I grew up in the era of moms and dads teaching us to drive. Yes we had Driver’s Ed, however, Driver’s Ed classes didn’t start until our senior year, by then most of us already knew how to drive. After all, at 16 we all wanted the coveted “learners permit!”
My father taught me to drive. First we went over the basics, starting, stopping, the gauges, how the car worked, what to do on wet, dry roads, turns, and anything else my father could think of to have me prepared for any situation. Things you weren’t going to get from Drivers Ed. My dad shared his many years of experience, and it made me a better driver than most of my female and many of my male counterparts.
While today we have women racing in Indy, NASCAR and a variety of different racing venues, years ago this wasn’t the case.
In fact, during the era I grew up in women were looked upon in a very different light. If you deviated from the norm you were labeled as a “tomboy”. However, there were many, like myself who loved to drive, work on cars and got a lot of satisfaction in doing so. Just because we did however, didn’t mean we weren’t women, girls, ladies, whatever you wish to be called.
Chuck and I got involved in our first car club when we lived in Rochester and had our Corvette.
We had a blast. Met a great bunch of people, did a ton of events. In fact I can still remember our first event. It was a car rally and Chuck and I got the second place trophy.
This is a short list of things to look for when you buy a classic car, if you do these things it will make you a lot happier with the purchase of your classic car.
1.Locate the right car for you “The Most Important Step”, this car need to excite you, it should make you feel like a diamond ring feels to a woman, you should be all giddy, just like a little school girl on her first date.
I have heard the whole “kit car” marginalization since my earliest involvement with cars. Back in the day when the kit cars were true low budget DIY (do-it-yourself) creations all manner of snicker abounded at shows whenever one of these things would ride up.
In the days when I showed a trailer queen at the ISCA (International Show Car Assoc.) circuit, it was near impossible for the kit cars of that day to get a placement on the show floor due to the bad rap they had. It’s a different temperament now and allowances are much broader wherein most (forgive the broad brush) of what you see in the ISCA and the pro show circuit are in fact very evolved versions of the old kit cars concept. But wait before we jump… I realize the quality now is miles apart from the old Sebring and Bradley GT days and the “kit car” contempt we see today doesn’t even regard these examples as current. With that said, it is the spirit of the discussion I am attempting to set out, not the letter of the actual differentiation of the vehicles.
In the summer of 2001, a friend and I went to see the movie “The Fast and the Furious”. Afterwards, I was talking with my friend about some of the cars in the film and he began to enthusiastically describe what he would like to do to his ride. Suddenly my friend had begun taking a keen interest in custom autos. I found this interesting that a movie could influence what I could not for the past ten years, that is, the passion for custom autos. My friend has never called himself an enthusiast, but has become more aware of custom autos.
With that said, I began to wonder about those who saw the movie and maybe began to refer to themselves as “enthusiasts”. Then I thought about it a little longer and asked myself, “What defines a custom auto enthusiast?” After a few months of thinking about it, reading countless articles about the custom auto industry, and observing people at auto shows, I came up with my own conclusions and opinions. I have concluded that there are three types of custom auto enthusiasts:
Remember when you were young and looking to get that first car. You looked around at the cars your friends had, you looked in the various car magazines and would put yourself behind the wheel of all the cars they featured.
I do. In fact, I can remember my grandmother and father asking me what kind of car I wanted for my High School graduation. I really wanted to get a powder blue Corvette with white interior, or a white Corvette with powder blue interior. They thought the price for one back then was a bit more than they wanted to spend and didn’t feel it was a good “first” car. So I got my “Black Beauty” instead, a black, 2 door 1962 Chevy Belair with blue vinyl seats, which I fell in love with real quick.
Those of us lucky enough to be around in the 70s when this fantastic car came out drool everytime we think of it. Imagine getting a car from the factory with a 455 cubic inch engine in it! This car kicked butt! Then if you did some work, like we did to ours, as in having the engine blue printed, balanced and a lot more, it did even better. Let’s just say it was doing much better then one horsepower per cubic inch!
This was the era of Smokey and the Bandit movies. Good ole boy Burt Reynolds drove a black Trans Am in the movie and everyone and his uncle all of a sudden wanted one. Of course, by that time the ones they were selling were watered down versions with no where near the power of the original ones.
As a proud owner of a custom hot rod truck, I have noticed two things: One, it attracts a lot of good attention and two, it attracts a lot of bad attention. I like to refer to this as “custom profiling.” I bring this up because not too long ago I was a victim of “custom profiling.”
It was a nice sunny day and I was minding my own business, as well as all of the traffic laws, driving through a small town when a police officer, I will refer to him as Barney Fife, came flying over a hill running Code 3 (meaning sirens and lights on) and pulled me over. Officer Fife told me he pulled me over because I was violating some local noise ordinance. Yeah, right. I don’t even have a ground shaking audio system in my truck! So, now I am on my way to being a millionaire because I am the only one who knows where you can find the tweeters that dispense the massive bass that ole’ Barney Fife claimed he heard coming from the cab of my truck. My opinion and observation on this incident, is this: the officer saw my truck and I was stopped on the pretense of a noise ordinance, but it was actually because of the appearance of my truck.
Hot Rods & Muscle Cars
If you are of the 50’s 60’s or 70’s era generation you know that hot rods and muscle cars dominated the average male gender, and yes, even the females couldn’t help but turn their heads when a slick vintage car drove by. The times have changed but the desire to see those vintage cars has not. Those who have preserved those classic cars are as appreciated as the disc-jockeys today, that spin the classic tunes of yesteryear.
I have a number of favorites, however, my all time favorite is Hot Rod Lincoln by Commander Cody.
Since living in an extremely cold climate means taking your Corvette off the road in the winter months, a winter car is a must.
I seem to remember the good old days, out till 3:00 AM every night, and the most important thing of all, was learning about American muscle the fun way, by experiencing it first hand.
I fell sorry for the kids of today who may never understand the thrill of real American muscle; my first learning experience was brought by way of a 1968 L88 corvette, my god what an awesome car.