Best beater I've ever had is my VW (HAMB blasphemy, I know.) Takes me everywhere and it's my parts hauler, you'd be surprised what I fit on that roof rack. As for the oil situation..
53' dodge truck with 289/4spd/9". running gear was out of a rolled over 66' GT 350. had a bent frame from pulling stumps. ran fantastic but the truck body was junk. typical worn out 3/4 ton farm vehicle.
If not the best definitely in the top 3 was my 77 Ford Escort Van. Painted in my friends garage one night in the middle of winter the brightest red you can ever imagine. The gas heater we used to stop us from freezing caused a reaction with the paint that ended up making it all run down the side, exposing the original blue, looked kind of cool in a 80's sort of way. 1600 crossflow motor with Mexico exhaust and inlet with a little weber carb, 1300 pistons to up the compression and a gt cam, 1600E gearbox and back axle. It was so reliable you only had to open the front door and show it the key and it would start, no matter what the weather, oil level or contents of the rad. Drove it for 10 years and did over 200,000 miles, lent it to my brother to move house and he got rammed by a meals on wheels wagon and wrote it off. Paid £15 pounds for it and a few hours work. Got paid out £700 by the insurance company when it died. Still have the engine box axles and wheels for a project in the far future. Really miss that one. P.
1979 I bought a '76 vega GT wagon, used oil... bought it cheap....a guy talked me in to a $50 can of slick 50....worked great!!! I put 80,000 miles on it ....then we cut the top off, made a field car......My 14 &13 year olds boys beat on it 3 more years......the floor was gone.. they drove it with there feet up!!!! jump'n ditches, and the river ect. dangerous!!!! scraped it out , the saginaw 4 speed still in my model A!!!!
1970 Dodge Monaco 383 car. Held six people and would run until the wheels fell off before I gutted her. She was a 'Grandma's Car', had six or seven 3 foot scratches on the passenger side where Granny was a little too senile to notice how close she was to the wall on the way in the garage. Oh, also the 66 Chevy Dumptruck I put a Fleetside bed on, 4:88's, Granny 4, and a 292 straight 6. That thing would only do 50 but would drive through a house.
1] an '86 twice-totaled s-10 I picked up for $150, straightened the frame rails, used fr. clip. Total investment-$1100 bones and I was rolling. Got rear ended, knew the ins. adjuster and she kept it just under the total(would've been #3), wrote me a check for $1175. 2]'86 chevy sprint. Had it for 186,000 miles; still got 41 MPG when I sold it. Damn good little car for 3 cylinders and 61 cubic inches of sukzuki. That's a whopping 1.0 litres. But it would rev to the moon and pull pretty good for a little rice turd.
An Alfa Romeo 145 Cloverleaf went like fuck and was great fun to drive, if you put the rear seats down it could carry quite a lot too got parts of my ''A'' body in the back and tied the floorpan to the roof! Nick.
First year Chevy Cameo pickup, 327 corvette, olds rear, welded spiders,and muncie 4speed. Early nova fender well headers fit this truck with no modifications other than removing emergency brake rod. The truck did beautiful burnouts and surprised many muscle cars back in 69. MickeyC from the bayou
'67 Nova wagon, inline 250 and 3 on the tree bought in 1981 for $600, oxidized original paint, mint interior drove it 4 years 60,000 miles and about 5 oil changes put a water pump on it and a couple sets of tires polished it up, sold in '85 for $1500
74 Dodge 3/4 ton with 440 4brl and Dana 60 rear, and with 250k think I paid $ 500.00 for it, it would use 1 qt to work and 1 qt home 30mile round trip....man it smoked so bad... use recycled oil I remember opening it up on the freeway and look back and I could'n see any cars for the smoke
That would be my current '92 Isuzu rodeo. The driver's side windoww won't roll down, can't open that door from outside(teenager hit me on the freeway), can't open the hatch(backed into a pole), but it's absolutely packed with car parts and tools, and I've hauled a bench seat, industrial sewing machines, rolling toolboxes, you name it everything goes on the roof rack, and who cares if it scratches the paint! I bought it 2 or 3 years ago after my newish daily got totalled for $1600, touch wood I've never done anything but a new battery and brakes. I bought it to drive for a few months till the '51 became my daily. Hah!!
1964 VW i blew it up so many times with nitrous that i earned a nick-name. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYf5W9CLQ1I larryn2o
1976 Mustang 2. It was a cheapo Stallion hatchback with a 2300 and 4-speed with no creature comforts other than an AM radio. Got more than 30 mpg, and you could lay the back seat down and haul all kinds of stuff...especially with the hatch bungeed down on the load. I pulled normal maintenance on it and it was always dependable. Kept it 7 years and wish I still had it. Most anything on the road would pass it, but it made up laps while the others were stopped for gas. Ha, ha...
My '63 Electra never really let me down. I never had a chance to work all the bugs out it, but I sold it to a HAMBer who flew down and drove it back up to MI without any issues, so I guess it was pretty decent afterall. My '90 Honda Civic has been about as reliable as the Buick. But I'd rather take the Buick any day. I miss that car.
I drove a 66 Chevy pickup every day for 17 years but you'd expect that from such a modern truck. I have been driving my 1939 Ford pickup every day for 16 years thru four states pulling a car hauler trailer
Here's mine... Rescued it from an ignoble death in a guy's back yard a few years ago and have been piling up the miles ever since. It's lowered, has big, beefy anti-sway bars front and rear, gas shocks and wide steel wheels. Motor is a PowerPack 283 with Powerglide, bench seat and AM radio. Nothing special...except to me.
1977 Shitvette, excuse me, Chevette. It was my sisters car until I borrowed it one night, and rolled it. oops I beat the roof out, and put in a used windshield, and Voila! Best beater I ever had, couldn't kill it.
I had a friend (didn't we all) whose mom gave him a green 72/73 huge mopar wagon when he went to college in 1984. It was newer than anything we had, we turned it into a beater, overloaded it everywhere we went, it had a red vinyl rear facing 3rd seat, power everything, rear hijacker air shocks, a great roof rack made out of 2x4 lumber and roof gutter clamps. After a decade of hauling all his bands gear, pulling trailers and ski boats, it was starting to smoke and Bryan decided he hated driving everywhere we went and being the designated driver and left the keys in it at a White Center wrecking yard. Now I wonder what motor it had in it, the way it towed it had to be bigger than a 318.
1975 Chevy 3/4 Ton. Was my Gpa's truck till 96. Then it sat out back till '05 and I put a battery in it and drove it around for 3 years and decided to change the oil and it still runs great to this day. Starts right up in the summer and takes only a couple of seconds in the cold. Neither of the doors shut, got holes in the floorboard I can stick my foot through. When I hit the brakes the front marker light come on. No turn signals or rear brake lights. Heater works great. All the gauges work. No mufflers and the front end rattles louder than the engine. The front wheels have about 10 degrees of play in them. No Mirrors, lots of rust. Here is a vid. Its pretty funny. The transmission leaks fluid out pretty bad, like I can fill it up and its out by the end of the day. So I just quit putting fluid in it, that was about 2 years ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYI7As0QLkU
1962 Pontiac strato Chief four door. Bought from the son of the original owner when he put her house up for sale. $200, and 29341 original miles. It was that pinky-red color that half the 62 Pontiacs were. It had a 261 three speed and no options other than a radio. I drove it for four or five years for basically nothing, and it got good gas mileage. The idiots I sold it to wrecked it within two weeks. I am still looking for another 61-4 Canadian Pontiac - got a 261 and a 250 in the garage, waiting.......
'63 Fairlane 500 twice door. 200 Sick with a FORD-O-Matic slush box. Would only shift into second when it got hot. Thrush single muffler. Paid 300 clams for it in 1977. Kept it a year and sold the old gal for $750!
Not hamb friendly, It was a 1984 chevy S-10 long bed. It was bone white, with teal green stripes painted on the side of the door (courtesy of my brother and I drunk one night and bored at my parents house) It had 15x7 silver chevy rally wheels all the way around, green marker lights and v6 that wouldn't quit. the passenger door was bent up pretty bad and when you opened it, the door would fling open about two feet. Another drunken night with my brother. Backing up in front of his 1st house after getting some more beer to help us play pool better, he decides to open the passenger door while still in reverse and the door caught several bushes in his front yard and bent the door all the way back to the right front fender. We fixed it in the morning.
im still drivin a 92 buick regal, 500.00 4yrs ago spent 20.00 for a used starter mtr and a can of barrs stopleak in the rad, heat & radio work and ya can fit a sbc in the trunk
My '59 Elk - was driving it to get some steel after having cut out the rotten remains of the bed floor, so you could see the road through it. Motorcycle cop draws up beside me at the lights and says "It'll be nice when it's finished". I look at him and say "It IS finished" and drive off as the lights change....
1965 Buick special 4 door. Bought it for 650.00 and drove it 2 years and sold it for 700.00. Only had to put on some brake lines on. Had the small 300 ci nailhead with a 2 speed tranny. Ran great in the Wisconsin winters.
Isn't it weird that so many of us have fond memories of our beaters, but very few have pictures of them?
Here you go AMC fans! 1965 Rambler Classic 4dr. Bought it from a friend for $50.00, it had a broken block and the right quarter panel was smashed in. I put some K&W block seal in it, took a sledge to pound out the quarter and drove it my junior year of high school. We didn't have high school auto shop back then so I cleared out an area in metal shop and beat the quarter into submission. The teacher thought it was amazing that I could pound it out to almost the correct shape. We used to take it up to Green Mountain, drink a lot of beer, pass out, wake up in the morning and hit the trails. The local Jeep Club would be out there and we would follow them everwhere as they tried to lose us. They never did... One of the guys in the Jeep Club got pissed and he finally stopped after the fourth or fifth weekend we invited ourselves to tag along so he could tell us to quit following them. I guess it must have looked bad with the 2 wheel drive Scrambler going everywhere they could go. ("It's a Jeep thing" huh?) That car was awesome! It had 16" wheels with bias ply whitewall tires, reclining seats and the top of the line 8-track player. Sold it back to the guy I bought it from for $100.00. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you I took the clear vinyl seat covers off. It wasn't very comfortable peeling your face off the vinyl in the morning. Sorry, but I never did put oil in it...
1967 C-10. I got this when I was 14. Guy wanted it out of his yard. Had to replace a few wheel cylinders and started driving it. Drove it all through highschool. I accidentally ran a red light in it once and broadsided a woman in a late 80's Buick Regal. Totally destroyed her car. It was being pulled up on roll-back when I left. The woman had no insurance and a suspended license so I lucked out. Cops told me to go home and forget about it. All the truck suffered was a broken headlight and a slightly twisted grill. Had a lot of other adventures in it. It's been sitting out at my folks' house since the late 90's. Finally decided to bring it to my house. Currently lowering it and prepping it for paint. It's a 283/3 speed.
Mine was a 76 Chevy Luv rusty Yellow. leaked water and oil and the gas gauge didn't work Just kept a gas can full in the back. Needed a block of wood for an e brake the motor didn't have enough compression to hold it in gear. Smashed the front bumber doing burn outs with oil a on the tires ramed up agaist a light pole base. It sure was fun we would go up in the mountains and ralley race it with my friends s-10 beater and practice doing slide outs on each other like the cops do
77 GMC. I hate GM but it was a good truck, it was ugly but never left me standing. Stared all the time even in the dead of winter -30F without wind. It was gutless, but full time 4wd, got crappy mileage, but it was my daily driver.
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