I think this is a great idea for a thread Steve. Thanks for bringing it up. Since I have told most of my stories at least 10 times each on here , I can't think of any that wouldn't bring out a bunch of yawns, however, maybe I can mention something that might get others to start with their own stories.

The other night we played the DVD I have of American Graffiti, and it started me remembering some of the things we did back in the 50's and 60's and how this car hobby has had so many different phases to it. That movie was very close to what many of us remember of those days........every town had the guy with the fastest car around, we guys were all trying to get to first base with some young thing, and generally the times were pretty innocent.

Most of the cars I remember from the late '50's to the early '60's were ones like '50 Fords or partially finished hot rods that sometimes actually made it to the street. Most were pretty crude in the area where I grew up, and the first hot rod that I saw that came from California blew me away. It was totally finished down the the all chromed Olds engine and diamond tufted interior. That car showed me that a whole nuther world existed outside of Pennsylvania and that the guys in California drove cars that we only saw in the latest little book hot rod magazines.

Then in the mid 60's things changed because of cars like the GTO , Chevelle, Mustang,and various Chrysler muscle cars. For a car payment of about $ 99 a month you could buy a car that was faster than anything we could build and it was also clean enough so girls would actually WANT to go out with you. In '66 I bought a new tripower GTO and that night was out drag racing with the big boys, something I had only dreamed about before then.

The '70's were a weird decade in my opinion. The EPA and gas prices were making muscle cars go away, and it took Streetrodder Magazine and the first annual Streetrod Nationals to get people interested in building cars in their own garages again. Some of those '70's rods were pretty badly built and not very attractive by today's standards, but at least it was getting people back into the garage and building cars again. I was one of the few people at the time who still wanted to build '50's style hot rods, so I was able to buy stuff nobody else wanted like '37 Ford V8 60 axles and '40 Ford drum brakes for cheap money. Everybody else wanted disc brakes and IFS under their cars.

In '79 we moved to California for a year and going to a few car shows there showed me the level to which California rodders took their cars. What made that possible was the fact you can drive a short distance there and find most any kind of shop you want to buy cool parts or have them made. That, and the fact that Californian's take their cars very seriously. Now I wish I had gone by some of the icon shops like Barris, Roth, and some others. How cool it would be to have memories of meeting some of those guys.

So, those are some of my memories, what do the rest of you recall???


Don