bones also had a huge influence on my decision as well. He had been driving his 40 Ford convert for a couple of years in the same state of buildup as Big Olds's current condition. They both gave me tons of encourgement leading me to believe that I could do anything I wanted if I just put my mind to it. I thought to myself, well it's a running, driving hot rod convert, built right, and he was selling it at a somewhat fair price So I sent him a check. Next came trying to figure out how to get it from the WI/MN boarder to Detroit at the end of Dec with tons of snow on the ground and bitter cold temps. But that's another story........
The Jalopy Journal
