Art & Inspiration What was THE car that everyone was envious of when you were in high school?

Class of 77 , friend had a 70 Amx 390 car , loved that car . Another had a 69 barracuda that he wrapped around a tree and rebuilt with a tilt nose . That was a fast car . I had a 69 bonneville convertable with a 428 . Girls loved going to nantasket beach in it .

 

Class of '60, my friend Bruce had a '57 Ranchero, lowered, 430" Lincoln power, Lee ace of spades tail light lenses, white tonneau cover with black ace of spades in center and painted Hondouras Maroon. Man I loved that truck.

 

These two BelAirs followed me through High School and into College. The 56 couldn't fall off a cliff but the 57 got up and flew hard. Was tough keeping rocker arm studs securely in the heads of the 57's fuelie engine however. Both taught me a lot about cars.

 

2many projects , was that a factory Fuelie? Didn't think you could get one in a 4 door sport sedan.

 

My high school hot rod 28A roadster that I built in 1959{ V8 T-bird for power}and my full custom Henry J { Olds Rocket V8 for power} ,that I built in 1960,I don't think was what most others would of liked the best. The talk I got from many was how super cool 55 to 57 T-Birds were, any Chevy Vett or Jag XKE were at the top of there list.
There were some though that were really in to my cars,luckly some pretty gals.
I built my own,cuz no one was going to buy me any of the list toppers! And I really liked doing it,didn't have $ for any of those others anyway.
I still have my first baby{28A} an drive it now on good weekends. Here A shot out front of my highschool a few years back. Miami Sr. High.

 

I graduated in 1966, but back in my 9th grade year (junior high) a guy in school had an older brother who drove a '56 Ford two door post. It wasn't terribly good looking but it was fast. It was the first street car I can remember that could lift the front wheels off the ground. I don't know what was under the hood and I doubt anyone else did either as he kept the hood chained and locked with a pad lock. Though there were a lot of kids in my high school who drove late model cars, any talk about cool cars eventually reverted back to that Ford.

 

I made my own money and I built my own cars in high school in a small town of 8000 in eastern Oregon in the mid-60's. First car built starting at age 14 was a 37 Ford/sbc--second, I had as a junior and most of senior year was a 58 Delray starting with a 301 and ending with a 425/409/4sp high 12 second car which I traded for a 59 Corvette/360hp/327 before graduation. When I look back----I envy myself !!!

 

mac yates owned the local ford dealership; he also road-raced. he had a brand-new cobra in the showroom (about '64) that had all the guys drooling!

 

My fist car was also a 56 Ford 2 door post. And I can just about guarantee you if it pulled the front wheels off the ground then it was not the old Y-Block!

 

Drove this to high school Class of 1988.


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I am sure most folks figured that was the case.

 

How did we ever survive high school? One of my street racer high school buddies had a cousin who was rumored to be building a wicked car. All we knew was that it was small, but had a monster motor.
One night at the local gear head drive-in, we heard a collective chorus of WTF is THAT???!!!
A very ratty 51 Sears Allstate (Henry J with no trunk lid opening) was turning into the drive-in. Jacked up in the front with a half ton pickup front axle, no grille or front bumper, no exhaust system to speak of, wide whitewall slicks sticking out of gas axe crafted radiused rear wheel openings, and nobody driving.
"What did you just say??!!"you are asking. Yup, nobody in the driver seat because it had a 394 Olds with a hydro stuffed between the grille and the back of where the front seat used to be. "Rick" sat in the back seat "driving" the car with a steering column that must have been six feet long. The gas and brake pedals were moved back, and the hydro was shifted with and aftermarket floor stick which had it's own twelve feet of barnyard linkage. Oil/temp/tach were the only gauges, and as far as the interior, there was none exept afour point roll cage.
Seems the car had been a drag car in Illinois, and Rick's dad bought it as s roller. They pulled the 394/hydro our of mom's Dynamic 88, and stuffed it into the Allstate.
Someone asked if it was fast, and a minute later Rick was doing burnouts in front of the drive-in. We allstood with our mouths laying on our loafers, wondering if it was jyst a really bad dream. Rick rolled her in to cool off (seems the 394 had abit if a cooling issue among many others). A guy with a 65 GTO asked Rick if he wanted to race, but Rick said he couldn't until he could "figure out how the hell to see out the windshield, and make it stop".
He left saying he had to get home before it got dark because it had no headlights .......... and said he and his dad were going to fab a doghouse for the 394, and, maybe paint it.
I never saw the car again, and to this day wonder if I really ever did. Never saw Rick again, heard he got a job maintaining the light bulbs on radio towers - probably way safer than driving that Alls

 

We had a quarter mile marked out literally in front of the hospital. Nice long straight stretch outside of town. We all had CB's and would report where the law was.... You know the rest, went to watch and to drive that road many times.

Never was caught, and AFAIK no one else was on that strip.

 

Lots of cool stuff in 64-68
54 ford glass top, SBC 4 speed 2X4
54 sedan 390 406 heads and hp cam
55 210 301 BIG cam and fast
57 t-bird E code
Mine was a 57 ford PU 389 poncho
Thanks Dad

 

For me, it was a '53 Chev 210 ,2dr. sedan
that belonged to Bill Hoffman. He was a senior at Benson Tech HS in Portland, Oregon in 1956. The car was cut into a hardtop ,he removed the "B " pillar and the upper door frames and installed slid in quarter windows,lowered it. As I recall it was perfectly proportioned, with the longer top and trailing "C" posts. It went on to be a R&C cover car in late'56 or early '57. I moved to the Seattle area at the beginning of my junior year and never saw it again, except as the R&C cover car.

.............. Jack

 

When rusty Walton brought his just purchased '63 Galaxie fastback (red). I said that some way somehow I would own a car just like it. It took me 40 years, but I finally got one. check my icon.
later, matt.

 

I was the same way. A friend brought a new 64 Galaxie XL convertible to school. I have wanted one ever since. So I finally got one in 2010. By then I was bald and found out convertibles are for people with hair..

 

My first car was a 1993 Ford Mustang GT with a T-5 that I bought not running for 900 bucks when I was 15. My dad helped me pass inspection (didn't take much) and I drove the wheels off it . That car got me in so much trouble. Since selling it a few years back and driving a Toyota, I haven't had any speeding or traffic tickets. Lame. I'm so old and boring now. lollolool

 

I'll get back to the topic of what everyone was envious of rather than what I drove in HS as not many were envious of my wheels. Class of '78.
There were two (!!!) 1st gen Camaro Z28 302's. Both were yellow with black stripes. Both had factory spoilers. One had the rare crossram intake, the other had rear discs and OEM headers. I know the headers and intake are probably worth more than both those cars were worth back then. They (rich kids) always parked next to each other in the HS lot, and even back then it was enough to make a guy drool, especially when they both fired up and rumbled out of the lot together. In the 70's, most Camaros were modified with aftermarket wheels and 8 track players hacked into the dash, however, these guys (respectfully and thankfully) left them stone stock. Even then, they knew the cars were rare. I've wondered for years what became of those rare cars. If they didn't get totaled, I imagine they're in someones muscle car collection.

Before that, it was Jim Landon's green 57 Chevy with Cragars. Immaculate, with a lumpy cam and the quarter windows full of speed stickers such as Accel, Edelbrock, etc. That car, the burnouts it did, (and the hot Girlfriend that was always with him in that car) is what inspired a 15 year old Freshman (walking to school) to work my ass off to save $$$, look for and buy a tri five as my first car in High School. The whole package was clearly a "sign me up for that gig"! All the guys were envious and thought he was King.Talk about inspiration.
For reasons unknown, he sold the car in his Senior year. I heard from a couple of guys that some guys Mom bought him the car and he totally abused it-broken glass, etc. Never saw it again.

There was also a white 67 Chevelle with blue flames down the fenders and doors, way jacked up, Cragars, Lakewood traction bars, with "Homegrown" lettering painted on the back panel (he was a serious Stoner). Real healthy mill. Not sure what happened to it. He hung around with a friend that had a dark green 70 1/2 split bumper Camaro. Dual quads poked through the hood. When it rained, he placed coffee cans on the velocity stacks. Wide Cragars and really fast. Recently, at my job, I was in a breakout meeting with a Gal with the same, uncommon last name. Turns out to be his Daughter! I inquired about the Camaro and she didn't know what happened to it. Stated he had passed away some years back.

Also, Craigs Jeep, lifted with a 327 with fenderwell headers. Dump the clutch and it would pull the front wheels a bit at launch.

My buddy Tim had a mid 60's Scout and we dropped a 327/4 speed with vertigate shifter in it in Auto Shop. That thing was a tire smoker.

 

The coolest car that cruised the high school was Bill Wilde's Model A. He's a bit older than me and I've never met him since he moved away after high school. Was thrilled when it showed up in Canadian Hot Rods & Classics.

 

Not true, they just don’t care.


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I generally don't bite at this type of thing, but to hell with that point of view.
I am 17, I am building a 48 year old engine, and I want to put it in a 70+ year old car, and drive the wheels off of it.
I belong to a group of friends who would love to do the same thing.
A statement like that proves your talkin' to the wrong damned teenagers, a lot of us suck, but not all.
I know the H.A.M.B. is against online BS debates and so am I, but I'm equally tired of that stereotype.

 

Ok, time to shoot down the bullshit.

1. School's don't offer shop classes or anything like anymore. For a lot of you, based on what I have seen and heard, you learned a lot of skills either from shop classes or necessity. Necessity still plays a large part, but the lack of shop classes or others to learn from often shoots down any fledgling projects. Usually, it's cheaper for the necessity kids to buy a beater for $200-300, run it into the ground, scrap it, and buy another one. My buddy with the $300 Explorer just scrapped it yesterday and bought a Cavalier with a blown head gasket for the money he made scrapping the Explorer. Probably will last him 2-3 months. The rest of us (with a few exceptions such as myself) may as well be middle age peasants for how complex cars seem, especially with the use of computers in most of the ones on the market.

2. Inflation through television and fleaBay of prices kills the competitiveness of pricing. The junker you could buy for less than the modern $100 back in the "good old days" costs us $800+ usually. Parts are more expensive and scarcer than they were. I see this across all the antique fields, the access of the internet, combined with the "reality" TV shows where people buy old junk for a shit ton, make people think their barely related crap is worth its weight in gold. We can't afford to buy a separate project.

3. Parents usually end up footing the bill for insurance, and as such they get a large say in the choice of car. Usually, their concern is safety, , as this results in lower insurance in their minds; the lack of airbags or presence of rust kills any chance the common youth has at anything remotely interesting. No hot rods, no antiques, no horsepower worthy of fun; the list of greviences the average set of parents have with fun cars is endless.

4. We can't work as young. Child labor laws have cut down how long we can work, how soon we can work, etc. Added to that the fact that teenagers now have to compete in the minimum wage sector with full adults, often overqualified for the job being applied for, and it is harder for teenagers to get hired. So less money for fun cars like hot rods.

Now these are just SOME of the reasons why we don't see many old cars being driven by youngsters like myself. The list could continue, but I dont have time for that. Feel free to beat the dead horse of a myth you choose to propagate as the truth. And maybe, just maybe, consider cutting youth some slack. Don't blame everything on a lack of interest, sometimes it's factors beyond our control.

 

Really glad you young people are in the hobby. I'll help any of you out if I can.
Hot Rods ta Hell mentioned the thread was straying, as they do!
In 1980, there were NO cars older than '65 or so in the parking lot. A worn '66 GTO was owned by an upperclassman. That drew my envy. Another guy had a last year '74 GTO (Nova) that was only 6 years old at the time. Best one was the auto shop teacher's split bumper Z28, deep dish Cragars and yellow slapper bars.

 

see that 57 belair in my avatar? I'm 19 and bought it for 1500 bucks from summer job money and in total i've only spent $3300 on the car and all the parts, next weekend i'm dropping in a small block. Sure i get that this stuff isn't dirt cheap anymore but young people can still get into the classic car hobby if they want. It's not easy finding cheap stuff is part of the problem. it's out there but you have to pounce on a good deal when you see it. If i hop on my local craigslist right now theres a 71 lemans with a gto hood for $2,000 with what looks like a mild poncho engine, then theres a 62 belair that runs and drives for $500. if i had the space I'd be bringing those both home.


Even if it's a safety issue, a teenager can pick up an ex cop car for a couple thousand and hot rod that with summer job money. There are tons of deals to be had out there that if a kid puts a little money aside each paycheck instead of blowing it on pot and fast food they can have a performance car after a summers work.

 

I see what you're saying but we're on the hamb. Of course young people are into cars, i am myself obviously, but not MANY of us are. I don't know anyone from my high school that cared enough about old cars to own one although several kids could have, it wasn't a money problem. Trust me when i say i'm on your side of the fence, i was class of 2016.

 

Sorry bout that the , Ragin. 'Round these parts the problem is funding or parents usually, not interest. V8's take too much gas, make too much horsepower for them. That's why we have a fervrent ricer scene. Parents don't mind paying for the base, and students who care enough to modify their cars build them for speed. Can't tell you how many Altimas and Civics wanted to race the Tbird when it ran. I lost every one, since that was built as a cruiser. My daily is a whole 'another story, but that's not HAMB friendly content.

 

I definitely relate to the parents thing, although my mom is more open to it than most folks i think, granted her first car was a 70 chevelle with a 400. I was dead set on having either a 3rd gen nova or an el camino as my first car. hell we even went to look at a couple of them, and i was really close to buying an 86 el camino with chrome reverses and baby moons, only one problem though, the cab smelled like it had a major exhaust leak which wouldn't have been hard to fix but my mom said i needed something that didn't need anything. Well, on the way home i settled for a 4x4 s10. Nowadays though i'm 19 so if i want to buy a car that's fine as long as i have room for it, once my belair hits the pavement i'll be giving my mom insurance money and paying for my own gas and repairs, doing all the work myself. I don't know anyone else my age who would spend their time and money on a rusty old car instead of the above mentioned items. And about the horsepower, what they don't know won't hurt them

 

Alright Alright, lets not get the thread canned, I'm glad there are other Teenagers on here, and I think this was a healthy bit of conversation, and in hindsight should have been carried out through a personal message, my apologies for side tracking a very entertaining thread, lets get back to subject material.

 

Hello,

My old high school in Long Beach, CA was in the middle of the automotive downtown area. Most of the car dealers were just a block or two down the street from the school campus. One of our classmate’s dad owned the Oldsmobile dealership. That did not go over well with most of the guys because the Oldsmobile cars were not race oriented cars…but, family oriented cars. She was nice and a great friend, though.

Yes, she drove a new Oldsmobile to school. The other cars driven by most were just family cars at age 16. There were a few hot rod Fords, a 46 with a Chevy motor, a 40 sedan with a Buick, and that 40 coupe with an SBC. There was a cool racy T-Bird with head rests that our friend drove to school, but it was his mother’s and everyone knew it. One white, 1954 6 cylinder Corvette, but it was a cool car that only one other person could fit in it, so he also drove a bigger Chevy sedan.

The school did have the slew of 55-56-57-58 Chevies, in all sorts of models. In our class of 1962, the latest in June of 62 was a new, 409 Biscayne 4 speed. He was the fastest, but did not race too many people. They all knew what was coming at them. That was the topper.

The Chevys were cool, but the most popular ones were the 55/56/57/ and my 58 Impala from September 1960 to June 1962. I kept that black 58 Impala immaculate daily, with weekend Blue Coral Wax jobs to keep that deep, dark, shiny, black paint, sparkling. Not to brag, but we did win ALL of our races in this stock version and also, during 1960-62 with our fully prepped Impala with a cam, lifters, C&O Hydro, 4:56 gears, etc.

The year 59/60/61 Chevys were somehow absent, but there was a lone wolf, 61 Pontiac Tri-Power Bonneville that was also fast. Missing were the late model Ford V8s and other big motor brands for some reason. I guess the interchangeability of the Chevy parts was a big factor. Plus, we all worked on Chevy cars and could help with any repairs, exchanges or add on speed parts.

There were a few 40 Fords, one red sedan with a Buick and one coupe with a 283. My 40 Flathead Ford Sedan Delivery was in that mix, and was a big hit, but it was a cruiser, not a racer. There was a custom purple, 46 Ford coupe with a 283, a hot red 55 Nomad with a 4 speed, a 53 Chevy Bel Air cruiser and of course, in the month of our graduation, the big, red 409 Biscayne came rolling into Grissinger’s Drive-In for some stare downs. That 4 speed, Biscayne was looking rather “bad boy” with red rims on blackwalls, small hubcaps, and black upholstery. We spent weeks showing our friend how to shift fast and stay in control. That car was fast…

Jnaki

You are asking if our modified, 58 Impala ever raced the 409 Biscayne on the Cherry Ave drags…? We raced several times. Each time the Impala was out in front for approximately 1/8 mile. At the first sign of the big 409 coming up on the outside lane, I shut down to let him see the brake lights. I knew the modified 348 could not last the whole ¼ mile against 100+ more horsepower. But, I was happy for my friend, as he also allowed me to drive his 409 many times during that summer of 62. It was his payback for me teaching him how to shift that 4 speed and be safe.


So, those two cars would be the ones most everyone pined for during our high school years. Actually, every teenager loved having any car to drive, whether a 4 door hard top sedan, a truck, a station wagon, or 2 door hot rod. Freedom is what made driving fun. Today, it is just transportation, regardless of what is driven.

Addendum: The classes of 57-59 had the most different combos of cars. The hot rod/roadster/coupe influence stayed with them longer than our 60-62 group. Ours were mostly stock (some heavily modified) Chevy cars, a few Fords, a Pontiac and a T-Bird. The early group had hot rod Olds sedans, 32-34 coupes/sedans, 56 Bel Air, Model A coupes/sedans, a 37 Chevy, a 40 Ford, and a few trucks thrown in to the mix.

Our cars were always listed, insurance wise, as family cars, since my mom drove them at least once a week. Yes, she drove my black 58 Impala to the grocery store and the Lakewood Mall at least once a week. It was a fun sight to see her drive that 58 with the C&O Hydro and the powerful 348 down the street. Giving up the Impala once a week helped with the insurance bills, until she bought her own car.

I am sure that family insurance was a major factor in having a hot rod/family cruiser for most teenagers. They were all listed as family cars, until each member bought their own car for single person driving… The neighborhoods that fed into the high school came from the “high end”areas down to the “barely, scraping by” areas. But as each generation goes through HS, their likes and dislikes of cars, varies. But, it was 1958-65, until I left home.