first off,let me just say,ive loved american grafiti since the first time ive seen it..i own it in VHS and DVD,and i watch it every time its on TV(like last night) i think its the best reperesentation of youth in the early 60's that i have ever seen,,,im not disputing that,,the plot is a story that has been going on since before the 60's and is still going on today. if i was born then ,im pretty sure id be a pharoh,but i wouldnt just let anybody in! anyways ,ive been wondering,,sometimes now when i watch AG ,i get to thinking about things,mostly about geographical locations and styling of cars...a few weeks ago some one said that ASTRO supremes didnt exist in the 60's,which may have been true for the majority of the US,,, but im sure they existed in so.cal back then... anyways,,,NOW,for some reason,when i watch AG,i sometimes think about regions.i mean ,what was cool in one area would may not be cool in another area,,like milners fenders steves 58 jacked up in the rear...etc..sometimes i think how AG would be if george lucas would have grown up in a different area,,,so.cal,,texas,,OK,minnesota,FLA,WA,,,etc..... not trying to disrupt your fantisy,but rather,just pondering.......
Like the Merc with the black wall tires. Was that the style in Modesto at the time? P.S. working on my intro, almost got the rough draft done. Looking for my Thesaurus.
[ QUOTE ] P.S. working on my intro, almost got the rough draft done. Looking for my Thesaurus. [/ QUOTE ] HOLY SHIT! Who are you tryin to impress? The majority of us arent English teachers buddy, perfection isnt required.
i read somewhere that lucas was a hot rodder from salinas. and all the cars in the movie except the 55 and the 32 were from his car club
[ QUOTE ] ... and all the cars in the movie except the 55 and the 32 were from his car club [/ QUOTE ] yeah,..im sure thats true....
interesting point about the geographics.i asksed my dad one time why there seemed to be more front motored dragsters&alterdes on the west coast,and east coast,and more gassers in the midwest.he says thats just how it was always wondered why.seems strange though,i find myself favoring gassers.
Funny you should mention areas. I had a 58 Pont Catalina in 1962. A feller from California came into the dealership I was working at and traded in a 57 Pont. It had chrome reverse rims and spiders. You couldn't even find them in Utah at that time so I conned the manager out of them and put em on my 58. I was the first to have em out here. Within two months they were everywhere. We was always about two months behind the west coast.
I touched on this quite awhile ago, but was thinking the same thing. I had never heard the term Shoebox refer to a Ford untill I joined this board. When somebody said Shoebox I atomaticly thought of 55-57 Chevy. I wondered if it was a Texas thing but a couple of Texas cats here on the HAMB said they had always used Shoebox to mean Ford. I took a poll at the local "Rod on in" and I got mixed answers. But the Chevy won out by a small margin. But it dosen't really matter now that I am set straight right? hehehe.
Funny, I never heard the term shoebox used for anything but a 49 to 51 Ford till about ten years ago when some body refered to 55 to 57 Chevs as shoeboxes. I thougt to myself, where'd that come from?
<font color="purple"> Samiyam will be the best HAMBer since he grew up in Motown, although not quite old enough to have see it in 62. So ask his mom, she went to school with Lucas. Also, Winfield was there, so a lot of you have seen what it was like in Motown without even knowing.While I lived in Manstinka (20 minutes from my house to downtown Motown) I noticed the area was and is heavy on the hotrods. Too bad now is a lot more chainers. </font>
[ QUOTE ] P.S. working on my intro, almost got the rough draft done. Looking for my Thesaurus. [/ QUOTE ] .......Jesus Christ Iggy! If you have a pet dinosaur, you don't need no stinkin' intro, just post a photo........
Do you really think someone as cool as a Pharaoh is gonna run some wussy wide whites?? Probably spent all his money on 'Dapper Dan' Flatheads forever
[ QUOTE ] .......Jesus Christ Iggy! If you have a pet dinosaur, you don't need no stinkin' intro, just post a photo.. [/ QUOTE ] Don't these things have to stand on the back legs and tail because the Have BiG and Littles? I'm sure when he opens his mouth we'll all see the wide whites.
Blackwalls started gaining in popularity in 1957. Up till then it was whitewalls. The narrower the better although there really wasn't much of a choice until the late 50's. In my town - Ventura, California - blackwalls caught on because of a well done local Deuce 5 window. With a built Desoto engine, it was a really well done car that would stand up to anything built today. It had whites as shown in this pic. Pic straight out of our high school newspaper. As shown, the car is in - roughly speaking - it's third iteration. It came into town primered with an Olds engine. The Olds got swapped out for a Desoto with the car still in black primer. Then it was painted red. A little farther down the line, the small Desoto engine with four 97's inline was swapped out for the big Desoto engine and six 97's. At about the same time as the last swap, the car was outfitted with screw-on Moon discs and blackwalls. After that, whitewalls started falling out of favor - cept for the custom crowd - as most performance oriented guys opted for the competition look the blackwalls implied. There's more to it, but in my town, this one little Deuce coupe started the revolution toward blackwalls and far as I know it's still going on.
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