Cars from back in the day:

Here's some of the cars I've owned over the past 35 years or so. I'll start with my favorites, this is NOT the order that I owned them.

1970 'Cuda: This was originally a real Hemi 4 speed car. I first came across this car in 1972 when I was in high school. It showed up on the side of a residential street I drove everyday to school. It sat there for several months without moving an inch. A friend wanted the shaker hood scoop and on a snowy winter night he sole it, I drove the get away car. Shortly after that it was removed from the street and showed up in the spring of '73 on the local Chevy dealers used car lot. I went down to check it out and got the back story on the car. It had been owned by a traveling salesman, the engine blew when he was traveling through our town so he just abandoned it for the finance company to reposes. When they finally figured out where it was and what had happened they had it towed to the dealer. They installed a new replacement engine and put it on their used car lot to try and recoup some of the finance companies money. The salesman I talked to took me for a test ride knowing full well a 17 year old could not afford that car. Any excuse to take it for a ride... I was amazed at the power, this thing could smoke the tires forever! The car eventually sold for $2500 or so. That seems ridiculously low today but back then you could hardly GIVE muscle cars away, especially ones that were lucky to get 10mpg on the highway. The insurance companies were jacking up their rates and gas prices were going up faster. As I understand it the new owner removed the engine to build it up for more power but could never get it running right. It sat for a couple years until he pulled the hemi, installed a used 383 in it and sold the car. The new owner was an acquaintance of mine, he bought it for his wife to drive but when they got divorced it sat some more. In '76 a friend told me the car was for sale and I picked it up for $1,100. I immediately added headers, Cragar S/S wheels and fat tires. It was a sweet ride. I sold it to one of my best friends, bought it back from him, sold it back to him, and bought it back again. While he owned it the first time he rebuilt the engine adding a Sig Earson 298 duration cam, Edelbrock intake and Holley carb, it made about 400hp. With the Hemi 4 speed and Dana 60 rear end it was virtually bullet proof, I could grab gears all day without fear of breaking anything. With the Hemi suspension and brakes and the lighter 383 engine it handled pretty well for a '70 car. While my friend owned it the first time he removed the fat Cragar S/S wheels and installed some more modest Cragar Street Super Trick wheels. It went through a succession of paint jobs. The first time he owned it he painted it silver, the second time he owned it he painted it pearl white. The last time I owned it I sanded all the paint off back to the original light blue and painted it a nice charcoal metallic with metallic black accents. I had a lot of fun with that car and a ton of great memories. You would think that after owning it 3 times I would have realized I should keep it forever... I guess I'm just not that quick on the uptake. In 1983 I traded it in on a first generation Honda Prelude. If I ever win the lottery I will hire a private investigator to track it down so I can buy it and restore it. This is the pic I found with the correct original color after looking through hundreds on the internet. This car is "over restored" with base coat/clear coat paint. That type of shine wasn't available in the '70s other than custom lacquer paint and that didn't last long. The siver shaker scoop was a cool textured aluminum finish, the replacemnt scoop was smooth black finish. Mine did not have the hockey stick stripe and the factory fog lights were stolen while it was on the Chevy dealers lot.

Here's a couple of pics of my car with the classic '70 big 'n little tires.

Here's how it looked several years later lowered back down and charcoal metalic paint. This was just before I got married. Notice the Firebird in the edge of the pic.

1965 GTO: I bought this car in '75 while I was in vocational school. It was a 389/four barrel/4 speed car. The 389 was toast so I installed a 400 from a '69 GTO that I bought for parts. The PO had literally ripped the rear end out when he put it into a ditch and replaced it with one from a '66 GTO. After replacing the driver side axle and rebuilding the rear suspension it was a VERY nice driver. It had aluminum slot mags and 60 series tires. I had it to 135mph for a 50 mile run. Things happen very fast at that speed! I sold it to a friend who still owes me part of the money! Lesson there is DON'T sell a car to a friend-they may not be your friend after that. The pic below is the correct color but mine had ET slots.

1967 Chevelle SS: This was a 396/4 speed car that a guy had started to make into a drag racer, lost interest in and sold it to me. It had a VERY radical 402 when I got it, no interior, 5.13 rearend gears. I bought it in '76 while still in vocational school. I stripped the body to bare metal with a disk sander, replaced both door skins, repaired dents in both quarters, filled all the emblem holes, had the bumpers re chromed, installed new window chrome trim, installed buckets seats from my '67 Corvair-they looked just like Chevelle seats only 1/3 smaller-installed a Plexiglas rear window and put it on the street. It wasn't much good for going places due to the 5.13 gears but around town it was a total blast. The engine was built with only drag racing in mind, it had 13.5-1 compression, a set of rectangular port heads that had been professionally ported, an Edelbrock Tarantula intake, Holley 850 carb, a HUGE (for the day) General Kenitics solid lifter cam with 308 intake and 316 exhaust duration with .580" lift, roller rockers and 2 1/8" primary Hooker headers. It idled at 1800 rpm and was still quite lumpy. I only lost one street race with it, to a '68 Camaro with a built 400. I wasn't expecting a race that night so it had spark plugs in it that had been in the engine for two weeks of normal street driving. With the the 13.5-1 compression it only took a little misfire to blow the porcelain off the plug electrode causing that cylinder to go dead. When the race started I had a full car length on him but as I went for 3rd gear it started missing, I had blown a plug and was down to 7 cylinders. At the end of the 1/4 mile he had me by a fender. The next night I had a rematch with fresh plugs and open headers, he didn't stand a chance and I beat him by two car lengths. I don't think I ever took any engine pics, too bad, it was a nice looking engine. The most important thing I learned with this car is that I will NEVER sand a car to bare metal again, that's WAY too much work. This car started out red and after the body work I painted it "lime fire green", a VW color from the middle '70s. Hey, I was in school without much $$ and the paint was cheap. It doesn't look very intimidating but it was truely a nasty car.

1969 Firebird: 400/4 speed car that I bought for $1700 in early '79. It was all stock with Cragar S/S wheels. I sold it a year or so later to the woman that would later become my wife. Someone once asked if I married her to get the car back... Hmmm, the car is long gone but she's still here-what the hell is up with that?? It really was a great car and I enjoyed it a lot. It needed a set of headers, good exhaust, Edelbrock intake and Holley carb but I could not afford to do much to it back then. I would like to own another '69 'bird, maybe someday.

1964 Chevelle SS: This was a 283/two barrel/powerglide car I bought in '73 while still in high school. I think I paid about $900 for it at a Chevy dealer used car lot. Red with black bucket seat interior with a center console. It was my first decent car with a v8 but it was not very powerful, probably why I'm still alive today! In high school I put on a set of cheap Walker glass pack mufflers and an 8 track tape player, perfect for a kid. I don't think I have any pics of this car. The engine had a head gasket leak and the coolant gummed up the piston rings. I replaced the engine with a stock rebuilt engine my neighbor sold me for a couple hundred dollars. A few months later I bought a beat '69 GTO for the engine and turbo 400 transmission. I did my first engine swap that summer. Looking back I was pretty lucky it all went together fairly easily. I had essentially built a '64 GTO, the big engine/small car thing was a lot of fun. I think this is what sent me down the road to becoming a hard core "motorhead".

1967 Corvair: It was a cool car and got decent gas mileage. It was a dual carb 110hp, 4 speed car. I once shifted it so hard the shifter broke off, I had to limp to my girl friends house and use her dads welder to put it back together. I overheated it and the engine case opened up causing the engine oil to drain out, the engine seized and it sat a my parents house until my dad installed a used engine and sold it. I put the seats in my '67 Chevelle SS.

1960 VW dune buggy: This was a Meyers Manx clone with a 36hp engine. I bought this during my senior year of high school for $350. It was a total kick in the ass to drive. I would like to build a modern version someday. I don't think I ever took a pic of this one, I was too busy having fun driving it! I broke the welds where the chassis was shortened, repaired that, rebuilt the engine and drove the wheels off it. This is a pic off the internet, mine was metal flake blue. Perfect car for the '70s gas shortages, maybe I'll build one for a commuter now!!

1970 Grand Prix: This car was a total land barge but it had a warmed up 400 engine and a stout turbo 400 transmission with a shift kit. The body was a bit beat but not too bad. It moved very well for a large car and was great on a long road trip. It would lay 12' of rubber shifting into 2nd and bark the tires going into 3rd at 90mph. I gave it to my girlfriend when we broke up. She needed a car and I still owned the Corvair and the '67 SS so I could spare it easily.

Here's a list of other cars I've had over the past 35 years, each one has a story too. These appear in no particular order and I can't remember the model year of some of them.

1955 Chevy sedan delivery
Mid '60s Opal station wagon
Early '60s NSU Sport Prinz (look that one up on the web)
'69 GTO
'66 GTO
'69 Mustang Mach 1
'77 Chevy 1/2 ton step side 4x4
mid '70s Dodge van custom
'70 Dodge Demon
'72 Barracuda
late '70s Renault Le Car
'78 Buick station wagon
late '70s Pontiac J2000
'65 Triumph TR4
Datsun 710 station wagon
'83 BMW 320i
'85 Chevy S10 pick up extended cab 4x4
'88 Chevy S10 Blazer 4x4
'87 Chevy S10 pick up extended cab 2wd
'90s Plymouth Acclaim
'68 VW bug beater (this is NOT the same bug I currently have)

There's probably a couple more I can't remember right now. Overall I have owned about 40 cars.

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