My brother gave me a photo scanner...big mistake. I went through the "picture drawer" earlier and ran down memory lane for hours. Saved a ton of old pics to my computer and to CD, and uploaded the car-related stuff to Photobucket......though ya'll might get a kick out of some of these...and yes, there are a lot.
So if you're bored and want to laugh at my old Beatles haircut and see some of the cars that got away, enjoy!
Sure brought back a lot of memories for me! Also found some good pics of my super-nice '85 Grand Prix LE. Never should have sold that one!!
Here's my buddy Laird and I at age 14 visiting my grandmother in Arkansas. My aunt was a school teacher, and one of the other school teachers had an original 1969 Hurst/Olds. They brought it over to show it to Laird and I. She was the original owner, it had been bought by her husband new in Memphis, and she drove it to school daily. Can you imagine? It was far from perfect, but all there and all original. I wanted that car SO BAD!
What clothes! A couple of smooth dudes in loose moods. Hahahaha!
Here's my brother in the driveway in New Jersey, with our brand-new Electra Estate Wagon buried behind him. I do not miss that white crap at all!!
Here's my '69 LeMans convertible that Dad and I fixed up from the time I was 15 to the time I was 17. We made a really good GTO clone out of it. I drove it to my freshman year of college....and sold it that summer after. I'd give my right arm to have this car back!
Here I am at age 15 in the LeMans before we tore it apart. Solid Oklahoma car, with rust just starting to show above the rear wheel-wells. Factory buckets, floor shifter, Rally gauges, 350 2brl. Great starting point. Gotta love those white-walls...ha!
So I started small, had no money, but wanted to "fix it up", typical teenager mods. Blacked out the grill and put GTO emblems on the front and back, and also in stalled a GTO hood and a set of rust-pitted GTO tail lights I found at the Englishtown swap meet. I had the hood painted the stock color red, by the numbers, and it turned out the car had been painted a darker red at some time, so the GTO hood was brighter red. Also added more modern 70's GM bullet mirrors. Those were not an option until 1971....whoops!
Note trunk still says Pontiac on it. GTO's did not have the Pontiac lettering.
Dad took pity on me, and we decided to do a full restoration and clone to a GTO....with the promise from me that I would drive "beaters" to high school and save the GTO for weekends and car shows. We REALLY tore the car down. Aftermarket was just heating up in the late 80's to early 90's, but parts could still be found at Carlisle and Englishtown.
First we tore the car down and then began gathering parts:
We found the correct GTO front bumper and valance, replaced the rear 1/4 panels so the correct marker lights could be installed, and totally pulled the front off to install a correct 69 YS-code 400 engine, and then detailed everything. Finished by putting a new top on the car and painted it Porsche Guards Red.
Notice the family 86 Estate Wagon in the backround...
Wish I could find some better pics of it completed...it was gorgeous. He's the only ones I can find. My buddy Laird and I playing with it here. He and I have been friends since we were 13. Scary!
As mentioned I was not allowed to drive the GTO to high school. Had to buy my own beater cars to drive.
Here's Laird and I with my first turd. Paid $100 for it. Baby doo-doo brown '83 Citation 4dr. Lord we were YOUNG!
Here's my '79 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham. Buick 350, pillowed seats, rode like a marshmellow. My first land barge.
Next I found an '83 Citation X-11 that was a former SCCA rally car. It was ordered without a/c, power steering, and had no power options, and was even a radio-delete car, but it had the deluxe cloth interior, because the cloth was lighter than the stock vinyl seats! it really was fast...for what it was.
I met Misty, my then-future wife, at college, and she came home with me that summer. I think I knew she was "the one" when she helped me re-paint the bumpers on my X-11, which had surface-rusted while I was away at school. Ha!
My goofy buddy Frank was so thrilled I'd found a real girlfriend. He he is acting dumb while I'm kissing my pretty girl, and you can see my Citation X-11 and Laird's '78 Impala in the background.
I decided I needed a new vehicle, and the next summer we came back in my new '93 S-10 pickup. I had to get a "respectable" vehicle....with good a/c. The S-10 served me well for over 300,000 miles.
but....when the truck was just 6-months old and had less than 5K miles on it, and old couple in a Caprice turned left in front of me, and the truck got $8000 worth of damage. I was heartbroken, but the dealer replaced everything, including the frame...and it lasted me another 18 years.
I was just sick when this happend.
And here they are rebuilding it.
Misty is a real Texas country girl. Went through FFA, raised lambs, grew up hunting and fishing with her Dad. When she turned 16 her Dad bought her an '82 Chevy step-side pickup with a 350 and 4-spd granny-gear stick. She and he father fixed it up and re-finished the wood in the bed together. Gotta respect a 16-year-old girl that drives a heavy-clutch work truck! Here's Misty and one of her friends at age 16, with their trucks. Yee-Haw gotta love redneck girls!! Ha!
When I met Misty she was 18 and I was 20. She was a bartender at DFW airport and with her commute had bought an old '87 V6 Thunderturd for gas milege. I hated it...and once we got serious, she did the best thing she could have done and wrecked that Ford!
We were really serious when she wrecked the T-Bird, and she had full coverage on it. She loved my S-10, so I gave her the S-10 to commute in, and with the insurance money from the T-Bird I bought a super-clean '85 Grand Prix LE. This is another car I MISS and wish I'd never sold. Misty loved the S-10, and I loved the GP....and her! Ha!
Here's the S-10 and GP in the parking lot of our first apartment together:
I replaced the goofy aftermarket wheels with 15-inch Pontiac Rally II wheels. MAN that was a sharp GP!
Lets jump back a bit. Took my Dad's '79 Corvette to my prom, and of course had to take pics with it before we went. Again, man we were young!
Can't say Jersey girls were not pretty...but my date Rachel was sick that my buddy's date Rose wore her same dress! Ha!
What a bunch of dorks! Ha!
About the time I bought my '93 S-10, my Dad bought my Mom a new '93 Cutlass Convertible. It was SHARP, but man did it fall apart. These pics were taken the day we brought the car home. Dad has a red bow tied to the roll bar. Mom came home at lunch and the Cutlass was sitting there. This car replaced our 86 Buick Electra Estate. Sadly it was a real POS and gave them nothing but problems
My freshman roomate in college was from from Switzerland. He wanted a car to go see America in that summer, and asked me to help. He's always had small cars in Europe, and wanted a big AMERICAN car. Twist my arm! I found him this yellow 79 Buick Park Ave in Dallas. 403, pillowed seats, 80K original miles, perfect condition. He loved it, and so did I, it was NICE. His parents flew over and they drove the Park Ave to California, back across the country to Florida, and then to New York. They had not one issue with that car. He sold the car in New York and made a big profit on it and then went back to Europe. It was a NICE car.
When Misty and I decided to tie the knot, my parents had not yet moved to Texas and were still living in New Jersey. I wanted to use Dad's Corvette in my wedding, but it had a sick engine. I rented a trailer and drove to New Jersey and towed it back to Texas. Stopped at the the Corvette factory and museum in Bowling Green Kentucky on the way back to Texas. If you are a Vette fan, you've got to go!
Got the car back to Texas, yanked and rebuilt the engine, and then detailed it to the hilt. That was such a nice Vette!
My buddy Troung working on the Vette
All cleaned up and running!
My goofy friends decorated the car, and Misty's dress was so big I could almost not shift! We barely fit in the car!
We went to California on our honeymoon. Flew to San Francisco, rented a car, and drove down Highway 1, which was gorgeous, to LA. Went to the Peterson Museum on the Miracle Mile. Some neat pics from there.
Three-wheeled Dale, a car scam by "Liz Carmichael", a cross-dressing con-man in the 70's.
Chrysler Turbine Car
James Bond's Lotus
The real Mustang from Bullit
Professor Fate's car from The Great Race
Batmobile
55 Chevy used in both Two Lane Blacktop and in American Grafetti
Monster Coach
And my favorite, Eleenor, both the new one and the REAL one!
That is a GREAT museum!
In 1996 my grandmother bought this new '97 DeVille. What a POS. The Northstar blew head gaskets twice in 40K miles. The dash warped, seat cushions went limp, steering wheel leather went from tan to brown, a/c failed, door panels warped. SAD! It was always garaged and babied...and yet it fell apart. Cars like this are what helped put GM in the condition it's in now. She'd wanted a Cadillac all here life....and now she drives a Toyota Avalon....
These pics were taken the day she picked the car up at the dealer...brand new.
Soon after I bought my wife this '98 Suburban 4x4. It looked great, was loaded, but the a/c never worked right, I didn't like the way it rode, and it has a wind leak around one door that flat could not be fixed. I only kept it a year, it kept giving us fits. When the right-front wheel bearing failed, at 50K miles, I got rid of it. It was a pretty truck, but a lemon.
I replaced the 4x4 with a really clean '96 Conversion Suburban. 2WD. This truck was perfect, rode smooth as glass and never gave us any issues. Here's pics from when I first picked it up. I replaced the goofy aftermarket wheels with factory alloys soon after.
Took the truck to Colorado on a ski trip. Misty took these pics to prove to our friends that our cars DID in fact get dirty sometimes. These pics still bother me...ha!
In 2004 my friend Ben took a shot and bid on a brown 79 Buick with 39K miles on it, in LA, California. Ben lives in New Jersey, and drove a worn-out yellow version of this car in high school. To his shock, nobody else bid on the car! He got it for a song, but had no way to get it home. He asked me to go get it for him, bring it back to Texas and give it a once-over, and then get it to New Jersey. I took my Dad. We flew from Austin to LA, the seller met us at the airport in the car, and it was (and IS) NICE!
What a great trip. Drove from LA to Las Vegas, went to the Hoover Dam, across Arizona, New Mexico, and back to Texas. Car ran like a dream and got to spend a week seeing America with my Dad. Good Memories!
In Santa Monica at the beach
Driving to Vegas through the desert
Stopped at a rest area looking at the new toy
A load of then brand-new 2004 GTO's on the highway from LA to Vegas. First new GTO's I'd seen in person.
On the road in Arizona
And snow in New Mexico
About this time I spotted a 69 LeMans convertible on Ebay in New Jersey. I missed my old GTO terribly and took a shot...the pics looked ok. MAN what a mistake. This car was ALL bondo. The engine was a 350 out of who-knows-what. I got the car to Texas, kept it about three months before deciding it was not worth the effort, and sold it to a 16-year-old. Such a letdown!
The front bumper and grill was from my original LeMans. When we put the GTO front on it I'd saved the chrome LeMans front all those years and it had been in my garage. It was in great shape...I wish I'd kept it and put the original rusty bumper back on when I sold the car.
Another dud, I got a '93 Ford Aerostar for a song at my shop, cleaned it up and attempted to use it. It was a total POS. Something was always wrong, and I swore off Fords for good. You can see the Ford Dustbuster in the background here, behind my sister-in-law and my nephew. I DO NOT miss this one.
BUT some good came of the Aerostar. I traded it even for my '89 Olds Custom Cruiser. That Cruiser was a GREAT car!
Ok, that's if for now. Ha! :lol:
-Mike
So if you're bored and want to laugh at my old Beatles haircut and see some of the cars that got away, enjoy!
Sure brought back a lot of memories for me! Also found some good pics of my super-nice '85 Grand Prix LE. Never should have sold that one!!
Here's my buddy Laird and I at age 14 visiting my grandmother in Arkansas. My aunt was a school teacher, and one of the other school teachers had an original 1969 Hurst/Olds. They brought it over to show it to Laird and I. She was the original owner, it had been bought by her husband new in Memphis, and she drove it to school daily. Can you imagine? It was far from perfect, but all there and all original. I wanted that car SO BAD!
What clothes! A couple of smooth dudes in loose moods. Hahahaha!
Here's my brother in the driveway in New Jersey, with our brand-new Electra Estate Wagon buried behind him. I do not miss that white crap at all!!
Here's my '69 LeMans convertible that Dad and I fixed up from the time I was 15 to the time I was 17. We made a really good GTO clone out of it. I drove it to my freshman year of college....and sold it that summer after. I'd give my right arm to have this car back!
Here I am at age 15 in the LeMans before we tore it apart. Solid Oklahoma car, with rust just starting to show above the rear wheel-wells. Factory buckets, floor shifter, Rally gauges, 350 2brl. Great starting point. Gotta love those white-walls...ha!
So I started small, had no money, but wanted to "fix it up", typical teenager mods. Blacked out the grill and put GTO emblems on the front and back, and also in stalled a GTO hood and a set of rust-pitted GTO tail lights I found at the Englishtown swap meet. I had the hood painted the stock color red, by the numbers, and it turned out the car had been painted a darker red at some time, so the GTO hood was brighter red. Also added more modern 70's GM bullet mirrors. Those were not an option until 1971....whoops!
Note trunk still says Pontiac on it. GTO's did not have the Pontiac lettering.
Dad took pity on me, and we decided to do a full restoration and clone to a GTO....with the promise from me that I would drive "beaters" to high school and save the GTO for weekends and car shows. We REALLY tore the car down. Aftermarket was just heating up in the late 80's to early 90's, but parts could still be found at Carlisle and Englishtown.
First we tore the car down and then began gathering parts:
We found the correct GTO front bumper and valance, replaced the rear 1/4 panels so the correct marker lights could be installed, and totally pulled the front off to install a correct 69 YS-code 400 engine, and then detailed everything. Finished by putting a new top on the car and painted it Porsche Guards Red.
Notice the family 86 Estate Wagon in the backround...
Wish I could find some better pics of it completed...it was gorgeous. He's the only ones I can find. My buddy Laird and I playing with it here. He and I have been friends since we were 13. Scary!
As mentioned I was not allowed to drive the GTO to high school. Had to buy my own beater cars to drive.
Here's Laird and I with my first turd. Paid $100 for it. Baby doo-doo brown '83 Citation 4dr. Lord we were YOUNG!
Here's my '79 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham. Buick 350, pillowed seats, rode like a marshmellow. My first land barge.
Next I found an '83 Citation X-11 that was a former SCCA rally car. It was ordered without a/c, power steering, and had no power options, and was even a radio-delete car, but it had the deluxe cloth interior, because the cloth was lighter than the stock vinyl seats! it really was fast...for what it was.
I met Misty, my then-future wife, at college, and she came home with me that summer. I think I knew she was "the one" when she helped me re-paint the bumpers on my X-11, which had surface-rusted while I was away at school. Ha!
My goofy buddy Frank was so thrilled I'd found a real girlfriend. He he is acting dumb while I'm kissing my pretty girl, and you can see my Citation X-11 and Laird's '78 Impala in the background.
I decided I needed a new vehicle, and the next summer we came back in my new '93 S-10 pickup. I had to get a "respectable" vehicle....with good a/c. The S-10 served me well for over 300,000 miles.
but....when the truck was just 6-months old and had less than 5K miles on it, and old couple in a Caprice turned left in front of me, and the truck got $8000 worth of damage. I was heartbroken, but the dealer replaced everything, including the frame...and it lasted me another 18 years.
I was just sick when this happend.
And here they are rebuilding it.
Misty is a real Texas country girl. Went through FFA, raised lambs, grew up hunting and fishing with her Dad. When she turned 16 her Dad bought her an '82 Chevy step-side pickup with a 350 and 4-spd granny-gear stick. She and he father fixed it up and re-finished the wood in the bed together. Gotta respect a 16-year-old girl that drives a heavy-clutch work truck! Here's Misty and one of her friends at age 16, with their trucks. Yee-Haw gotta love redneck girls!! Ha!
When I met Misty she was 18 and I was 20. She was a bartender at DFW airport and with her commute had bought an old '87 V6 Thunderturd for gas milege. I hated it...and once we got serious, she did the best thing she could have done and wrecked that Ford!
We were really serious when she wrecked the T-Bird, and she had full coverage on it. She loved my S-10, so I gave her the S-10 to commute in, and with the insurance money from the T-Bird I bought a super-clean '85 Grand Prix LE. This is another car I MISS and wish I'd never sold. Misty loved the S-10, and I loved the GP....and her! Ha!
Here's the S-10 and GP in the parking lot of our first apartment together:
I replaced the goofy aftermarket wheels with 15-inch Pontiac Rally II wheels. MAN that was a sharp GP!
Lets jump back a bit. Took my Dad's '79 Corvette to my prom, and of course had to take pics with it before we went. Again, man we were young!
Can't say Jersey girls were not pretty...but my date Rachel was sick that my buddy's date Rose wore her same dress! Ha!
What a bunch of dorks! Ha!
About the time I bought my '93 S-10, my Dad bought my Mom a new '93 Cutlass Convertible. It was SHARP, but man did it fall apart. These pics were taken the day we brought the car home. Dad has a red bow tied to the roll bar. Mom came home at lunch and the Cutlass was sitting there. This car replaced our 86 Buick Electra Estate. Sadly it was a real POS and gave them nothing but problems
My freshman roomate in college was from from Switzerland. He wanted a car to go see America in that summer, and asked me to help. He's always had small cars in Europe, and wanted a big AMERICAN car. Twist my arm! I found him this yellow 79 Buick Park Ave in Dallas. 403, pillowed seats, 80K original miles, perfect condition. He loved it, and so did I, it was NICE. His parents flew over and they drove the Park Ave to California, back across the country to Florida, and then to New York. They had not one issue with that car. He sold the car in New York and made a big profit on it and then went back to Europe. It was a NICE car.
When Misty and I decided to tie the knot, my parents had not yet moved to Texas and were still living in New Jersey. I wanted to use Dad's Corvette in my wedding, but it had a sick engine. I rented a trailer and drove to New Jersey and towed it back to Texas. Stopped at the the Corvette factory and museum in Bowling Green Kentucky on the way back to Texas. If you are a Vette fan, you've got to go!
Got the car back to Texas, yanked and rebuilt the engine, and then detailed it to the hilt. That was such a nice Vette!
My buddy Troung working on the Vette
All cleaned up and running!
My goofy friends decorated the car, and Misty's dress was so big I could almost not shift! We barely fit in the car!
We went to California on our honeymoon. Flew to San Francisco, rented a car, and drove down Highway 1, which was gorgeous, to LA. Went to the Peterson Museum on the Miracle Mile. Some neat pics from there.
Three-wheeled Dale, a car scam by "Liz Carmichael", a cross-dressing con-man in the 70's.
Chrysler Turbine Car
James Bond's Lotus
The real Mustang from Bullit
Professor Fate's car from The Great Race
Batmobile
55 Chevy used in both Two Lane Blacktop and in American Grafetti
Monster Coach
And my favorite, Eleenor, both the new one and the REAL one!
That is a GREAT museum!
In 1996 my grandmother bought this new '97 DeVille. What a POS. The Northstar blew head gaskets twice in 40K miles. The dash warped, seat cushions went limp, steering wheel leather went from tan to brown, a/c failed, door panels warped. SAD! It was always garaged and babied...and yet it fell apart. Cars like this are what helped put GM in the condition it's in now. She'd wanted a Cadillac all here life....and now she drives a Toyota Avalon....
These pics were taken the day she picked the car up at the dealer...brand new.
Soon after I bought my wife this '98 Suburban 4x4. It looked great, was loaded, but the a/c never worked right, I didn't like the way it rode, and it has a wind leak around one door that flat could not be fixed. I only kept it a year, it kept giving us fits. When the right-front wheel bearing failed, at 50K miles, I got rid of it. It was a pretty truck, but a lemon.
I replaced the 4x4 with a really clean '96 Conversion Suburban. 2WD. This truck was perfect, rode smooth as glass and never gave us any issues. Here's pics from when I first picked it up. I replaced the goofy aftermarket wheels with factory alloys soon after.
Took the truck to Colorado on a ski trip. Misty took these pics to prove to our friends that our cars DID in fact get dirty sometimes. These pics still bother me...ha!
In 2004 my friend Ben took a shot and bid on a brown 79 Buick with 39K miles on it, in LA, California. Ben lives in New Jersey, and drove a worn-out yellow version of this car in high school. To his shock, nobody else bid on the car! He got it for a song, but had no way to get it home. He asked me to go get it for him, bring it back to Texas and give it a once-over, and then get it to New Jersey. I took my Dad. We flew from Austin to LA, the seller met us at the airport in the car, and it was (and IS) NICE!
What a great trip. Drove from LA to Las Vegas, went to the Hoover Dam, across Arizona, New Mexico, and back to Texas. Car ran like a dream and got to spend a week seeing America with my Dad. Good Memories!
In Santa Monica at the beach
Driving to Vegas through the desert
Stopped at a rest area looking at the new toy
A load of then brand-new 2004 GTO's on the highway from LA to Vegas. First new GTO's I'd seen in person.
On the road in Arizona
And snow in New Mexico
About this time I spotted a 69 LeMans convertible on Ebay in New Jersey. I missed my old GTO terribly and took a shot...the pics looked ok. MAN what a mistake. This car was ALL bondo. The engine was a 350 out of who-knows-what. I got the car to Texas, kept it about three months before deciding it was not worth the effort, and sold it to a 16-year-old. Such a letdown!
The front bumper and grill was from my original LeMans. When we put the GTO front on it I'd saved the chrome LeMans front all those years and it had been in my garage. It was in great shape...I wish I'd kept it and put the original rusty bumper back on when I sold the car.
Another dud, I got a '93 Ford Aerostar for a song at my shop, cleaned it up and attempted to use it. It was a total POS. Something was always wrong, and I swore off Fords for good. You can see the Ford Dustbuster in the background here, behind my sister-in-law and my nephew. I DO NOT miss this one.
BUT some good came of the Aerostar. I traded it even for my '89 Olds Custom Cruiser. That Cruiser was a GREAT car!
Ok, that's if for now. Ha! :lol:
-Mike
