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What did you drive

39K views 228 replies 71 participants last post by  MRTS33 
#1 ·
For those of us that were in highschool from 2000 to waay back: What did you drive and was it your ride or the family car? It was your's how did you pay for and how much did it cost? Was it a hotrod/muscle car, did you modify or "hop it up"? Did you carry it to a dragstrip or street race it?
 
#27 ·
My first was my truck, this photo was shot in the school parking lot, 1977. :D

Another "car" I drove was my dads 55 F-100 shown in the other photo with my brothers Roadster. I don't have any photos of it back then on my computer and it certainly didn't look this good but it had the same 401 Buick in it and I had a ball smoking the one tire thru the parking lot and out onto the street. :)

Brian
 

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#28 ·
Mine was a 67 GMC Custom with a 305 V6/auto trans. Dad gave it to me with the understanding that if I tore it up, I was walking. I walked quite a bit :D Didn't have a real job, just cutting grass and odd stuff to support gas costs,lol. Didn't drive alot till I graduated HS and got a real job. 2 engines,3 trans and 1 rearend in 5 years on that poor old truck. :thumbup:
 
#30 ·
keep them coming

Great cars and great stories, no one has mentioned going to the drag strip or street racing. I fessed up to illegal racing and an even more illegal part night job, come on and come clean. I can't believe no one has mentioned bagging groceries or pumping gas to pay for your ride and gas. Does anyone remember what they paid for gas in high school? garrell
 
#31 ·
garrell.770 said:
did you ever tote canolopes in from a field or pull corn on the farm like i did?
Does picking citrus, pecans and pulling tobacco in the FL summertime and lighting smudge pots in the groves in the winter count?

First car was a '55 post. Eventually had a 301 w/3-speed and a welded 4.11. :evil: Worked two years after school and both summers in our 'yard for it. Not a particularly good deal, but I'd have been working, regardless. At least this way I got something.
 
#32 ·
what did you drive

I would say your farm work experiences are simular and yours would certainly count as your method of earning funds for your ride and expenses. Oh, i forgot hiring out to a neighbor in the fall and picking cotton, and the hay season in the hottest days of summer. Hauling moonshine was a lot more lucrative and exciting to a 17 yr. old, but also very scary. garrell
 
#33 ·
garrell.770 said:
Great cars and great stories, no one has mentioned going to the drag strip or street racing. I fessed up to illegal racing and an even more illegal part night job, come on and come clean. I can't believe no one has mentioned bagging groceries or pumping gas to pay for your ride and gas. Does anyone remember what they paid for gas in high school? garrell
I had a full on wide open drag race at least once a week! And the Drag strip was right in town, Fremont Drag Strip one of the fastest in the nation. I was there often on Wednesday grudge night.

Brian
 
#34 ·
garrell.770 said:
Great cars and great stories, no one has mentioned going to the drag strip or street racing. I fessed up to illegal racing and an even more illegal part night job, come on and come clean. I can't believe no one has mentioned bagging groceries or pumping gas to pay for your ride and gas. Does anyone remember what they paid for gas in high school? garrell
I started a street race thread and it was shut down. I was told that the rules here don't permit it. Oh well, rules are rules. However, street racing is basically the back bone of hot rodding. In High School (69-72) I paid about a quarter per gallon of gas, and another quarter for a pack of smokes (quit 12 yrs ago). So, for ONE dollar, I had gas and smokes for the whole weekend :D
 
#35 ·
garrell.770 said:
I would say your farm work experiences are simular and yours would certainly count as your method of earning funds for your ride and expenses. Oh, i forgot hiring out to a neighbor in the fall and picking cotton, and the hay season in the hottest days of summer. Hauling moonshine was a lot more lucrative and exciting to a 17 yr. old, but also very scary. garrell
Hay bailing (or stacking, actually) was something I did but despised. The rancher who I worked hay with had sandspurs in his fields, had to wear heavy flannel long sleeved shirts regardless of the heat. Miserable work. Never picked cotton but it had to have sucked as much as pulling tobacco or maybe worse. Either way you worked stooped over toting a load as you went. :sweat:

Back then, car guys still in school mostly worked pumping gas, girls waited tables.

Cheapest gas was 24.9¢/gallon for regular at the Super Test station in Kissimmee during a gas war w/the next door gas station. They also sold reclaimed motor oil that was dispensed in glass jars w/screw-on spouts. They advertised 105 octane "super ethyl" gasoline.
 
#36 ·
garrell.770 said:
Great cars and great stories, no one has mentioned going to the drag strip or street racing. I fessed up to illegal racing and an even more illegal part night job, come on and come clean. I can't believe no one has mentioned bagging groceries or pumping gas to pay for your ride and gas. Does anyone remember what they paid for gas in high school? garrell
Never did much street racing. Saw a couple pedestrians killed during an illegal street race in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl when I was in high school and that convinced me that any racing I did was going to be on the track.... and it was, especially during my college years when I had my '69 RoadRunner.

When I was in high school I paid $.19 a gallon on a regular basis. When I graduated from college and had my 66 427 Vette I used to put Sunoco 260 in that for $.29 a gallon. Now I'm putting diesel in my truck for $3.73 a gallon.

Centerline
HotRodsAndHemis.com

"I’m sorry but...... Everything you know is wrong"! - Don "Big Daddy" Garlits
 
#37 ·
garrell.770 said:
i bet the 57 ford was a police interceptor engine, can't believe you still have the paper work, back then no one thought about such things. did you ever tote canolopes in from a field or pull corn on the farm like i did?
My dad was a dairy farmer with 160 acres under cultivation in northern Illinois, so we raised corn, oats, soybeans and alfalfa. For my $20 a week I had to get up every morning and milk the cows before going to school and again at night after coming home from football or basketball practice. Saturday was always a full work day as well as Sunday chores. And every day, seven days a week during the summer months, was required in the fields to plant, cultivate and harvest.

That may sound a bit odious but growing up on the farm was great. While I was expected to work very hard for my earnings, my "time off" (after milking every night of the week) was fully mine and I was not restricted in any way as to what I could do during those hours. As best I can describe it, my parents treated me as an adult.

The other great advantage to growing up on a farm in those days was that the local police were very lenient towards farm boys and farm families. I was allowed to drive my motorcycle from the age of 13 and my cars when I was 14 and 15, well before I had a license. The "deal" was that I could drive as long as I was going to or from school or a school related function or to/from church related events. Oh, and I had to maintain all speed limits and rules of the road.

I doubt anything like that goes on anywhere any more...with the possible exception of rural areas of places like Montana, Wyoming or Idaho.

Even the hard work and long hours on the farm turned out to be advantageous. I hated it at the time but it taught me great lessons on how to apply myself and keep my head above water financially later in life.
 
#38 ·
My first car was a '53 Chevy 2-door post. Dad loaned me $75 to buy it.

During the last two years of high school, I fixed, then blew up the 216... so I rebuilt a 58 235 and put it in, and added a floor shifter. I also painted it '65 Chevy seafoam green, which did not turn out shiny... but I was proud!

As was popular then, I pulled the front bumper, and painted the rear rims half black, half white, like a drag car. :) My pet name was "Poison Ivy".
 

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#39 ·
cboy said:
My dad was a dairy farmer with 160 acres under cultivation in northern Illinois, so we raised corn, oats, soybeans and alfalfa. For my $20 a week I had to get up every morning and milk the cows before going to school and again at night after coming home from football or basketball practice. Saturday was always a full work day as well as Sunday chores. And every day, seven days a week during the summer months, was required in the fields to plant, cultivate and harvest.

That may sound a bit odious but growing up on the farm was great. While I was expected to work very hard for my earnings, my "time off" (after milking every night of the week) was fully mine and I was not restricted in any way as to what I could do during those hours. As best I can describe it, my parents treated me as an adult.

The other great advantage to growing up on a farm in those days was that the local police were very lenient towards farm boys and farm families. I was allowed to drive my motorcycle from the age of 13 and my cars when I was 14 and 15, well before I had a license. The "deal" was that I could drive as long as I was going to or from school or a school related function or to/from church related events. Oh, and I had to maintain all speed limits and rules of the road.

I doubt anything like that goes on anywhere any more...with the possible exception of rural areas of places like Montana, Wyoming or Idaho.

Even the hard work and long hours on the farm turned out to be advantageous. I hated it at the time but it taught me great lessons on how to apply myself and keep my head above water financially later in life.

We didn't have a farm but the homestead was in farming community. Hard to imagine now with twenty houses an acre covering all those fields I use to see covered with califlower. :( It was such a good time, I rode my mini bikes and motorcycle all over those fields and levys. I'd walk out the back door with my 22 rifle and go shooting. I drove my truck MANY miles before it was licensed with no windows (top chopped and couldn't afford them) and no fenders or bed! I would sand it for five minutes and then drive it up and down the farm roads for a half an hour. :D

My dad late in his life wrote on a photo of us with one of our horses after a parade "Sangrala", and I agree.

Brian
 
#41 ·
garrell.770 said:
Great cars and great stories, no one has mentioned going to the drag strip or street racing. I fessed up to illegal racing and an even more illegal part night job, come on and come clean. I can't believe no one has mentioned bagging groceries or pumping gas to pay for your ride and gas. Does anyone remember what they paid for gas in high school? garrell
In 1968 I remember driving from my home town to another town 10 miles away to buy gas for 19.9 a gallon. They were charging 24.9 in my home town. I worked 4 jobs one summer. In a gas station, on a golf course, on a sod farm, and in a fast food joint.
 
#42 ·
K72Nova said:
High school car was the 72 Nova that I'm restoring right now and a 98 tahoe that I was lucky enough to have my mom let me drive when the nova wasn't running :D
I had a '63 Dodge former squad car that had a 383 with 440 heads and intakes and a 4 barrel carb. It had positraction, and would just scream. The only car in my school I couldn't beat was a '66 Corvette with a 427
 
#43 ·
garrell.770 said:
Great cars and great stories, no one has mentioned going to the drag strip or street racing. I fessed up to illegal racing and an even more illegal part night job, come on and come clean. I can't believe no one has mentioned bagging groceries or pumping gas to pay for your ride and gas. Does anyone remember what they paid for gas in high school? garrell
Went to New England drag way fairly regular. It is in Epping NH. When I got my license and first car gas was about .50 a gallon and went up during the first "gas crisis". In most places they would not sell you more than a few gallons at a time and the price went up to .75. I remember seeing the lines with 50 cars waiting to get gas. People were turning there cars off at red lights to try to save fuel. It was good for the companies that sold starters lol.
Fuuny thing is the school parking lot was full of the cars people would die for today.
 
#44 ·
In high school I delivered papers, shoveled snow, mowed lawns, bagged groceries, worked as a soda-jerk at a root beer stand, and worked at a Deep Rock gas station where gas was 29 cents a gallon.

Once I stopped building models, and got my car... what money didn't go into maintaining and cruising the car, was saved to go to the U.S. Nationals each fall.

Ahhhh. The good old days! {:)
 
#45 ·
T-bucket23 said:
Went to New England drag way fairly regular. It is in Epping NH. When I got my license and first car gas was about .50 a gallon and went up during the first "gas crisis". In most places they would not sell you more than a few gallons at a time and the price went up to .75. I remember seeing the lines with 50 cars waiting to get gas. People were turning there cars off at red lights to try to save fuel. It was good for the companies that sold starters lol.
Fuuny thing is the school parking lot was full of the cars people would die for today.
I LOVED the gas crisis. I got to own cars I only dreamt about. My job and girlfriend were so close, I hardly used any gas. BUT, at age 18, in 1974, I could buy my 1st of many Corvettes. A flared 64 roadster with a fresh 365HP 327 for $775
 
#46 ·
Groucho said:
I LOVED the gas crisis. I got to own cars I only dreamt about. My job and girlfriend were so close, I hardly used any gas. BUT, at age 18, in 1974, I could buy my 1st of many Corvettes. A flared 64 roadster with a fresh 365HP 327 for $775
My Uncle owned a gas station at that time. It was crazy, the car dealers were just about giving away big cars. I remember driving him to pickup a 1 year old Olds delta 88 he bought for 2K. Thing was a tank. He kept it for many years.
Those were the days that got Toyota and Honda really moving. The American companies tried but they were coming out with stuff like the Pinto and Vega which didn't compare.
 
#47 ·
good thread,,,

Back in the day just after high school I got my first "nice" car a 70 torino cobra with 429scj, drag pak, locker 4:30's, 4 spd etc. Being that we have only about 4 months of good driving up here north of 49 we would park our good car and look for a "beater" for the winter.

Hats off to all of the nice cars but man I would have never survived if it were not for the beaters! They were all around and for less than 500 bucks you could drive all winter and then just leave it on the street come spring, take the plates off and the beer out of the trunk and most likely the battery and just leave it there and go plate the hot rod again. Beaters i can remember:

68 belair, 74 Biscayne, 76 impala, 65 merc, Gremlin X, 75 F100, guess my first two units in high school were beaters too 71 skylark & 68 Merc truck and yeah everyone has 100 stories or more attached :thumbup:
 
#48 ·
Groucho said:
I LOVED the gas crisis. I got to own cars I only dreamt about. My job and girlfriend were so close, I hardly used any gas. BUT, at age 18, in 1974, I could buy my 1st of many Corvettes. A flared 64 roadster with a fresh 365HP 327 for $775
WOW, I am older, and by '74 I was buying and selling collector Chevys on the side. I went through about 17-18 Corvettes... and for $775...you STOLE that one! :)
 
#49 ·
Never was into the Muscle Car thing-----Well, Muscle Cars as most of you know them.

I have always been a bit partial luxury with "Wheaties".

I do really dig my little microtruck 65 Ranchero with the Hi Perf 289 and 4 spd (Factory), but have always liked the bigger cars.

1st car:
I was 14-16---14 when I bought it----almost 16 when the car was killed by a drunk while parked downtown.

1970 Plymouth Sport Fury GT, was a 440-6 car, and was a total blast.
Only giveaway that car was special was the little white stripe down the side, and the little square black badge on the trunk (that said GT).
Just recently found out that there were only about 75 of these cars built with the 440-6

I was lucky enough to have an unrestricted and nighttime drivers license at 14, because I had a full time job at a newspaper. I actually ran the presses and everything else related to the presses. This was at a morning newspaper so I was working at night. The local authorities and a judge took me thru the process of getting all restrictions off my license.

Gasoline had just moved up to about 0.60, but would be close to $1.00 by the end of 79.

Inexpensive fuel.
A Hot Rod with many creature comforts
Late nights with Jylene :evil:
All was good.

The replacement car was a 73 Plymouth Gran Coupe----not yet 16.
3yo Loaded to the gills Plymouth cost me $2100, and completely spoiled me rotten. Now, if a car does not have tilt or power windows, I pretty much call it a piece of crap :D

During this spell (74-80) I also acquired a couple of cars that seem to be revered by a lot of people. My "second" cars ended up being
68 Road Runner-----383/4spd
69 GTX----440-4/spd
Fun to drive about occasionally, but really piece of crap cars.

By the time I moved to Arizona----I had just bought my brand new 79 C-10, as I had completely wore out that 73 Gran Coupe (or so I thought---had 140k on it, and I bought it with under 20k). But took with me a pair of 67 Chrysler 300s.
One of these cars was a 440TNT/4spd car. Factory disc, Posi, HD Suspension, and teeny tiny taxicab hubcaps. (can you say SLEEPER??)

One of the 300s was eventually wore out and sold (big mistake)
The other one (the sleeper car) was stolen in the fall of 89.
Still have that 79 Chev----and it does still run, but I have not driven it in over 5 years-----well over 400,000miles on that thing.
It brought me to Texas on my last interstate move in 2001.

Of all the cars I have had to enjoy-----that old Green 67 Chrysler is STILL my all time favorite.


and at Kleen 56----"My first car was 66 Ford Mustang GT with a HiPo 289"

I had a 65 High Performance 289/4-spd Mustang----I thought that car was a blast, this was in the early 90s. Bought it just to piss off the ex-wife :D .

And now, my little High Performance 289/4-spd 65 Ranchero---it is all the Mustang was and more. My uncle bought it new and left it to me when he passed. Vividly remember riding in it when I was 5-16yr old
 
#50 ·
What did you drive to high school

Good stuff guys, I new when i started this thread that almost everyone would have a high school ride storey and i am really interested if you bought the car yourself how did you pay for it. I hate to toot my on horn but i think my exploites hauling moonshine may be the best "how did you pay for it" storey so far. I did not clarify, NO sold drugs in the high school parking lot.

Happy New Year, Garrell
 
#51 ·
My rides!

garrell.770 said:
For those of us that were in highschool from 2000 to waay back: What did you drive and was it your ride or the family car? It was your's how did you pay for and how much did it cost? Was it a hotrod/muscle car, did you modify or "hop it up"? Did you carry it to a dragstrip or street race it?

Im from Finland so i Couldn't really have any cool rides like you guys!

So i started out with a BMW 315 e21 1983 it was slow so i built a m10b20 engine for it. then she was a lot more fun to drive! but sadly i felt the need to get e30 BMW wit the m20 engine then i had a couple of them then got back to the m10 powered cars and bought a 1502 nice Car but got a nice bid on it so i had to sell it then i bought a 635csi Hartge with all the bells and whistles like dogleg gearbox oil cooled rear diff and the fantastic group A Suspension setup! well i bougth my Chevy Nova 1972 fore 4 years ago. then something went wrong and i drive a Volkswagen Polo 90 to work and my better half drives a Opel Omega 2.0 automatic really slow! but i still got the Nova

a little burn out with the 635csi its not a super car but it was a fun car!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX5W...xt=C39d782cUDOEgsToPDskKB1adXW3zphHuCfzqG-942
 
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