my highschool rides
I will not go into long details again about my on going recovery from a heart attack followed by three strokes with resulting significient memory loss, but most everything i tell you about my cars comes from my younger brother, sister and my wife. my first car was a black, one owner 1953 chevy 6 cyl., 3 speed. i shaved the head and ran a straight pipe exhaust. i grew up on a farm where my younger brother and I had to work hard at a young age, we were allowed to tote canilopes and watermellons up a long hill in sacks and sell a percentage of them at a roadside stand. The cost of the 53 was $250.00, but after that things took off, i got a job at an old fashioned service station in the summer after my sophmore year at $29.oo per week for afternoon until 9:00 pm, and 12 hour days on the week end. I new a lot about cars and made numerous trades without assistance from my dad. Keep in mind this was a time when people did not drive long distances for work or pleasure and used cars usually were clean and low mileage rides . Here goes, traded 53 chevy for, 1957 2 door post, 283 ci, chevy, blowed the motor street racing. it was a super nice car and i know it is unbelievable but i sold it to Dyno Don Nicholson from dragracing fame. In my junior year i bought a black 1959 ford galaxy with a 352 ci. engines and was evidently very fast, then i started to hall moonshine from the west ga. area ro phoenix city, ala. no one knows exactly how much i made but it was more than i could explain by working at a service station. i started hanging out at a local pool hall ang gambling with the big boys, professional gamblers, sometimes winning but most of the time losing. I went back to my every afternoon and weekends at the service station and i traded the 59 ford for a mint, two top, 1959 Austin Healy 100-6 red in color. a local young attorney wanted the Healy for his wife and started stopping by the station and making offers until it became so lucrative i sold it to him far an unheard some of $1100.00. To finish out highscool i bought the most beautiful, red and white, low mile 1956 2 door post 1956 chevy. Again i blowed the 265 ci. v8 dragracing down main street at 2:00am. I bought the 56 for $600.00 and had $500.00 dollars left over. I bought a 340 hp. built corvette engine for $150.00 and had what i am told was the best looking, fastest car in town. I loved owning different cars and would take a liking to a certain model and would search until i found one. I bought my first corvette at 19 yrs. old and have had one almost most of the time since and some are very rare today. forunately i have pictures of most of my cars starting with the 56 including 55-57 chevys, 409 and 427 impalas, 8- z28's, gto's. i am 62 years old and have four very nice rides in my shop now, one being a 2003 SS silverado that i set a landspeed record in oct. at the Maxton Monster mile. come on and let'ts get the list and stories rolling. Happy holidays, Garrell Patterson