What is Your Sweetest Auto Memory?

My first was a 1964 Chevy Impala Supersport 2 door coupe. It had a 409, 4 speed, (my dad helped me drop that in). I saved up for 2 summers for it. A real sleeper, you could blow away Corvettes with it. The gas for it just killed me, even way back then. (1968). I wish I saved a picture of it.

Home, sweet home <splutter>

Back in the late 60's, Girls in mini skirts getting onto the back of my Lambretta .

My first car (actually, my parents' second car), a Renault R8 (I borrowed this image, but ours looked identical), which...

had three lug nuts per wheel. My favorite activities were:

1) Flicking the steering wheel and putting the car up on two wheels.

2) Getting stuck in snow filled ditches and getting out by placing the car in gear while it is running and letting out the clutch, then stepping out of the car, going to the rear, pushing it out, and running along side it and jumping back in.

3) Putting it in 1st gear, dropping the clutch and letting the car lurch forward. The sudden forward lurch would cause my foot to fall off the gas, which produced a quick backward lurch, which caused one's foot to fall back on the gas and the process to repeat ad nausium. Finally, depress the clutch and the car would backfire.

My next cars after graduation of High School were a series of Triumph TR-4s. This was an education in true British Tradition. While they were highly reliable for getting to where I drove them, their many, many quirks were unique to British cars. You Brits know exactly what I mean.

Another borrowed image, but same exact color and model.

My current ride, a GT3, is making a whole new set of memories, but I am not driving it on two wheels.

This one is my image.

Well, somebody has to do the nightmare. When I started college, I worked part-time for a used car salesman and he let me use a really beat-up 1960 Corvair (I don't think he could give it away, let alone sell it). It had the transmission lever mounted on the dash so that you had to take your eyes off the road to see it. But the best part was that it used a gasoline heater. I smoked then and the car would start to fill with gas fumes and I would quickly throw my smoke out the window and the fumes would built and built and then FOOOM! the whole car would rock violently as the heater ignited. Ralph Nader had no idea how bad that thing was.

Three come to mind:- My first car, a 1924 Gwynne, never made it to the road although my brother and I worked on it for a couple of years after paying 2 Pounds ten shillings for four of us to to carry it home. We got the engine running and drove it around a private park, (Upton Park, Slough), scaring old ladies and their dogs into jumping into the bushes to escape this fire breathing and smoke emitting monster.

Next was in Salt Lake City, Utah when I managed to scrape together a down payment on a right hand drive MG TC and with my dog in the 'driver's' seat managed to startle the locals with what appeared to be a driving dog.

Third was the first of five DS 21 Citroens from which I used to offer my toll money to the Golden Gate toll collectors at the same time as I dropped the suspension to the ground. They would reach for the money as the car suddenly dropped six inches, almost losing their balance as they went after it.

Very silly but fun at the time..........

sweetest memory...

it wasn't the 160mph swaying home built 84 monte carlo.

the epiphany of sweetest was an 87 subaru dl with manual steering, a carburator, and 4 dollars for 250 miles. It was a decade ahead then, and a decade ahead now. it may always be a decade...

My age group is pretty much tortured stories. very very few cars had any meaning or good purpose...and there I was. damn good feeling to think you are ahead...by years...and damn well know it.Of course now, that feeling of good is very sad, the way times are. Not many pay attention, all the way to the top. I did see an elctric tesla roadster driven by jay leno..there is an element of something real there, and it is sweet.

This off the web but exactly the car, my first, I bought in Los Angeles in 1952 for $70.

A 1936 Chevy Standard Coupe. This picture of an original with 19,000 miles, all as when stuck in a barn years ago. Price now $18,500. It had a 70 horsepower straight six. Three speed stick on the floor.

The brakes were mechanical and the suspension was leaf spring on all fours.

It had a tendency to break rear axles but as long as there was a junkyard nearby no problem to replace right out on the highway.

I got to know it so well that one night running fast on a pitch black highway it sputtered and quit. Fumbling around in the dark I got the distributor cap off and because of our speed and hence high RPM's the rotor had lifted and come out of the keyway. Wedge it back on with a piece of paper and off we went again.

I'd give my right arm for one of these today. It had cast babbit bearings but I would bet a modern six would fit right in and that's what I would do. I'd also covert to hydraulic brakes.

It had a solid sheet steel body. It got 20 miles/gallon at 15 cents a gallon.

j.

Ahhhh, to reflect on the "good old days", when gasoline was cheap, and the only carbon signature came from my lead pencil.

My first '65 Mustang was my 'baby'. Sorry, no pictures of the old girl, but for those of you who know the difference, it was the first production just after the initial model, often referred to as 64-1/2.

Of course, this was early '70 when I got it, so it was hardly new, and in those days most cars more than a couple of years old were more rust than steel. But the Bondo(tm) looked good

And, in the days before radial tires were widely regarded, most ideas of performance were only 'straight-line-in-a-hurry' and not much else mattered.

Hmmmm, how to describe her ... 289 punched out to 304; high-rise manifold; large CFM 4-barrel carb; headers; close-ratio 4-speed; racing clutch; close-ratio rear-end. She (note the reference to the feminine) could turn the quarter-mile in under 11-seconds.

"... she can walk a Thunderbird like she's standin' still ..."

"... I get pushed outa shape, and its hard to steer, when I get rubber in all four gears ..."

GOD (said with all due reverence), I'm getting goosebumps now.

Thanks for the memories

"66 VW. I was already driving a '69 Roadrunner but needed a cheap throwaway car to drive to my bartending job in Hartford, Connecticut, the car theft capital of the United States at the time. One of my buddies had this broken down VW in the back yard. He called it a death trap. Perfect!

I was in a hotrod/motorcycle club at the time and one of the guys was existing by picking up VW's with bad engines for $25 and rebuilding them. There was always a pile of junk engine parts even he didn't want anymore. He said I could have all I wanted. I was able to SELECT enough mating parts to get an engine together. No machining except for hand lapping the valves. Out of pocket was for gaskets, TOTAL!

Went to the local dump and picked up two G 78-15 tires for the rear (yes they do fit) that gave it a terrific looking rake.

Stopped by a VW repair shop and asked if I could go through their pile of junk brake shoes (they looked at me a little weird) and was able to find three good ones. I asked what they wanted for them and they just waved at me. On the way out I noticed a freshly painted silver/black interior '71 Jag XJ6 and bought it on the spot but that's another story.

The foot brakes never did work, but anyone that has ever driven a VW for any length of time knows that all you really need is the hand brake anyway. Gets kind of busy in stop and go traffic though. It did get my attention one day when one of the cables snapped.

Hey, all I used it for was to get into Hartford and park on the fourth floor of the parking garage (so I could roll it down the ramp to start because the 6 volt battery was always dead. On a level surface I could push it and jump in if I had to.) I never locked it figuring it was cheaper to lose the 10 mm wench, screwdriver with a heavy handle and matchbook cover (the only road tools needed for a Vdub. matchbook cover to set the points) than to replace a window. And if anyone tried to steal it, by the time they were halfway down the first ramp, they'd be bailing out anyway without brakes. One night I did find it parked in a different spot than I had left it...the screwdriver was gone.

"The foot brakes never did work, but anyone that has ever driven a VW for any length of time knows that all you really need is the hand brake anyway."

A 17 year old kid coming off the "express way" at 70 mph learns that quickly!

I can assure you that time DOES slow down at times like that!!!

I traded a home made wooden boot for a 1967, 3 color, BUG with the aftermarket heater that rides in the front. (you know the kind…the ones that have the ½ gallon glass mayonnaise jar gas reservoir.) Everything worked OK and I was thrilled to get a car. I was driving a 74 Honda 250 Elsinore, and winter was just around the corner.

Driving home from tech school, (half day normal high school and a half day downtown at the community collage) I took the normal off ramp and went for the breaks. The break pedal goes to the floor but there is no breaking. I repeat stomping on the pedal several times but still nothing but the truck in front of me getting bigger.

It seemed like an infinite numbers option ran through my mind at the time, but the one I took was to jump the sidewalk to get around the truck, jump back on the road, and started slowing down. That's when I remembered the hand break. I used it to drive the junk yard to get a replacement break cable.

In the sixties I rode a 4-stroke Polish motorbike type "Junak". It was a 21 hp bike. Then, in 1970, I bought my first (second hand) car, an East-German Trabant, with a 18 hp, 600 cc, 2-stroke motor... I drove it for 4 years and 100,000 miles...

Saddest? The day I drove a fully restored E Type Jag. The most Iconic car ever, and the worst to drive, ever!

The best? Snetterton Circuit, the Revett straight, passenger in a Ford GT40 in the wet, spinning the back wheels at 140mph. Wohoo!

Ahh, my first one & the picture scanned for you....a beauty...

1965 Grand Prix with center console shift & vacuum gauges - 'cause this one would fly!

had her for a couple of years & gave $500 - a lot of cabbage back then

ended up wrapping it head-on with a utility pole right down the center of the grill - pushed the tranny up between the bucket seats...hated to lose her...

(my golf clubs fell over in the back seat, and yes, this pup reached around to get them settled - never did that again!)

My most memorable, and perhaps most enjoyable, auto-experience was my very first of many trucks!

A worn out 1952 Studibaker 1 ton flat-bed truck: 3-speed on the column, 6-cylinder flat-head engine, 2-speed selectable rear-end, drive-line parking brake, with only an exposed frame (no box nor bed behind the cab) and no power assist on either brakes nor steering.

I emptied my entire savings account of $28 and had to borrow $6 from my older sister for the privelege of towing my prize truck back to our farm. I spent the next 3 months learning how to rebuild the engine, transmission, rear-end, carborator, brakes, door hinges and most other mechanical systems.

At 13 years old, I was the only one of my friends who both owned his own truck and was allowed to drive it without adult supervission. We spent the next couple of summers driving thru fields, fording creeks and thru mud holes; me at the wheel and as many as 6 to 8 friends sitting on the bare frame and hanging on for all they could. Great memories, learned mechanical skills, profound appreciation for a supportive father and love for all things mechanical - especially motorized.

Thank you for the invitation to mentally re-visit found memories......!

My favorite was the Rover SD1 of which I had about 8 or 9 in various guises from 2.3 litre to 3.5 litre V8 injection. Comfort & power with the load carrying capacity of a small van. Unfortunately, when my last one failed I decided that they were getting too difficult to find spares for.

(Not my car pictured)

In college I was looking for a car but was very limited on funds. A buddy of mine says "Hey, I know where theres a Pontiac Fiero for cheap". His old scoutmaster had bought it for his son, but the engine died and the car sat on the lawn for a year or two, never moving. The guy got so fed up he told us "If you get it off my lawn, its yours for free" I was so excited. Turned out that the cam gear on those cars was a fiber composite and the teeth would get chewed off because it meshes with a steel crank gear. The part cost $25 and I drove that car for years, and still have it sitting in the garage. I got as high as 40 mpg in that car (2.5L, 5 speed '88 model).

(Not mine, but very close)

While that was great, every since I could learn to drive I always wanted an El Camino, preferably 68-72. But, years back the price of muscle cars here in the states sky rocketed, with A body chevrolets being one of the highest priced. I thought I would never be able to afford one, in any condition (at that time, a chevelle "roller" cost about $6-10k! A "roller" is a car that has no drivetrain and is usually rusted through, may or may not have the glass and almost always is missing all of the trim. The chevelle is the car the El Camino is based on). Well one day I was just browsing car ads, and I found one for a '72 El Camino. When all was said and done I paid $330 usd including delivery! It needed alot of work though. New floors, quarter panels, fenders, bed, drivetrain, interior - but it is mine! I've had all the body work done and dropped in a "massaged" 406 in³ small block v8.

(again, not mine, but basically the exact same car...mine just has sidepipes for the exhaust)

When I was eighteen I had a 1952 Ford F2 truck. I paid $150 for it and then bought a fairly new, totalled-out Ford Torino just for the 351W engine and automatic transmission. I shoe-horned the 351 & tranny into the truck where the old flathead had resided and then sold the flathead engine for enough to pay for both the truck and the car.

The old truck was a sleeper. It still looked like a beat-up old masonry truck with a flatbed and headache rack. It had 8-ply snow tires all around. Under the hood, however, it had a screaming late model V8, quick shifting automatic transmission and the trucks original 4.88 ratio rear end gears. I beat a lot of allegedly fast cars in 1/8 mile drag races.

Mine was a 1963 Corvair convertible 4-SP (wish I could find the one picture that I had). Despite what Ralph Nader had barked about it ("unsafe at any speed"), that baby did two evasive for me that most cars at the time (and maybe today) probably couldn't do. Nader is an idiot.

And oh yeah, it got 27+ MPG at 70 MPH! Our subject of the day now.

Wish I could have kept it!

One of my auto memories revolves around the owner of a pizza place near my house when I was only 14 or so years old. He had a convertible 62 Chevy SS, 409, 4 speed. It was all the car I could dream of. Many days of listening to stories of the cars he had beaten. One day he was sooo upset. He had found a Corvair Turbo , and it had kicked his butt.

My sweetest (and most frightening car) was a 1967 Ford Galaxie 500 bought second hand in 1975 for $500. It was rusted out at the rear fenders (normal) but everything worked.

The engine however was very unusual, listed as a 390 HyPo. A friend of mine worked for Ford at the time and he ran the matching numbers on the engine, FMX transmission and 9-inch Ford rear end for me and called me the next day, very excited.

While inspecting the car before it taking home, I discovered factory ladder bars on the rear leaf springs and a trunk full of spare parts, including THREE matching carbs, and the intake manifold to match.

My friend said that Ford only made five hundred of those engines, the block was a 428 Super Cobra Jet with High compression 390 heads, that they had to be specially ordered and the original owner of my vehicle was a man named Smokey Yunick.

After rebuilding the carbs, yanking the 600 Holley Double-Pumper off and tuning the engine, I drove it to a local garage that had a chassis Dyno.

Ford rated that engine at 510 BHP. The Dyno tech shakily told me that my car, at 4000 rpms (the tachometer yellow-lined at 7500 and red-lined at 8000) was putting out 754 BHP.

Another friend of mine (state police) radared my car (on unfinished section of Interstate) at 186 mph. He told me never "run" my car on his beat. I quote "We don't have a fixed wing aircraft that will catch that S.O.B."

It is a miracle I survived my own stupidity.

But the most incredible car I have ever owned. The torque of the engine eventually broke the frame five inches from the motor mount on the right side. See why I said frightening?

Dragon

Hi, dava!

My 94 Subaru wagon with front wheel drive, and 4 X 4 on the fly (up to 100 kph) simply by shifting it in.

We used to go hunting together. That little beast had enough clearance combined with its wheelbase to go over anything the woods could throw at it, except deep ditches, which were usually bridged by filling in the tracks with anything around...logs, rocks, dirt. She'd take terrain usually thought of as being reserved for bigger beasts like Land Cruisers and big wheel Jeeps. 60 degree slopes? No problem.

I'd always meet other hunters with ATVs on the trails, and their jaws would drop right to their boots when I'd drive up to them.

Quiet too, enough to get to a hunting area without spooking things too much. Narrow enough to get between most trees, and badge-of-honour scarred on both sides from the times the trees won.

Imagine hunting with a comfortable car to get you around. Air in the hotter daytimes and instant heat with great music in the cool evenings. Slept in it sometimes when the weather was too messy for an easy tent, and I even admit to using it as a stand once or twice...from the inside, and through the window down a long hillside with a track in view.

When I took her out hunting over backwoods trails the first couple of times, the rocks banged up the exhaust pipes coming off the manifold, even though they were double walled. So I took it into an exhaust system master, who bent cold rolled steel pipes for me. After that, I could stand her on her pipes and leave her there if I wanted to.

That little number could go anywhere...over anything and through most things. I remember surprising a friend one winter by hurtling over a high snow drift between the street and a parking lot to land beside her. I looked over at her startled expression and grinned. She said, "Only you, Mark, could show up like that!" Friends who experienced the thrill of driving through road-less cross country at road speeds, still comment on it years later.

I think I maybe unduly influenced my son, who did the same kind of thing with his '86 diesel Land Cruiser, once landing at the bottom of a small cliff with a log jammed up through the floorboards at his feet. I used to borrow his truck to hunt moose, since the Subaru was too small for the job, and once just after he had it painted and body work done on it, I scraped the paint job with my rifle. His response? "Thanks dad! You saved me the trouble!"

I sure miss that car. I traded it in when the water pump shaft broke, and have been kicking myself (at least in that one area of my history) ever since.

Mark

I have had two vehicles I wish I had not gotten rid of. First was a 1959 one ton Chevy panel delivery truck in 4x4. It was the first vehicle I ever bought. I bought it used from Kincheloe air force base as military surplus for $100. It came hand painted with a brush, in air force blue and with the air force style of Tractor tires with the big "V" lugs on the tires. It would go any where. All I had in the back was a mattress. As a teenager that was all you needed. I looked and could not find a picture of the model. To this day it is still the best hunting and camping truck I have owned. Many a young lady kept me company in it.

The second was a 69 chevelle SS, in which I put a brand new built 327. It had an automatic in it. If you were on anything but solid pavement putting it in gear would spin the tires unless you had the brakes on hard. It was terrible to the point of being unusable in the wintertime but great all summer long, as long as you only wanted to go in a straight line. It did straight lines really well. I had to put 300 pounds of sand in the trunk to use it on the twisty roads where I lived. It sucked on our long gravel driveway. It did 1/4 miles better than anything else around at the time.

...the "go" power under the fiberglass hood of my 1970½ Plymouth AAR 'Cuda (340/6BBL)...wish I still had it today!

The first is the best.

1967 Mustang Fastback. 289cid V-8

Circa 1979