Best Car Memories Thread

[axisg]

I would have to say it was when my dad brought home my 80 Cutlass Calais. Parents were at a friends 3 hours north of the city ( Paisley On ). Their sons friend was selling his car as he bought a brand new truck. 80 cutlass Calais, buckets, console, V8, AC, PW, PL with fresh black paint. Asking $1500 ( this was the spring of '91 ). I was driving a bondo'd up '76 Monza Spyder at the time that wasn't good for anything but burnouts. Dad called and asked if I had the money. I got him to offer $1200 on my behalf. They accepted the offer and let my dad drive it home for me with their plates and insurance. Dad didn't look past the shiney new paint when checking the car out. Poor old dad drove 3 hours with no heater fan, no AC, no radio and Power Windows didn't work. I seen him pull up the street and was so happy. He tossed me the keys and said good luck LOL Turns out the kid had hit a cow, crunched the fender, windshield, header panel and a half gallon bondo in the PS door. They body shop pinched the harness on the PS door ( fooking the windows ) I spent the summer getting everything working again ( other than the AC ) and drove the wheels off that car for the next 6 years. Its been coast to coast across Canada. Streets of NY, Boston, and up the coast thru the Maritimes at least a half dozen times. Daughter was likely conceived in that car, and I brought her home from the hospital 21 years ago in that car.

Saddest day was when I cut off the duals, pulled the wheels and tires, then dragged it across the scales. I got just over $100 to scrap it in 98 or 99.

 

[tc1959]

G rated forum, So I can't repeat any of my best car memories here, Having said that I do have an El Camino and they have a bed.

 

[Ribbedroof]

Best memories? Living in a time when you could buy a 70 Chevelle SS out of the local newspaper for under a thousand dollars and drive it home.

I know the cars produced today are faster, cleaner, stop quicker, and have better almost everything, but to me, they have no character. G bodies were the last of the old stylists work, near as I can tell. Today it's hard to tell the Nissans from the Chevrolets from the Hondas from the Fords.

 

[MrSony]

Best memories? Living in a time when you could buy a 70 Chevelle SS out of the local newspaper for under a thousand dollars and drive it home.

I know the cars produced today are faster, cleaner, stop quicker, and have better almost everything, but to me, they have no character. G bodies were the last of the old stylists work, near as I can tell. Today it's hard to tell the Nissans from the Chevrolets from the Hondas from the Fords.

I bought my old Tbird for 650 bucks and drove it home. 429 thunderjet. 360hp, 11:1 compression. But that was a one in a million deal. Right place at the right time kind of thing. Everyone now thinks their rusty POS is worth its weight in gold. I mean, have you seen how much Mopar stuff has skyrocketed in the last 30 years? A rusted out shell of a charger (68-70) goes for upwards of 8 grand. 11k with wheels. It's nuts.

 

[zeth hale]

Probably running from the law in my old v8 s10. My first car was a ln s10 with a 350/350 outran the cops around a local subdivision about 3am one night. Had to store the truck behind a friend's farm house for a month and convinced my parents that I broke an axle in it(still had stock rear, actually did break 3 axles in it lol) but I decided to sell cause the truck became infamous and we are in a small village lol
I still kinda laugh cause my uncle helped me wire it and we wired seperate circuits for tail lights and head lights. Which he jokingly said( for when you need to run from the law, which actually meant we were to lazy to fix correctly let's run new switch for headlights. Good days back then

 

[454GrandPrix]

I grew up in a tiny rural farm town in Ohio. Surrounded by fields and bordered to the rear by railroad tracks, our house was one in a line of 10 homes. Ours was the first one, on the right in this modern-day aerial photo:

In the fourth house (three to the left of us) lived Lou and his wife. They didn't have any kids, so I never went to their home and knew almost nothing about them. What I did know was that Lou was a car guy. See that shop out in his back yard? It housed his pride and joy, a bright red Chevelle SS. I was far too young to know--or even care--what model year it was; all I knew is that it was loud, had a 4-speed manual transmission, and it must have been really fast. (It was probably a '70 or '71, and it had to be a big block.) Far from a daily driver, the Chevelle seemed to only come out on rare, special occasions; I would only get a few glimpses of it each year.

How did I know it was a four speed? One summer day I was down the road playing with some friends--we were all at house #9 in the photo. As luck would have it, we were all out in the front yard when we noticed Lou driving the Chevelle down the road--a rare sight. He got to the end of the street, stopped for the stop sign, did a u-turn in the intersection to point back toward his home, and then came to a full stop right there just barely out of the intersection. Like a herd of deer sensing imminent danger, we all dropped what we were doing and froze, watching him intently. Lou revved the engine loudly a few times, floored it, then popped the clutch.

You all need to understand: this was a clear turning point for me. This was a milestone moment in my life, even though I didn't realize it at the time. In that instant when Lou dropped the clutch, my outlook on what I thought about cars--what I liked about them, what I thought was possible in them, what I wanted from one--changed forever.

This was also the moment in life when I learned what 'posi' meant, because Lou's Chevelle began smoking both tires and laying down a pair of beautiful black stripes all through first gear. He then lifted, quickly changed gears, and when he dropped the clutch the smoke show continued throughout second gear. He shifted again and, all through third, it was more smoke. It was while in third gear that Lou passed us, tires still ablaze, our jaws uniformly agape. Unbelievably, he shifted into fourth gear and still continued to lay two stripes for a ways down the road before either he let out of it or else his speed finally allowed the rear tires to get some traction.

As a group, we were all in awe. None of us had ever seen Lou so much as chirp a tire in his Chevelle, and now out of the blue he had laid it all on the table, showing us just what his car was capable of doing. Those long, twin stripes remained on the road for years afterward, the three short but distinct gaps being reminders of his manual transmission gear changes. On that day, Lou's Chevelle instantly gained legendary status; it didn't matter what your dad drove or who thought they had a fast car; nobody else could replicate such an over-the-top feat and, therefore, nobody could touch Lou's Chevelle.

Was his car stock? I have no idea. Over 30 years have passed since then. But to this day, whenever I hear the Beach Boys sing about "gettin' rubber in all four gears" there is only one car that comes to my mind, and it ain't a Little Deuce Coupe--it's Lou's red Chevelle.

 

[Streetbu]

Some of the best memories I cant repeat on here But I have a few others... First car was a '79 Pontiac Bonneville two door. Can you say land yacht? I had a total of 13 people in it including myself. We had to get from one party top the next, how else were we supposed to do it? LMAO My second g-body, a '78 Malibu, driving down a toll road on a Friday at rush hour. Had a Porsche come up behind me at a high rate of speed and flash it's lights to pass. I move over and you can tell the guy is, Shall we say uptight?, I decide I wont let him just blow past me. I floor it. First engine I ever built, a 283 was in the car, still with horrible highway gears. Made downshifts at 60mph fun though, put the engine right in its powerband. Guy let off when we were well over 100 and he saw the bottom of my rotted out doors flapping in the breeze and I still wasnt letting off Hahaha

 

[Longroof79]

No Steve, it's always been shitty. There used to be a huge garbage landfill on Jamaica Bay right next to Kennedy Airport. A guy I knew in the Army said he stopped at JFK on a holdover and looking out the window all he saw was garbage. That was his only memory of NYC. Who thought THAT was a good idea?!? Years later a Sanitation official was convicted of taking bribes to let toxic waste be dumped there. Shitty City indeed. Which reminds me of another car story. I was heading into Manhatten in my '81 Malibu wagon to see my favorite band of all time- Status Quo.I had to pick up my Brother uptown and then go downtown for the concert. A cab was dicking me around on the Queens Boro Bridge and I floored it going across to avoid him. At that time I had a Pontiac 350 with a Rochester 2 barrel and that carb has a float drop setting. That keeps the float from sticking open in case the bowl goes dry. Well, I drained the bowl and the float stuck. The motor dies and I coasted all the way down the bridge to First Avenue and I just make it into a parking spot before I am dead in the water. Good thing I had manual steering. So I have no tools and I am stuck in Manhatten on a Saturday night with a flooded carb. All I had was a 4 way screwdriver in the glove box. Then I remembered a trick I'm sure you have heard of. I used the screwdriver to whack the float bowl hard. That must have dislodged the stuck float because after cranking a while, the motor started. I was able to get going, pick up my Brother, and see the concert. I had just missed seeing them in Germany and this concert was a MUST. On a sad note, guitarist Rick Parfitt passed away today in Spain. I am a fan for 50 years.http://www.statusquo.co.uk/

Mark,
I remember the old Starrett City dump. The police impound yard was right next to it.
I also remember the days of passing by on the Belt Pkwy. There was mountains of trash...much like the Staten Island Great Kills dump where they brought in all the debris and remains from the World Trade Center. I think they've closed it since, but that was also a high mountain of sh*t.

I remember Status Quo...Pictures of Matchstick men, right? I liked the song, but wasn't a huge fan. It was popular on FM radio at the time. I know we're dating ourselves, aren't we?
They did look like they put on a good show live.