Funny things we did with our hotrods in early 60's

Just funny stuff we did wayback,what did you do?:eek:;
Back in the very early 60's,@ Hot Shoppies,Miami Fl.{it was a car hop hang out,with our hotrods,a kind of meeting place on weekends for our CC,so after too many hambrugers and FF plus a shake ect.,we'd get bored and think up a contest or two,this one time it was to see who would find the biggists most stained pair of granny panities hanging on a line in a yard /steal them and bring them back for compairion ,then we ran winning pair up the flagpole{ how most of these ended with something up the pole,always woundered why we got tosted out of the place so much.? You,know one nite it was most broken up bike,another nite it was biggist landcrab,ect.:eek: We hung at other places too like The Big Wheel,Pizza Places,A&W,Pizza Padio,but only HotShoppie had a flagpole!:cool:

LOL Bat, sounds like fun mischief! We used to see who could get their vehecle most airborn, "Dukes of Hazzard" style!

Yup LOL,but south Florida is a bit flat,so there was only a few places around Miami that we even had any change of that,one we called Trillhill,it was a small fairly short road in Coconut Grove,it came down off of Silver Bluff from Tiger Tail to Bayshore Dr. were it "T" in ,it had a 30ft drop in about 75 ft. of road,but not much stopping road left after hitting bottom,some real holy crap times,cuz Bayshore was fairly well traveled. It's gone now becaues city bulldozed down to even sloap from start at Tiger Tail to were it meets Bay Shore,you know for our safety or something like that!

You mentioned A&W.. I had relocated the windshield washer nozzles to the grille of my Mustang and I would time it so that I could park right at the carhop station... then when they were picking up their orders... I'd press down on the pedal and end up being tossed out for harrassing the staff.. but we thought it was a riot! :LOL:

We also had a set of elevated railroad tracks.. Dukes of who??? :eek: HAH!! :eek: We would have contests for most height or most distance.. That poor Mustang lost more exhaust pipes and ball joints didn't last a damn either.. doors didn't open/close to good after one really "good" night. **):eek::whacked::LOL:


AHHHhhhh the good ol' days! :HMMM::HMMM::HMMM:

So when did you guys get the idea of puting the washer jets over the rear tires to do the
" Burnout " ? Was that 60s era?

Never heard of using the washer for the back tires.. but then I didn't need to wet the tires to light'em up! rofl..

One of my old club mates put some extra washer nozzles on the rear fenders of his 39 sedan,,so everyone who walked past got their legs wet..:LOL:You eventually learned to not walk past the back of his car.. :LOL:
I do remember some years back,,some of the guys at a rodrun,,sitting on the beach,,four of them,,wearing black painted top hats,they had made,,and holding score cards up,as the women/girls walked by..(some of which were not part of the rod run).Incidentally,,the score cards were numbered 1 to 7..so the number 0ne was used often.. No wonder we weren't allowed back there..;):confused::confused:

Had a 50 olds coupe that we road around in all the time.. Wipers were vac. but didn't work. If it rained while we were out someone had to lay on the floor and move the wiper arms.. (Before rain X )

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Originally Posted by t-top havoc

So when did you guys get the idea of puting the washer jets over the rear tires to do the
" Burnout " ? Was that 60s era?

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mid 70`s for me when i built my first V8 pinto .. have one on the mustang even as we speak ...

All of our airborn trials took place way out on a country road with this absolutely rediculous sloped ramp at a very steep angle up to the top of the railroad crossing and then straight back down too. You could really get some air, my friends dad kept lamenting on how cheap his new pickup from toyota must have been built, as the suspension was shot in under a year! :)

Ok I’ll jump in with a couple stories. I had a 1957 Corvette – 283 with a big quad and an all around fun car. It was pretty fast for the day and boy could it fry the tires – they were fairly skinny 15 inchers as I recall “7.50 x 15” blackwalls from the local Standard gas station. One night my buddy asked me, “Have you ever done a bleach burnout?” to which I replied, “No.” So it was off to the local grocery for a gallon of Clorox. Never having done a bleach burnout, we were both somewhat ignorant as to what the correct amount of bleach per tire was so we evenly divided the entire gallon of bleach in two nice pools – one in front of each rear tire. Well I rapped that little 283 up till the lifters clattered and dumped the clutch and man did those tires scream! While I never saw such, several of my friends swore the two molten strips of rubber were on fire. I do remember huge globs of melted tire stuck on the rear fenders and that the tires were ruined. Those two burnout marks stayed on that street for a long time.

On another occasion, my buddy says, “If you turn the key off while you’re going downhill and pump the gas, your car will backfire really loud when you turn the key back on.” Again, I followed advice from a peer that I should have ignored and we proceeded to get the Corvette up to about 60 on a downhill grade at which time I switched off the ignition and pumped the gas several times and turned the key back on. A backfire would be a vast understatement as it was more akin to a bomb and the car became noticeably louder. It was dark outside and I distinctly remember seeing two red hot images in my mirror which I can only surmise were once the cores of my Smithy’s.

I would not recommend either of the above activities. As I recall, there may have been alcohol involved and I’m pretty sure the new tires and mufflers were far more expensive than the enjoyment received as my father made sure I alone paid for maintenance on this car.

But after all - i was 16!!

Regards All,
Glenn

Glenn has jogged my memory with the backfire story.. Leaving the downtown area of New Bedford is a down hill stretch of 4 or 5 blocks. My buddy had a 64 Impala, I6, we would do the same thing, kill the ignition and tap the pedal a couple times then hit the ignition back on and POW! Watch all the ol' ladies jump and we'd howl like 10 year olds.... had the same results too. Blew that muffler wide open!

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Originally Posted by 34_40

Glenn has jogged my memory with the backfire story.. Leaving the downtown area of New Bedford is a down hill stretch of 4 or 5 blocks. My buddy had a 64 Impala, I6, we would do the same thing, kill the ignition and tap the pedal a couple times then hit the ignition back on and POW! Watch all the ol' ladies jump and we'd howl like 10 year olds.... had the same results too. Blew that muffler wide open!

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Yep . . . me too . . . been there, done that!

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Originally Posted by 34_40

Glenn has jogged my memory with the backfire story.. Leaving the downtown area of New Bedford is a down hill stretch of 4 or 5 blocks. My buddy had a 64 Impala, I6, we would do the same thing, kill the ignition and tap the pedal a couple times then hit the ignition back on and POW! Watch all the ol' ladies jump and we'd howl like 10 year olds.... had the same results too. Blew that muffler wide open!

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ROFLMAO
I was riding my 10speed one night & a couple guys in a Jeep fly by, the there was a flash // bang-- scared the dog p outa me!!
When a minute passed & I realized what happened, I laughed at my own @$$!!

All Good storys guys!
Here's another;
1959 There was new hangout built on sw27ave about a block south of Coralway,Miami fl. called Golden Point,so we had to kind of clam it before some other highschool by hanging there,even though our reguler place Paily's Big Wheel was only a few block to the west. Turns out there was new cop who also started stopping there for his brake,but would give us hotrodders a ticket if he could find anything he thought wrong, even dim tail lights=he was a ass vs most of the cops were pretty cool guys. So he comes in one nite and parked his cop car behind the Point,cuz we had all the front parking filled up,and he starts bitchen at one of the guys who happen to be taking up two spots out front with his just that day new painted 40Ford Coupe. So I took a few toothpicks from the counter and went around back to the cop car,knowing he be bizz being a ass for some time,put 4 toothpicks into the cop cars tire valve stems so the air would slowly go out. Came back around unnotist and told the guys its time to go back to BIG WHEEL. We all left. I would of loved to hear the cop calling for motor pool help for 4 tires after he found all flat,but it was not wizs to stick around you know! I did take notice that butthead cop didn't take his brakes at Golden Point anymore!
There is two more storys about the same butthead cop,I could write up if ya like it.

Sure! Send'em in Bat..

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Originally Posted by johnboy

Yep . . . me too . . . been there, done that!

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yup...x3..All good fun.. specially in a tunnel..:whacked::whacked::LOL::LOL::LOL:

My first car was a 1965 Corvair, turbocharged 180HP. I used to do the backfire thing until the night I kept the key off too long and when I turned it back on, it shot the muffler straight back into the car following me. Cost me over $200 that night to fix his car.

The Bat reminded me of another little story - when I was even younger, I and some of my buddies thought is would be cool to flatten the tires of a road grader. I was actually unscrewing the valve stem with my face very close to the tire and when it let go, it shot out with such force that it stuck in my cheek (ouch!) and we then found out that there was also water in the tire as we all got sprayed with the nastiest, foul smelling water on the face of the earth. To make matters worse, we were observed and I got my seat warmed and we had to assist in the refilling of the tire. Lesson learned there!!

my back-fire story.
In 1963 my friend Dan and I built a 1930 Model A Ford in his dad's barn. Stock except for 1934 wire wheels and 14" tires
We visited many junkyards - looking for old Ford gold(parts) being a couple of high school seniors we were broke.
(even at 25 cents a gallon)
we didn't have a proper ignition switch just a push button I found on a desk lamp. Haywire technology

Driving by a supermarket while cruising along we would push the ignition button ,retard the spark , coast a while then push the button -Big Bang and flames

I looked over at the main door coming out of the market and saw a lady drop a glass bottle of Clorex bleach that shattered and went all over her feet and dress, the rest of her groceries was scattered in that mess. Broken glass and dioxins.

We thought we were the funniest guys around- laughing so hard almost crying then we noticed the police car behind us
He followed us for a while then turned the flashing lights on.

My pal Dan was driving and he had a story that these old cars do backfire every once in a while on their own.

The cop comes up and said , "Nice businessman's coupe, you boys better follow me"

Thinking we were headed to jail , he lead us out of town down a dirt lane to a house with a few Model A in the yard

Turns out his dad was really into Model A's - we had dinner with them spent most of the night talking about "A's"

We didn't learn our lesson and kept doing the back fire to impress the girls
young and stupid
I'm now getting old and still stupid

hank

Again,there were a lot of good guy cops in Miami in the early 60's,but this is about the same butthead cop from the other storys.
I guess I got to set ya up with the were when,and layout,; I lived in Coconut Grove/Miami,one house off the bay/water,there was a street "Fairile" going passed my house to a brige that was not completed by a few feet to an empyt inland of just trees and sand,they were going to develip it some day,but for a few years it just had a fance with barbed wire on top ,on the land side of the brige and mostly was locked up. But we cut the lock off every few weeks so every one could go across the brige to swim or fish ect.
There was one old man in our naborhood who seem to think it was his job to keep every one from going out on the braige ,so he would close the gate back up and some times even lock with his own little lock,plus so no one would clime over the gate,he smeared black bull tar on the fancing,maybe he did it cuz the kids call him names or he had nothing better to do,but it's not about him,but the butt cop insted. Who was still giving all the kids n hotrodders as hard a time as he could.
OK,to get to the story,I'm mowing my lawn in plan site of the open brige gates from my yard,see a few of my buddys and some kids go over to the inland. After a short time butthead cop drives by in his cop car and right through the open gates on over the hump of the brige to give a hard time to anyone fishing or playing on the braige or beach. Seeing that made me remeber a big old rusty padalock that was open and had no key to,Dad was going to get one made for ever,but that never happen,anyway I stop cutting the lawn long enough to get the old lock,close the gates and lock them,,go back to cutting my lawn/had to recut a few times over same spots were I could keep a side eye on the briage. After 15 or 20 min. here comes butthead driving his cop car back,I keep cutting lawn but see him stop at the locked closed gate trapping him on the briage ,he shacks hell out of the gate but it don't open,so he goes to his trunk looking for something I think to bust it open with,fines nothing,pulls his gun out,must of though better of writing a report of why he fired his gun and puts it away=after all he was most likely still getting ribbed by the other coppers about having to get 4 tires to get back to the station one nite!,So next he gets back in his cop car and pulls back from the gate,maybe to ram it open? Must of desided the report of how car damage happened would be fuel for the ribbing and did not do that. He then desided to clime over, after a few trys,but by then bull tar and tairs in his unifrom are pretty bad. Drity n sloopy butthead cop sees me still cutting my grass,and comes over n ask if I have a hacksaw or somthing and did I see anyone over near the gate? "Well no,I've just been cutting my Dad's grass today" at about the time he looks harder at me ,he said "What about a hacksaw or a crowbar?" ,I tell'm I think Dads got some tools,I'll look,be right back[so I go inside our backroom shop,Dads got lots great tools,but he don't know that, takes me some time to find the really old bent hacksaw frame and the dullist blade we had,put them together and take it back out side to the cop,he grabs it,not even a thank you! and goes to the gate,its Miami and about 88*,he works over there about 30 or 40 mins before actully some how cutting the lock off with that crapy old saw. Brings it back in his car now,still no thank you,but bitchs at me that he thinks I'm a JD that I probuly had something to do with him getting trapped,he's nearly shoutting this at top of his voice dripping wet with sweet,as my Mom comes out to see what's going on,at that point he jumps into his cop car and speeds off laying rubber . I woulder if the motor pool or he had to clean all the black bull tar off the car seats,I'll bet he did it so there was not a report. Just one more thing had to happen to that butthead cop before he asked all of us at the Big Wheel to back off and he would stop also,I guess even a butthead knows when to holed a white flag up. That had to do with red ants.

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Originally Posted by glennsexton

On another occasion, my buddy says, “If you turn the key off while you’re going downhill and pump the gas, your car will backfire really loud when you turn the key back on.” Again, I followed advice from a peer that I should have ignored and we proceeded to get the Corvette up to about 60 on a downhill grade at which time I switched off the ignition and pumped the gas several times and turned the key back on. A backfire would be a vast understatement as it was more akin to a bomb and the car became noticeably louder. It was dark outside and I distinctly remember seeing two red hot images in my mirror which I can only surmise were once the cores of my Smithy’s.
Regards All,
Glenn

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I used to do that in Lissie Prairie, when the ducks and geese were everywhere and it would make them rise up by the thousands, however, I was not as lucky as you, Glenn, I blew a head gasket. It didn't get louder but it sure ran differently hahahaha

Has anyone mentioned putting taters in the exhaust pipe, yet???? A good way to make an enemy real quick - - - that is IF you got caught - - - - and how about starting your Rod with it in gear? No wonder my Dad had ulcers and indigestion all the time !

I'll do the finish of those storys;
The butthead cop had given me two tickets for no fenders $10 then $20,one ticket for dim tail lights,it got tosted out by the court. And a ticket for no bumper $10 ,too say nothing of BS ones he gave most of the rest of our club. He did kind of wave the white flag by saying he'd desided to be nicer to all the kids,cuz he had the Christmiss feeling=made a point of telling us all together at The Big Wheel around Dec.1,this happened one day after some one put a hole paper bag of red ants and sand nest inside his car when he had been taking a pee in mens room. Latter he must of asked for a beat in some other part of town,we never saw him again after new years 1960.

One night we took the FFA truck out to an old deserted farm house and stoled the "Two Holer" (aka out house). To say it was rotten and falling apart would be too kind, it was pathetic and stunk to high heaven. Then we took it to the High School and placed it in the front door. Then we wrote above the door in large white letters "Supt. White's Office"! Yup we got caught because of a 'snitch' but I promise you he suffered way more than we did.

back in 60 or 61 we had a couple of those buthead cops they would run us out of McDonadl's any time we were there. One night they came in shining the spot in the cars telling us we had to leave. we left they parked and wen't to order. we came back around the back. Jacked up there car and set it on milk crates so you couldn't tell it was in the air.. We road past there often to see what would happen . the last time we went by there was a tow truck alongside there car. After that when we were in there we got dirty looks but did not get run out.

Abe, the oldest and had a drivers' license, bought a '58 Anglia - it was just a cheap used car back then - and we stuffed a power pack 283 corvette engine and 4 speed in it. Whicked piece of work, wouldn't go over 70mph but it'd pull the front tires until it hit 70!
We'd race at the dockyards up in Portland Maine and there was a hurtz GT350 Shelby that we'd clean its' clock regular on the weekends. We'd race that same damn car over and over and it was always driven by somebody different. That poor car went thru hell! I always felt sorry for the poor guy that bought it.
Those were good days, maybe 1966 or so.

Stovens; I used to jump my old VW bug in to a parking lot behind Valley High school in Vegas.
All the guy's would go over to Jack in the Box which was in the front of the parking lot, then there was a strip mall in the back that was closed back then.
If you came in the back driveway the ground took a deep slope down about 4 feet so if you hit that drive way at about 30 or 40 MPH you could catch some big air.
A lot of the guys had 4X4's so they were so heavy they would just drop in a couple feet, then we had a guy try it in a old New Yorker, I ain't sure of what all he broke
but I know he had to replace his oil pan. I'd hit that thing in that old bug and it would just fly. It bottomed out a few times but I never broke anything, But I also had a bolt on skid plate with a drain hole in the middle. I believe it bolted to the bottom engine block if I remember right. I know it must have saved me a few times because it was all scraped up, when I looked under there.

I lived in the Bay Area ,Santa Clara Valley, back then, 50's and 60's. There were still orchards all over back then with roads flat and straight between them and we did a lot of straight line racing at night on them. If we stayed on one road too long one of the farmers would call the sheriff and we would get run off, the sheriff never seemed to get there in the middle of a race. Then we would Cruze the main between 1st and 2nd street in San Jose. I have to say though that our favorite activity involving cars, besides working on them;), was to park in an orchard and watch the "ants eat the apricots" or maybe drive to Santa Cruz,park on the beach to watch the "submarine races":rolleyes:;):). It is amazing how we survived those times but everyone I knew back then did.:):)

Jack.

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Originally Posted by Jack F

It is amazing how we survived those times but everyone I knew back then did.:):)

Jack.

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All I can say is that your mob were fortunate.
A fair few of our contemporaries didn't.
A mixture of alcohol, inexperience, and speed.

I 'saw the light'.
If I'm going to be driving, I don't drink.
Not at all.
Not even one beer.

Vara4 mentioned VW bugs.
A favourite stunt back then, (and it still is today, in fact we did it about twelve months back in the Cabbage Patch just above our house,) is to throw an early VW block or gearbox casing onto the bonfire.
They're full of magnesium, and burn quite spectacularly, with an extremely intense and white light.
You can't look into it; it's like watching a welding arc. And you can play 'shadow puppets' on surrounding walls hedges etc.

Don't ask how I know this; but the fire brigade can't extinguish it with water . . .

Been a while don't register most of the members names that I am seeing, but I enjoy the threads . especially this one as I can relate. Pretty much out of the hands on any more as I sold the coupe ,tools , etc. and moved in a cracker box. Brings back fond memories keep e'm coming.

Hey, good to see your name pop up Don! You likely don't recognize my name, but I surely recognize yours! I enjoyed your involvement when I first started frequenting these parts! Great to see you back!

Jack F, I was stationed on Fort Ord where I went thru Sniper school.
I would often go to San Jose or mostly Santa Cruz on weekends they were always good for car shows.
Of course this was in the late 70's and early 80's we had a friend that was a waitress at a local restaurant
and we would crash at her place on the weekends, when we were off duty. Those were good times walking around the board walk
and trying to pick up girls. Good friends and good times for sure, Santa Cruz just enhanced everything when it came to fun.
Kurt

Hi Kurt, good to hear from you. I moved from the south bay area in Jan. 76 and have been in the Puget Sound area ever since. Will be moving to Caldwell Id. hopefully early spring 2014. How far is Pahrump Nv. from the Boise area?

Jack.

P.S. Maybe should have sent this as a PM.:rolleyes:

Going there to haul onions?????????????




And I think Pahrump is down by Las Vegas-----about as far away as you can get from Idaho----


Have a Brother in law up there just south of Riggins---retired forest ranger

Jack it's 691 miles or 10 hrs. 35 minutes as the crow fly's. HE! HE! HE!
I like Boise, ID. And it seems to like me too, The wife and I had a dedicated route that went thru there.
We drove from Atlanta GA. to Kent, Wash. when we drove over the road for Kennesaw Tranportation out of Cartersville GA.
Carried Carpet out to Shaw Carpet in Kent, WA. and frozen french fries back to Atlanta, GA.
Blew my first trany in a semi there then a year later blew my first motor when one of Cats bad designed motors blew.
They had a two piece piston in their 500 Cats, that were coming apart. 3 sister trucks in the company blew their motors at the same time within
about 200 miles of each other and almost the same miles on all the trucks. Sat for 2 weeks in Boise waiting on a new motor to arrive.
Loved the town people there were very nice and polite. We live on the far side of Vegas or about a hour west of Vegas.
Lots of older folks here or more of a retirement type community, Property is cheap right now and there is lots of open space out here.
I thought about buying in Vegas But I would only get about 1/3 the property that I got out here for the same price.
You can get a acre of land for about $1,800 bucks right now with no well or septic tank. We got a 2500 foot home on a acre
all fenced in with a pool and 3 car garage that was only about 4 years old for $154,000. Then bought a acre next door to us and then bought a acre 2 streets over.
We will sit on it for a while and see if we can't buy the other 2 empty lots behind us now. Plus we still own our Florida home.
But we won't move back there, it's getting to ruff and there were home invasion almost every day down in Tampa on the news.
Fill free to stop by we have room for motor homes or semi's. HE! HE! HE!
Kurt

I am another one who experienced the ignition off - back fire phenomenon, though quite by accident. Back when young and stupid we used to harass one another when driving. I reached over and shut my buddies key off in his 61 Bonneville, when he turned it back on the resultant BOOM occurred. And I ended up having to buy a new muffler for him. I also remember sneaking over to our buddies girlfriends house when he was there visiting. Of course we TPd the place and also popped the hood of his 55 Chevy and crossed a bunch of plug wires. We hid in the bushes when they came out and watched them clean up all the paper. Finally when he started, or tried to start his car it back fired all over the place. I think it was a week or more before he got it right. I guess this falls into the category of "With friends like this..."

Pat

That reminds me of an upperclassman prank some guys played on a buddy of mine. They switched a couple plug wires on his 64 Impala. As soon as it backfired we popped the hood & traced the plug wires, suspecting they had messed with something. Then we cruised awhile & they met us on the street laughing like they had us baffled. They told Larry to rev it up. When it ran fine they stopped laughing & had a "what the heck" look on their face. I just yelled out 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2 & we took off. That moment was soooo priceless I still remember it like it was yesterday. :LOL:

When my Charger was down one time with the engine getting a fresh rebuild I had a buddy Rocky Ungaro lone me his WWII Weapons carrier Jeep.
This thing had the big stock wheels on it and was built like a tank, if you know what I mean.
Anyway I had a buddy that had this sleeper VW station wagon, I think it was 60's.
It has a 2300cc motor in it and would pull the front wheels up and beat most small block V8's. Dual port with dual holley webbers.
Anyway he comes in to the parking lot where I worked showing off, hit the gas pulls the wheels up then tries to turn in to the spot next to the ol' willy's Jeep,
Starts sliding strait even though he has his wheels cranked all the way to the left, Yep you guessed it strait in to the willy's.
Lucky for me he ran strait in to the tire and barley rocked the willy's but crushed his whole front end in.
He looked at me and I was just shaking my head, Like if you want to mess up your own stuff that's ok with me.
Needless to say he needed a new hood and right fender, I was just relieved he didn't mess up my buddies Jeep
who was nice enough to loan it to me so I didn't have to walk 20 miles to work, While I was building my new motor.