Where it begins.....

Howza Bruthas,
Where does it begin? How did you get into old cars? The quest for aged treasures stamped from good ol' American Steel and powered by altered power plants that were aching for more? Does it begin with the first visit to sacred places like Bonneville? A hot muggy night at the drags in Upstate New York? Or was it watching a hot fast paced night at the local midget track, where the competition was fierce and the purse although small, was like a King's ransom?
Or, was it instilled into you like some strange gene. Microbes of octane and chrome in our gene pool. The thirst for four wheels set into motion and destined to turn heads.
Makes one wonder, huh? For me it is the faded snapshot of my Great Uncle's '47 Chevrolet Stylemaster. Tri-Black(even ran black wheels!), Hollywood Flippers, a dual carbed six with split manifold. My Dad said he used to wait just to hear Unk driving his Chev up his street in Englewood, Colorado. Dad was influenced to modify cars and did so from drawings to model kits til he could buy his own ride.
I say it is at the gene level.
I sure hope I pass it on.
Good stuff, guys.

 

I don't know when it started, but it when I was really young the old cars only came out in the summer because I lived in New England. It was always very special to see someone driving something old, if for no other reason than to break up the monotony of newer*****. The guy driving the 1950 Chevy was SOMEBODY because his car was different.
I personally like all cars. For different reasons. My late model is fun because it is quick, but I prefer to drive my 55 Fairlane. I like the*****py stopping power and the sloppy steering, you can just envision yourself in a different time. Sometimes I feel like the curator of a traveling museum, like I owe it to people to cruise in the old car, to help them conjure up memories of bygone days. I'm more than happy to oblige, as long as it sees fit to cooperate with me.

So I guess it started when I was a kid. I suppose it was a dream that I never thought would come true at that time.

 

5 years old... my grandpa had a '67 Dart GT, then a '70 Dart GT with an "interceptor" engine. Not a clue what that meant when i was 5, but we'd drive to Maine every summer from Pittsburgh... get out on the turnpike, and open it up. A loud V8 was music to my 5 year old ears.
Stuck ever since. Nothin is more "right".
Found out years later, the "interceptor" motor he was always talkin about was a 340 from a cop car.

 

Matchbox and the, then new, Hot Wheels when I was 4. I was the goofy kid that started having mom buy Consumer Reports guide to new cars in 1971. So I could draw them. Was at every Detroit Auto Show from the ages of 5-13. Gymkhanas (Autocross?) in the Macomb County Community College Parking lot. Dad had some project in the garage at all times, Edsels, Jeepsters, etc. Then we moved to FL in '77, AACA shows, I was judging at 15, didn't want to be that***** and started "customizing" my beaters.

 

Back in Smalltown, Iowa...it was natural to want anything with wheels and an engine...if you didn't you were considered weird (or a nerd)! Everyone of my pals was into automotive...course it didn't hurt a thing that Dad owned one of the koolest kustom '50 Merc convertibles in the area...and I got to drive it ONCE!!!

Beg to differ with you Spook...that's a '48 Chevy...the chrome trim under the window is an inch fat...'47's were only about 1/4" wide and the "T" bar in the grille makes it a '48.

BTW, that Chevy convert is still running around Englewood, ColoRODo...
R-

 

dont realy know were to pin point it, by second and third grade i was "investigating" old cars i found in the neighbor hood and sitting in the old 38 ish chevy coupes sitting out i the trees at my uncles house--there still there- and his 468 69ss camaro always parked in the garage.

from there i move 3 hours away and my new best freinds dad had a 34 chevy three window and a56 chevy nomad and i was hooked, with car stuff all over i was there consitntly and he introduced me to car shows,swap meets and dirt track racing. defenatly my bigestest influence. hes since passed on but me and his son still try to keep the cars in god shap and continue to build kinda "in his honor" kinda thing, him being the one getting us hooked kinda thing

and im doing my best to keep passing it down, i now have a legion of motor head cousins and little brohters and sisters

 

My first experience was when I was 5 years old and I decided to run away from home back in 1958. I packed a sandwich with my pillow and left the old homestead to trek the total Lightyear distance of two blocks away, down the alley to an old garage... There in the back I found an old 40 Ford. Opened the door and crawled in. I can still remember the smell of the musty mohair and gigantic steering wheel. I sat in there for two hours before I decided, that Dad was going to whip my***** if I din't get home. I've been hooked on the nostagia ever since. In fact,... I think I'd like to run away and find another old Ford.

 

1957 ,sixth grade ;looking out the classrom window watching the high school kids get out.One guy had a white 1953 Studebaker Starlight coupe nosed,decked ;with dual glaspacks and wide whites on red wheels.I really was watching for his red headed girl friend.She always wore tight skirts and sweaters.oh,baby!!!!!

 

isnt it funny how so many ppl can completly forget every detail of there lif before like 16 yet can remeber the most minuet details of the car they drooled over every day in 4th grade lol

 

The car was a black 175" wheelbase Loggie Brothers front engine dragster. It had a normal aspirated small block chevy engine. Just a week earlier I found myself hiding from this noisy monster while Dad tuned it up before the races. Now I was sitting on Dad's lap as we cruised around the pits to warm the engine and trans. I will never forget when he pulled back on the hand brake brought up the R's then stood on it. I can still see the wire front wheels hanging motoinless as the car charged ahead. A simple dry hop hooked this kid for life. I still think of the wire wheels in the air as I sit ready to go for a mid seven second blast in our new front engine car.

 

my pop, neighbor, and in a round about way... the gotelli's (gotelli speed shop, south city)

 

I must say that I owe it all to my dad, from the time I could remember we were always going to shows, stopping to look at old heaps on the side of the road and attending any event that had to do with speed, violence and noise..

 

Mine started in my early teens. My brother had a 46 Ford tudor and was always blowing transmissions. Used to help him fix it. He belonged to a local car club. What a job - had to pull the rear to get the trans out. That got me hooked on cars A good friend of his had a 35 or 36 three window coupe (that one went up in flames - rumor was that the owner did it for some reason). Got my first car when I was sixteen, a 49 shoebox. Put duals, two carbs and a Mallory on it. Joined the local car club - my best friend had a 33 fenderless coupe with a FH. Great car until a friend of his (not me) rolled it. After a stint of working at drag strips and racing a dragster, decided I wanted to get back into old cars.

 

Cool Post!
I for one am a youngin' at 20yrs old. It started for me around age 5 when I would ask my mom to bring m to my Grandfathers house or shop and "work" on his cars with him as much as a 5yr old could. That continued through the build of his '55 Belair Convertible that he still has. I remember the maiden voyage from Orlando to Mississippi. PopPop always reminds me that the whole trip I was asking why people kept honking and waving. I can remebered riding to the parts store on the old Schwinn Beach Cruiser with "retard" radio on the front. (retard radio because the really nice retarded guy across the street from me at the time and to this day still has the same setup, old Schwinn with a little maroon raio on the handlebars) Grandpa also pulled one of my loose teeth with some Craftsman needle nose pliers. Ahh, the memeries.
To this day PopPop is one of the only supportive fanily members to support my old car addiction. Mom tolerates the car in her driveway all my other local relatives dont like it, dad thinks its a waste of time and money right not, but PopPop still calls and asks how she is coming along.

 

My uncle was a Jet Fighter pilot and loved racing. He had an old 36 Willy's w/ a Ford flathead that he'd race around town.

When I turned 3 he gave me a ride in his hotrod and then in his new 1959 DeSoto (hemi) that was the*****s!! Plus he gave me toy car and a toy F86.

He perished in a crash shortly after my birthday but he'd made such an impression upon me that I shared the same interests!

My folks wondered where I got my mechanical apptitude..., then they figured it had to come from Uncle Bill!

Mark

 

Six years old,standing in the middle of the back seat of my Dads brand new 1960 Plymouth,hanging on while he drifted it thru the "s" curves on Walkers Lake Road..........
God I miss that man...........

 

I've alway's been tight with my dad, still am. And although he was never into car's like i am now, he was into them "back in the day" pretty heavy.
Hearing the stories from him and his old friends, seeing the pix and hanging with him as much as i did (everyone called me his shadow), i developed a real passion for old cars, music,clothes and just about everything his era was about.
My interest in building thing's different from everybody elses goes all the way back to bicycle's..had to be personalised in some way..
One of my first 20" bike's was a chopper that we built together, deffinately the only one around..
Well, i'm 29 now, and have had as many car's so far..kind of a sickness he's planted in me .
I have no real recolection of the time i became interested in this stuff, i just alway's remember being around it..
I have 11 cousin's, 5 of them male and all of them are into this stuff too. Along with their dads.
Run's in the family i guess.

Thanks, thinking of all this really make's me appreciate my pop's that much more!

Rat....

 

Excellent! This is the what I was hoping for. I guess I was wrong on the car's date, DAMN! She is still a beaut though, huh? My Great Grandfather(I was born on the same date as him) liked the Chev, and went and bought a fastback that same year. He later used it on a trade in when he bought his new '50 Merc 4-dr., dark green and looking very similar to a ride in Arvada that I lust after every time I see it(Attention Mr. Dale).
My Dad went on to race at Englewood and had a very HOT 312 in a '56 Fairlane. Damned thing would scream! He took me for a ride in it and to this very day, I can still feel the whole damned world shaking and vibrating with that hopped up 312 screaming through the headers.

Now, what is this thing you said-BTW, that Chevy convert is still running around Englewood, ColoRODo...
R-
??? What is the story about that??!!?? My Dad and I would love to hear it!

 

Well, Spook...didn't mean to alarm you or your Dad about the '48 THAT much. And I really have no way of knowing if one of the converts around here IS your Dad's old car, but there are a couple...Ray Kramer owns/drives a blak one...now a street rod and Ernie Oakes owns/drives a near stock bodied dark blue one, also street rod...and I know of a restored blak convert in the VMCCA...and a friend out east, in Byers, owns a very stock, original blak one, complete with skirts...looks just like your photo...could easily be one of those four...but who really knows after all these years?

Dad used to race at Englewood Speedway huh? Know it well, went there a few times myself...to watch...have you heard about the old speedway? I'm****uming your Dad has kept up on it...have you been back to Englewood lately? You wouldn't recognize it...I'd bet you wouldn't even recognize Santa Fe Drive...and Cinderella City is no more! Matter of fact, I'd bet you wouldn't even recognize Englewood, let alone Denver at all!
R-

 

4 years old, it's 1971 and my Dad comes home with a 36 Ford Convert on the back of a Tow truck. Had a 265, 3 speed, old tuck and roll interior, 39 Ford tailights out back.

32 years later, 7 motors two trannies, three paintjobs later, still the same car.

Been off the road for awhile but next year...

 

My first exposure to real hot rods and hot bikes came from hanging around with my aunt at her old boyfriend's garage in East Detroit. They always had cool Harleys and custom iron in the alley or garage.

That's what got me started in this madness!!!

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Harold Eberts was an early hero of mine!

 

I got an early start.
in '54 when I was born the Ol' Man worked for Studebaker of Portland. He worked there until '57 when we moved to Frisco.

My earliest recollection of a Hot Rod was the Willys Pickup. It was Buick powered I know because he told me when I got older. All I really remember about the truck was how it sounded and it didn't have a heater. I've been trying to achieve that sound (only with heat) all my life.

He opened the Speed shop in the late '50s. Speedway Motors in Burlingame, was where I spent Saturdays. Or else off at some race somewhere.

Saturdays at the shop were always a steady stream of jalopies. The Ol' Mans friends were always dropping by for every excuse imaginable.

Sometimes they had the most outragious rides. Bubble tops, or hammered to the max, tail draggers. Multiple carbs or injected. You name it.

It never occured to me not to be a Rodder. Anything altered is a given. I just don't know any better.

if it don't make ya dirty it aint yours