Here's a car-related but non-hotrod related story. When I sold my first car, a 77 V6 firebird, the kid who bought it brought his dad. He and his dad were obviously not car guys, but his dad was trying to play it off like he knew what was up. So he asks me "so what's it got under the hood? a 305?" and I say "nah, it's just got a little V6". Then he says "Oh, so it's a 302 then?". I have to admit that the first thing that popped into my head was to tell him "nope, it's a 289. But it's got new muffler bearings". But I didn't. I said "No man, a 302 is a Ford V8, this is like a 231". He had this embarassed look on his face like I'd caught him in a lie or something, but he lit right up when I said "The fact that it's got a small V6 means his insurance will be a lot cheaper though". His response - "We'll take it".
The only one I get about my Sport Fury is that some folks think it's a Galaxie. They'll say, "Nice Ford, what's in it?" And when I say "383" they get a puzzled look on their face and say, "In a Ford?" Can't blame them, though. Half the time I don't know exactly what I'm looking at either. My brain goes all fuzzy and shit when it comes to the stuff that I don't see everyday. The best case of mistaken identity I had was actually about me. Went into a Subway and I sat down while the girlfriend went up to order. I went around looking like a hoodlum at the time; bandana, tattoos, scruffy looking. This little kid, probably five or six years old, is up with his mom ordering. He turns and looks at me, gets wide-eyed, tugs on his moms dress and says, "Mommy mommy there's a pirate over there!" I thought the mom was going to have a stroke right there on the spot. My girlfriend was about on the floor laughing. That musta been almost 15 years ago.
Not to defend the idiots, because they tru;y have no idea. BUT, some of the early sand toys were called "Dune Bugs" and looked a lot like old Ford hot rods, with really short wheel bases. There was an old '50s pocket-sized magazine (Car Craft?, or similar) issue devoted to them. I'd attach a few scans, but we just moved and I have no idea where the mag is. I'll probabaly find it is six months when I get my act together. EDIT: OK, here's a site with hot rod dune buggies: http://www.bob2000.com/dunebug.htm .
A couple of years ago I was with my dad and we were in his 32 Cabriolet. It's a clean, restored, four-banger. Nothing fancy just a fun driver. Well, we stopped at a gas station in Kansas (thats where we're from), and this old timer comes over to the 32. He starts to tell us his dad had a 32 Ford that was exactly like that. I was thinking " at least he knew it was a 32". Then the story starts. He says" Bonnie and Clyde held my dad up and took his 1932 Ford. His was the car that they did all their bank robberies in. They never could catch them and they never recovered the car. I think this is the car!!!!" We tried to be polite and not laugh too hard, but if you've ever driven an stock four banger with a cracked exhaust manifold and in need of a tune up, you know some of the neighborhood kids can out-run you on their bicycles. We told him it was a four-cylinder car. "Yep thats what my dad had" he said. We drove home and dad laughed all the way. Who knew he had a "famous" car.
I can handle the silly questions, dumb comments and such. I figure that other than Mustangs and Camaros, most people don't recognize the oldies and are just interested bystanders. I'll answer questions all day long. But there ARE two things that piss the hell out of me...... The first is ANYONE telling me how to build my old Ford. Yeah, it may be ratty looking but I consider it finished until I do the next mod. Then it''s finished again... But anytime I park at a cruise, a dozen so called "experts" pop out of the woodwork telling me how I should build it. The muscle car gang is bad at this. Hell, if they want to build a '64 Ford "their way", let 'em find their own! The other thing is assholes wanting to buy it and bugging me for a price. If the damn thing was for sale, I'd have signs in the windows. I even made a sign out of a piece of cardboard last summer saying "For Sale....$25000000 FIRM!" and still get bugged.
I was running a 350 with an Edelbrock X1 manifold and 6 94's. Common question received from most non car people. "Is that a six cylinder motor?" Too funny. All you can do is laugh.
This is surely one of the best threads ever. The taxi comment has me scared, my '55 Dodge is getting a yellow and black two tone paint job in the next couple weeks. I've got so many stories, my '66 Suburban is always either a hearse (which, apparently, is pronounced "hurst") or an ambulance, and my '60 Plymouth is always a 1957 model, because it has fins. But my best story is with my '53 Ford, which I've had since I was 11. In 7th or 8th grade, we were studying the 1950's for history class, and we were getting extra credit for bringing in stuff from the 50's, so my Dad brought the Ford to school for everyone to see. One of my classmates was looking at the dash and asked "Is that the radio?" "yup" "Does it still play the old time music?"
A few years ago[maybe more than a few],a couple of fellow rodders and I were out for a little ride,and stopped for some refreshments. as I parked my yellow hot rod,I heard a young lady say to her boyfriend,"that looks just like the car in american graffiti !Well my 39 chev is yellow,but unfortunatley that is where the similarity to milners coupe ends.
Well, my A was reg'd sans indicators, seatbelts, and windsceen, highboy (with cycle guards) and was getting the "is this legal??" I just tell em the story of when I showed up to get the plates, the inspector came out, i did everything wrong was late, no paper work, (fortunately the fella before me ticked him off, and he was over it by the time I got there) anyways we walk out side and he looks at it, first thing he says, 'what is it??' and then second, 'take me for a drive round the block an I'll give ya rego!!' Last year I did a road trip and 300 miles we pull up at a parts store, and when we came out there were a few fella's standing round, one guy wasn't say'n much, but he says to me, I hope you're not doin any more than 35 mph!! I just smiled, and then he asked where we were off to, weeeelll I says, to the Gold Coast (which was 1000 miles from there) I don't think he believed me! Then after the show, I was headin back home and this ole joker came and had a look at the car, I can't remember what he thought it was but he was adament that it had a wooden chassis! When I knocked it to show it was steel he said I guess that one isn't, and walked off muttering about wooden chassis' Outback
I've had a pretty good time reading all these stories...I got a few also... Your neighbor isn't too far off calling your T Roadster a "dunebuggy"...years back, here in cold Snowy Michigan, the Secretary of State's Office had a list of bodys styles... When you sent in your 1935 Ford Coupe title and it came back as a "Two Door"...a Roadster was, by the definition then, a "Dunebuggy"... I built a 1931 Model A coupe from junk stuff I accumulated over the years with my two sons who were 5 and 7 at the time...in 98. I used the junk parts from 4 different Coupes I had...the last car was from a fellow HAMBer...Mecutem....it came with enough parts to save the rest of the scrap I had hauled home... We chopped the top 2" to save the crunched door frames on the worst set of doors I had...rusted thru, inside and out, up about 6"..and put some new wood into the body... and put it on the chassis I had that was powered with a 2.0 liter Pinto 4 banger tied to the stock Model A transmission and rear end. A new Walker radiator and a set of 4 new Wescott fenders finished her off... We made it to Louisville that year with no problems...a few weeks before we left, we went to this ice cream stand and got some ice cream. This old Geezer came up, looked the car over really close, saw the Pinto Mill and said..."Wouldn't it be nice if you still had the original engine for this old Model A"...I told him that I did have the stock engine...#3 rod had let loose and went thru the block when I was driving it as my daily transportation in 1978...and that if he was looking for a stocker, I'd consider selling it to him...the Pinto was a lot more reliable and easier to get parts for...and I still had a few stockers if I wanted to rebabbit one.... He grabbed the edge of the 'glass fender and commented on "How thick the steel was that old Henry used when he built the Model A"...I told him that the thick steel was actually fiberglass....there were a few primer spots on them because of my kids riding their bicycles and scratching up the DuPont Centari Black enamel.... This guy actually got pissed!..when he realized that I had chopped the top...the welds were not finished off...(still aren't to this day...).. "You butchered this car!..You chopped the top!"... I told him that I had gotten the car for the same price he could have gotten it for..for free...but it was too rough and too far gone for the restorer's out there.... When I went to Louisville that year, I was down in the basement of the convention center, and I saw this older man in the Wescott booth...I inquired as to what his name was, and he told me his name was Dee Wescott...He owned the outfit. I told him the story and he got a good laugh out of it. He told me that he was just an old geezer who made old parts for old Fords...He said that these cars were never worth very much and he developed the glass parts when the materials came available. He fixed a few fiberglas boats and Corvettes as they came out on the market. He owned a body shop and the glass fender business was just a sideline, having pulled a few molds on Model A fenders that he restored for the local guys in Oregon. It seems every old guy who saw my Model A coupe said the same thing..I had an old car like that, but his was a roadster.... My sons came home one day, all excited...they had found a really old Hot Rod, and they were going to show it to me. They got on their bikes, and I followed them down the bike path to a body shop a block north of us. Sitting in the lot, with tape still on the windows and a nice coat of beige enamel on the body and fenders, sat a freshly painted VW Bug, circa 1964... "It's a Fat Fendered Hot Rod , Dad!" I had to explain that the bug went back, style wise, to 1933..and it followed what was then considered state of the art body design....but it wasn't a Hot Rod like our A-Bone was.... Mark aka Abonecoupe31
Wow, crazy, that picture was taken on the Silver Lake sand dunes no more than fifteen minutes north of here. It's rare to hear that area called "Mears" although that's the actual name of the town. Originally Whitehall was called Mears, but I guess they needed the name further north, lol. Anyway, cool picture, thanks for sharing that. Way up north at the Sleeping Bear Dunes there was a company that used 1956 Olds 88 convertibles as their "Sleeping Bear Dunesmobiles." I'll see if I can hunt up a pic. Edit: Found one! Oh, just to keep it on topic: I hear "nice Mustang" all the time when I'm driving my Camaro. So does my mom in her Javelin. Not from me, though, I always say "nice Rambler."
I don't know if anyone else recognizes this particular car or not, but it's one of Mac Wood's 34 Ford Dune Scooters.....When I was a kid (5) my dad wouldn't let me go for a ride in one, he felt it was too dangerous. We took my two boys there in 95 and we went for a ride on their newest version of the Dune Scooter...on a Ford chassis if I remember.... I talked with the college student who was the tour guide and he said that my dad was right, they were dangerous..and that if I wanted to look at one of the 34's, they were on display in the barn out in back. His first Dune Scooter was a Model A with 2 tires on each side of the front axle and three on each side of the rear. mac's wife wrote a book called Dune Buggies if I remember the title right. They called the Model A the 10 wheeled model.... Mac also had a restored 30 Coupe.... Mark aka Abonecoupe31
I built this strange little rig a few years back. I thought that EVERYONE knew what a bumpercar was.... So I'm at a local car show and a 50ish lady walks up and says " What a nice little dunebuggy" no shit. Apparently the term dunebuggy is a female term meaning any car of any year up till the term "semi truck" applies
oh maaaahhh gaawwdddd... doan get me stahhhted. "That things just like the batmobile" ... to which I respond.. sure... watch out for the afterburners "my uncle such and such had one of those, just like it... but it was a (buick, ford, chevy dodge, oldsmobile, insert other car of choice), and a coupe, and it was (insert color of choice)" ... there's just no good response for stupidity like that "Are those the original white walls" ...yeah, I'm driving on 45 year old white walls... and I'm DEAD too... don't make me haunt you. "I got a set of hubcaps that'd make that car look really sweet, ya wanna buy em" ...that's nice I've got two sets of original hubcaps for the car, I hate em, I hate hubcaps alltogether... "Is that the original interior" ...yeah it is, see the crack in the dash, and the rip in the arm rest, and the huge hole in the seat, and the rips in the headliner, and the lack of carpet, that's the way cadillac sold em!!! "Boy that thing sounds like a hot rod" ...Yeah... that's cuz it's running like SHIT... and needs exhaust. If you call that a hot rod, then OK.. it's a hot rod. ok.. thus ends my rant. And just to clarify... yes it IS a 5 man trunk.. maybe 6 or more if I cut em up.
If you do NOT want comments from Joe Q. Public, drive a 1997 Ford Explorer. Nobody will ever look twice. Other than that, they mean well, they are meant to be compliments, no matter how stupid, deal with it, and enjoy the humor in each! Its fun, be glad your not them!
I've gotten the 'is it legal?' question from a neighborhood lady. My favorite so far: we were on the way back from the Peterson on Wilshire Blvd. This chick pulls up next to us in a late model SUV, high tag like a BMW or Mercedes. She says the boys want to ask you a question about your car. Ok One of the kids, 13/14 years old asks if the '29 hi boy is a Chaterham 7. Nope, '29 Ford to which the lady says "and you drive it?" Yep, just coming from the Peterson. Is that where you keep it? No, but thank you for the compliment.
Should have asked how ford got the distributor up front and chevy got it in the back - or did they just flip the engine 180* Obviously that guy never turned a wrench in his life or was clueless like the parts droids behind the counters now a days...
Last summer i drove my 63 galaxie wagon to work and some one would sing "who you gona call" i never got it till they said and havent stoped calling it the ghost busters car WTF
Dirk 35 Thats exactly the way I look at it. at least some of them recognise how much work goes into these " dunebuggies" Its a great way to meet people, ignore the stupid ones HA HA
A guy looking at the exhaust on my Brother's Flathead powered Roadster: "I've never seen a V-6 with 4 spark plugs on each side." I get this one every time I drive my Coupe: "How do you see out of that thing?" I say "It has see-through windows." "Does it go very fast?" I think to myself: "Are you kidding me? Hello?... It's got a freekin' HEMI hanging out both sides!!!" I bought my '30 Roadster from the original owner's son. His Dad had left it to him when he died, and his asking price was FIRM! He told me he had done a lot of 'research' and he KNEW that the car was worth more than a regular Model A because it was a 'Sport Coupe' !!! I agreed with him; "Yep, you're right. It IS worth more!" We were cruising Washington Blvd. years ago in my Buddy's '30 Coupe . This lady pulled up next to us and said "I like your Truck". I get "Model T" references from the general public all the time too. I guess every old car is a Model T to them. I can't bitch though, every sport that doesn't involve an engine or wheels is Basketball to me... It all evens out. On the other hand; I was in a crowded parking lot waiting my turn to exit. I look to my right to see this old woman giving me and my Coupe the once over. A few minutes later she asks me "Is that a Model A?" I was shocked! I said yes it is. She said she wasn't sure because I had 'lowered the roof', but it sure looked like the car that her old boyfriend used to drive...
Little kids called my roadster 'GROSS' and some other kid told me at world of wheels last weekend that it doesn't look very safe. God Bless little kids Jake
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