Who cruised Van Nuys Bl in the 70's?

Rockets? As in Cragar clones. I had a set on the front of my '55 back in those days.

 

Yes. I ran lots of em too. But I never saw "skinnys"

 

whats up dude... im not sure exactly when... its in the works right now... but i'm trying to get more people to join as well. so if you know more guys/gals that are down let me know and we'll get it goin... i'll pm more info when i get it!

 

I cruised it from '69 to about '75. Had a '64 gto. Me and several other goats would cruise up there. Get kicked out of several parking lots and then hit Farrell's Ice cream place to sober up! If nothing happened there we went to Riverside drive and see what Big Willy and his crew would bring. Did the Toluca Lake and Glendale Bobs as well. Was there a better time or place than back then and there!

 

Nothing beat the flicker of a ROCKET! Someone tried to contact me on a private site about the Valley Undertakers SFV. How can I retrive the question? Said something about a "blocker"?

 

Hey Got'cha- I've given your number to the kid TWICE to give to Greg Shaw....He tells me he gave it to him both times and Greg seemed hesitant to call you....Says he's a bit of a hermit these days........I'll see if I can get Greg's number.....
And to the guys arguing about the current Van Nuys situation....You have no idea what Got'cha did back in the day to keep things alive LONG before it was finally shut down...I was a punk 17 year old kid at the time, but if you can imagine 3 lanes each way from Sherman Way past Burbank Blvd full of rods, muscle cars lowriders, VW's, vans, bumper to bumper all the way....It was better than any movie made on cruising and this guy played a major part in keeping it alive for a long time when merchants and the cops wanted it gone....
Just my two cents....

 

Elrobo....About 9 years ago there was a small group of guys that tried to get people to cruise Van Nuys on a saturday night....6 showed...I was one of them...Looked kind of funny, this small pack going back and forth....After about three passes we called it a night....Never to be repeated

 

well shit vncruiser! call up those other 5 guys and add me then you'll have 7! some other people on here and myself are thinkin of hittin the cruise night spots.. meet up at one.. then head to the other in a pack. sounds like a good time.

 

see.. now we're talkin! groucho, it sounds like you're in?

 

groucho you know im down for anything car related hot rod kustom low rider musle car LET ME KNOW IM IN!

 

We all expericed the crack down on cruzn in the 80's. Here in the Metro Detroit area we cruised Woodward Ave, Telegraph Rd, Gratiot Ave and the guys downriver cruised Fort St. Seems like cruising in all areas of the country came to a head then wham, the police shut it down, shut it down here cuz the puke kids were getting out of control with the drinking and littering the parking lots. Can't say I blame the shop owners as who wants to come to work on Saturday and Sunday morning to have to spend hours picking up trash and sweeping the parking lot of glass so your paying customers can park.

Back then we could still cruise BUT you could not stop in any parking lot or you would get a ticket for loitering. There would be a couple of hundred cars in a parking lot, cops would block off all entrances and exits and start writing tickets. No one was spared. Go to court and fight it and you got court costs attached.

Fast forward to the mid 90's. Places of business started having "cruz nites" where they would hire a DJ and welcome classic car people to come hang out. It was a new time with a new group of car owners. More the classic car owners then the drag racers. After a time this lead to a group of people, headed by a female, to organize the now imfamous Woodward Dream Cruz which takes place once a year on a Saturday. It was so successful that the other main cruzn places in the Metro Detroit area took notice and all started doing their once a year cruz.

This has now developed into a HUGE cruzn scene here where every single Friday and Saturday night you can find lots of folks cruzn all these main drags again with virtually no trouble from law enforcement or the established business. Also, no one is trashing the parking lots like in the past. Folk realize, or are told by others, that it's a privledge not a right, to be able to park and gather in private businesses parking lots.

As far as Van Nuys goes, someone just needs to get organized, pick a date, make flyers, hand them out at cruz nights, club meetings, etc, get the word out, other then the HAMB, that there is going to be cruzn once again on Van Nuys Blvd.

The first year for the Woodward Dream Cruz was awesome. A few hundred cars, one day, LOTS of cruzn and hanging out. Now 12-14 years later it has turned into the largest car event in the world with an estimated 40,000 classic cars, down a 17 mile stretch of Woodward with 4 lanes in each direction. It's over a week long now (unoffically). It's broadcast live on primetime network TV, police from all over the state are there to make sure things don't get out of control, all the car manufactures have million dollar displays there (that might change this year). Anyway, you get my point. It will take someone with organization skills, a positive attitude, and lots of time and engergy to organize a cruz year after year till it takes off and snowballs.

Unreal that a guy on the HAMB used the word "dittos" referring to the name brand TIGHT pants I wore in the 70's in SoCal. I had one pair of every color they made.

 

This is a great thread


I like your idea Elrobo818, i would be in, let me know.......BUT....all this yakity yak about racing usually leads to one thing.........GRUDGE MATCHES!!!!

check it out, you can run what ya brung on thursday nights at irwindale raceway, its a 1/8 of a mile track......

Schedule:
http://www.toyotaspeedwayatirwindale.com/dragstrip/site/dragsched.asp

Who can race:
http://www.toyotaspeedwayatirwindale.com/dragstrip/site/whorace.html

Rules:
http://www.toyotaspeedwayatirwindale.com/dragstrip/site/street_rules.html

I've been wanting to run my car there, but it wasnt reliable until January. But according to the rules i need to put my pass & driver side glass in, currently rebuilding the doors, and put my battery in an approved box....and im good....but it may take a month or two

im sure my cousin will get off his arse and fix the starter on his 62 galaxie with a 427 side oiler to run also........especially since i've been talking smack about my moredoor being faster then his galaxie....

what do you think.....anyone else interested....say in a month or 2???

 

You see elrobo and Miguel, these are the kind of tactic's that sometimes one must take to "get your blood flowing". No disrespect to anyone but I deal with "getting a job done". And to get that job done takes some "creative juices". Scared the crap out of Groucho and made you mad at ME because I can take it. You guys have no idea how many times I dupped the cops and the powers that be to gain ground for cruiser's and racer's alike. And YES I'm writting a book, infact 3. The one about '71-'77 is titled "Valley Boyz". In this book you will learn about those great moments when we stood toe to toe with a cop and order him and his cronies off the property instead of vise-versa. And you guys that came back with your kind words about my efforts, thanks. I did what I did to strengthen our mass'. Did anyone ever realize that in all those 6 years there was NEVER a fight not even a cross word was spoken!!! We were unified, unbeatable. We were bound by each other. And to tell you all a FACT about vn Blvd on a wed. night, the Wed. night AFTER "American Grifitti" debuted at the theater in Santa Monica, a record 270,000 vehicles hit Van Nuys Blvd.!! Call it bullshit but I don't lie and those that know me will atest to that. The reason I know is because I was the Vice-president of the Associated Car Clubs out of the VNPD and got the figures FIRST HAND. The same thing happened when we were shooting "Hollywood Knights" and "Aloha Bobby and Rose". Groucho, you never beat me. lol. We all friends again? Do I have your respect ELROBO? Miguel? Hope so. Peace out.

 

GOT'CHA - - I sent ya a PM - don't know why it had a block? ,saying that I had not heard of the Valley Undertakers in many of years. I can remember a few [shall we say] excitable football games between Undertakers/Midnighters and some of the old Poor Boys/Exchangers. It brought back memories from years ago, this must have been in the early to mid '60's. This whole thread has some great stories in it,I'm glad your guy's memory is better than mine.

 

Poor Boys? Boy that brings back some memories of some rivals. I am from Granada Hills. It was the sixties for me though, not the seventies.

 

Names like Mike Ferry, Dickie Funkhauser, Jimmy Rodriguez, and us hangin out at the hot dog stand at Arleta and VN blvd., the Lil Gents (Poly), Exchangers (Granada), Lots of tire iron marks on the top of my head!! I miss the guys. I remember the fights and parties more than anything. The Midnighters? WOW, totally forgot about them. Gene Loiselle (Townsmen) just told me there was a meeting of all the old clubs in Santa Clarita a couple of weeks ago. Need info? Check you later vato.

 

Hey my friend, we ARE talking about the '60's!!! Your from Exchanger country! I'm San Fer. My Vario (Sorry for the mis-spelling) is La Rosas. Terra Bella homeboy (yeah I'm white, so what! lol)
The Poor Boys are still kickin by the way!!

 

Denise, he's talking almost a decade apart between the two....

 

Confused? In the 60's we cracked heads, in the 70's we cracked throttles. With time comes wisdom.

 

Thanks for the "Re-set" Totally!

 

Last time I was up there, it was still around, and called the "Shoestring"

 

The names I can remember are Jim Labirdi,Marty Hertz,Mike Garcia and Manny Rodriguez[SP ?] I didn't get into the raceing thing but always into Harley's,and played with the LOW & SLOW. I had a Bronze '63 Grand Prix with astros deep dish with a 389 w/ tri-power[not bad for a low rider],dark tinted windows[always got hasseled for being to low,tint to dark and my small steering wheel [9"] then a '67 powder blue Caprice with astros and lights in the fender wells,got hasseled the same. Used to take my cars to Smokey for the twice pipes and his supension modifications. Hung out at the "Office" on cruise nights. But, yeah, the parties were something I'll never forget. Uncle Sam and the Corps cut that short and turned to Bikes in the early '70's, became a member of one of the local MC clubs till the mid '80's

 

Astro Supreme's! To show how twisted I was I traded Leon at SPEEDMASTERS (Vn Blvd @ Vanoewn (?) where Car-Coa Paint was for years) a set of ROYAL MASTER Tires (for his lt. grey primered '57 Olds station Wagon low rider) for a set of new (waited 2 months for them) 15x8 TOTAL REVERSE Astro Supremes for my Lt Fawn 2-dr '55 Chevy HT powered by a 409, 4 spd! A frickin race car with ASTRO'S, DUH! They lasted less than 2 hours when I got mad cause my buddie wouldn't pay me the $10 he owed me and I lost control of the '55 around a corner and took out JUST the wheels on a curb!! A lesson learned. Smokey Cohea, Cohea Muffler, San Fer. The MAN. But I think your wrong about the TINT thing unless your speaking of the stuff that came in the spray can. I take credit for having one of the first vehicles to ever have MYLAR installed and have been apart of it's growth since 1979. Your Pontiac sounds creepy close to Smokey's! Do you know who stole my ARC 14 stacker record player out of my '37 Packard 4-dr sedan that I bought from Carter's Richfield for $15, on San Fernando Rd? LOL. Jar any more memories? I was a low rider before I was a racer. And a sailor after a club member where I continued to crack heads in bar fights, would have thought I would have learned after the FIRST concussion! lol.

 

Your cousin wouldn't be Tony Noto would it?

 

You're right , it was the spray tint, I might have got a little heavy on the button - ha ha - Can't say about the 14 stacker -sorry. I used to work at Muntz back then as a tech and installer, so I had a highly modified C-100,installed a play/record head from a AR-300 with extra amp and a total of 14 speakers with 4 color bars- instant re-verb! My GP had the stock doughnut wheels w/finned hubs before the astros [sorry I got rid of them] saw a set at Cohea after I went through the cost to change over, that were done up just right, rims were chromed and the hubs were painted with the fins polished up.

 

Ever learn the secret to spray tint? Here it is...get the window cold as hell!! That's right, what happens when yur painting and it's cold out? You bet, paint RUNS, and like the instructions said, "FOLLOW THE RUN!!!". My ol lady would run a bag of ice on the outside of the window while I applied the tint and we did it at night @ SPEEDMASTER'S!! I still have a NEVER USED chrome C-100 4 track w/tapes AND a 12"x2" COLOR BAR!!! Isn't it fun dustin off the brain?

 

Quote by Got'cha-I did what I did to strengthen our mass'. Did anyone ever realize that in all those 6 years there was NEVER a fight not even a cross word was spoken!!! We were unified, unbeatable. We were bound by each other.

We were also 300-plus strong!