Thread: Where were you in 1957? (Tulsa inspired!)

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I see this talk about the buried Plymouth from 1957 has a lot of you thinking about what your situation was at that time. I thought it might be fun to hear from members about their memories of that time, and where they are today. The younger members may not be able to offer a story, but perhaps they can gain some insight. I'll start, but I'll try to keep it brief.
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That was a quite different time. Our society, the world situation, and the way cars are built, have been turned upside down several times. Today has very little to do with how things were then!

'57 was a fabulous year for cars! The '57 Chevy is an icon! The '57 T-bird is still the best year-model to me. It even had a blower! ...and the '57 Chrysler had the 392 2X4 engine that evolved into the ultimate drag race power plant! There are plenty more highlights, but there is something magic to car people about the number, 1957!
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In 1957 I was a 9 year old, living in Illinois. My Mom had just remarried, to a guy who ended up being my dad and roll model. We had the coolest car! It was a 1955 Chrysler New Yorker, and it always took us on vacation at 100 MPH! Dad worked a lot with his hands, and eventually helped me to start custom painting my own bicycles.

I was building military models then, but was still a year away from meeting my friend Phil Harris, who would "sell me" on model cars, and hot rod magazines. He eventually got his mom to take two impressionable young kids to the U.S. Nationals! That "sealed the deal", and I became obscessed with hot rods and customs.

Today I live in Tucson, Arizona, and have spent most of the last 50 years neck-deep in rods and customs. My initial urge to drag race was eventually replaced by my greater love of creating those wild paint jobs that help give each car a special personality. Years ago I decided to work for others, which keeps me involved in an endless string of projects.....AND I CAN DO IT EVERY DAY! :-) It's been a bumpy road sometimes, but I have no regrets about my choice to follow this passion. 1957 seems like a lifetime ago!

1957 I was in Danville, CA and in 2nd grade. My Dad was a travelling life insurance salesman and drove a 1957 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. My Mom's car was a 1953 Studebaker Commander (go figure!) that was passed to her after Dad got his Cadillac. Dad drove 40k miles a year and the Cadillacs were comforatable and would stand up to that kind of use. He later quit the road and opened up his own insurance agency. I could walk to school by myself then. Still have some friends I made in cub and boy scouts. Went into the Air Force and travelled all over the country and world for 24 years. Ended up about 100 miles from "home". Been playing with cars off and on all my life and still love it. Life was good then and in my opinion, life is good now, just different.

Pat

Pat, I've got to say we like some of the same things. I would pick the '53-'55 Studebaker as the most timeless design of all cars built to date. Raymond Lowey was a genius! It still looks as good as the new cars of today! :-)

I was not thought of yet, my parents were 4 years old then, so i have no cool stories.

Maybe you can enjoy the ramblings of a bunch of old geezers, while we can still remember what happened in 1957! :-)~

In 57 I was 16, got my D.L. and Flamed my 41 Ford Bus coupe with
rattle cans. Lowered the front with 6" shackles. 750x16's on the rear I got off of a Packard. My dual exhaust I took off of a junk car. I've always been
in So Cal except while in the service. Things were simpler then, but it didn't
seem so at the time. I still have a 57 Ford.
Ron

You want brief?!! I'll give you brief! I was fifteen.

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It's kind of funny; I hardly remember any detail of that particular period of my life. All I have is a fast moving jumble of vignets of things that were going on then, and they all seem to have something to do with being a teenaged boy, living in a hormone induced state of pubescent angst. I have virtually no memory of anything that was happening in the larger world, outside of my own little space.

We were living in Azusa, California, (when that Plymouth was put in the vault) I was just out of school for the summer, between my soph and junior years, I was just about a year short of getting my drivers license, and hauling really hard at the traces - I was a fairly accomplished driver, already, just not legal. I was a good kid, with decent values, in Scouts - Life, and Silver Explorer, youth group at church, a "band groupie" at school (I didn't play an instrument, but all of my friends were in band, so I hung out with, and went along as a sort of "equipment roadie"). But I had a real wild streak (I guess I always have), and it's a great wonder that I didn't get into any serious trouble. Seems like I was always breaking and fixing stuff, and almost always had a wrench or a hammer in hand, or was machining something in metal shop or wood shop, or doing leather or plastic crafty stuff. Underlying, or perhaps overlaying all of that was that hormone fog - I was seriously in lust with almost any human female between the ages of thirteen and thirty, and frustrated beyond expression. Howinell did it all fit into a day?

Just a short year later, we moved to Twentynine Palms, and life changed dramatically. But, in my memory, that summer of '57 was either empty of substance, or so packed full of it that it is too dense to see into.

Yeah, I remember---I was 11 years old, growing up "in the bush" near Bancroft, Ontario. Hadn't discovered girls yet, Hell, hadn't even discovered cars at that time of my life. Seems I was either in school, or riding my J.C. Higgins bicycle around "picking up pop-bottles"---a time honoured way of scraping up enough change to buy an ice-cream at the general store. (got 2 cents for each bottle returned---a single scoop ice cream was 5 cents, a double scooper was 10 cents, a small bottle of coke was 5 cents to drink in, 7 cents to take out, and jaw breakers were 3 for a penny.---and a black liquorice pipe or cigar was 2 cents each!!!!

In 1957 I was a tenth grader and 15. That was when I learned how to hot wire a car. When friends would sleep over at my house we would slip out after the family was asleep and hot wire the family 53 Ford and spend an hour or two cruising around town. That ended when an alert cop noticed I was seeing the road through the steering wheel. Calling home for a ride was no fun.

sounds like I'm the baby so far , since I was only 14monts old at that time. most likely I was either crawling on the floor of our home, in my crib sleeping or sitting on the bar at my dad & moms bar/diner being feed beer by the farmers. but then that's what my parents have told me, so it's all second hand info.......joe

Maybe the farmers fed you too many brewskis to remember! :-)

I was ll, had just finished 5th grade (and closed down the one room country school, started school in town the next grade) . Was helping dad on the farm, along with my brother Larry (10 years old). The two of us got in to building model cars and had lots of fun. Although the next two younger brothers would mess with them when we were at school.

We sold the farm and moved to town in 62, right when I got my liscense. Bought a 52 Chevy Deluxe, gun metal gray. Put on Port a Walls, 57 Plymouth style cone hubcaps, and split the manifold with dual glass packs.

After graduating HS went into the Navy and stayed for 20 years. Then worked as a bowling center mechanic on Brunswick equipment until 99. That was when I got divorced from my Second Wife and medically retired and moved back to Iowa.

I was 10 years old, and that was the year, for me, that the seed was planted. There was a guy who lived across the street from us that had a 55 Chevy. His friend had a 57 corvette. They would work on there cars almost every week end and all I could do was watch. I wanted too help them so bad but they wouldn't let me do anything.
So one Saturday morning I asked my dad if I could clean the engine in his car, 47 Chevy fleetmaster. He said sure, so I got his box of tools and went at it. The only problem was I kept taking things off, like the cylinder head. I thought my dad was going to kill me. That car was our only transportation. He got some help from a friend and they got it back together.
I was living in St. Louis then and in my sophomore year my dad got sick and I had to quit school and go to work full time to pay our house rent. I soon realized I was more of a liability, so I went into the army. Got out in
Colorado and went back to school. From that time on I have been deeply involved in cars and murdercycles.
Ken

I was born in September of 57 so my memory of that era isn't too good.

I was a wide-eyed ten-year-old fresh off the farm, living in Vancouver, BC, and watching A-V8's and chopped Mercs cruising Broadway, and staring up in awe at Sputnik! Loved all the new cars with fins.