Remember this stuff......things that bring back good memories

[w1guh]

Yea, the Nash Metropolitan.  and...

"What about the starter switch on the floor.  You turned on the ignition with the key, then "stepped on the starter."

Until they got "modern" and the floor plunger became a dashboard button.

Hmmmm...Pontiac's "under the seat heater?"

How about the milk trucks that had a  manual transmission that you drove standing up?  The accelerator was a handle on the end of the column-mounted gearshift lever, and the clutch/brake was a single pedal. 

Milk Chutes...coal chutes...

[W9GT]

Yeah...I remember the old milk trucks...we neighborhood kids used to bug the milkman for ice. when he came around on his route.  Of course the truck wasn't refrigerated, just used blocks of ice that he continually kept picking off and creating smaller pieces to put on the wire crates full of glass milk bottles.  I love these threads about the good old days......except it sure makes me feel older than dirt (and water too!)  I feel fortunate, however, to have been able to enjoy a lot of things from that bygone era.  Tubes and Black Wrinkle Rule!!   

73,  Jack, W9GT

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Yea, a bunch of kids in the neighborhood looked like the milkman.

[Ed/KB1HYS]

What about listening to a show on the Radio... with actors, sound effects and all... (and now, GunSmoke!!) Usually brought to you by a cigarette manufacturer...


Drive in Theaters?? (there's still one nearby here...)

Commercial AM stations that played music and local news...

[w1guh]

Skeleton Keys
Jetex engines
Coal furnaces converted to gas
Those little stop lights you put in your back window.
Windshield visors and that little lens/prism on the dashboard to help look up.
Test Patterns
The little dot that faded slowly when you turned the TV off.

[W9GT]

Pop cooler at the local filling station filled with ice and cold water to cool the pop.
Filled with such goodies as NeHI Grape and Orange Crush and Hires Root Beer. 

Full service pumping of gas @ 25.9 cents per gallon (included washing windshield and checking the oil

Automatic headlight dimmer unit on the top of the dash (photocell).

2 cent post cards and 3 or 4 cent stamps.

Push lawn mowers (no engine)

Sock hops after the Friday night basketball and football games

Pinky Lee, Howdy Doody, and Dick Clkark's American Bandstand on TV after school.


73,  Jack, W9GT

[WA1GFZ]

My first car was a 1960 Pontiac Catalina from my Dad. I dropped a new timing chain into it then a carter AFB and Duals. When I installed an advance curve kit I could beat my friend across the street with a 1960 Ford 352. Then he dropped a set of 406 heads on and his compression went to about 8. He really was bummed then.
I later painted it primer red and my friends called it big red. Best car I ever had for parking.
We were real goat ropers back then.
It had a full frame with a big X across the middle 4400 lbs of iron.





 

[W9GT]

My first car was a '53 Chevy.  Made it into the ultimate Chevy Stove Bolt Six rod.

Had a 3/4 race Wolverine Cam, Carter WCFB 4 Barrel Carb with a home brew ram tube intake manifold and splits/ headers for exhaust.  Turned down flywheel, heavy duty clutch, milled head, engine bored out to 250 cu in., oversized pistons.  Hurst shifter on the old 3 speed manual tranny.  Used the old Chevy torque tube rear-end and blew that up a few times!  But...what a great time I had with that car.  I used to go looking for flat head Fords that I could eat up.  Ah yes...the good ol days!

73,  Jack, W9GT

[W1RKW]

Boy, you guys think you had great first cars.... My first car was 1964 VW Beetle.  It had 4 on the floor, 34HP, Enough ponies to got from 0 to 40 in about a minute. A 6volt electrical system that worked great, not.  It had windshield wipers that weren't worth a damn and a windshield washer that was pressurized by the spare tire.  It had a heat control knob that looked like the spigot on the front of my house and a  heater that couldn't get warm in the middle of July.  The best thing that car had was the blonde in the passenger seat....

[WA1GFZ]

Bob, A girl came with your car....kooool

[KB2WIG]

The Bug was a good car to take for a walk....   much easier than a Fiat Spider that ended up on a picnick table...

A friend of mine was driving on I90 in his bug and the steering wheal disconected from the dash....  fun times

Gud off road car though... used it for hunting in the snow/mud season.... klc

[Tom WA3KLR]

Wheel wells with removable skirts..
Gas cap behind the tail light.
“automatic” transmissions with a clutch.
The buzz of the vibrator in the auto radio.

Kiddie record players - AC/DC - that almost electrocuted us to death as tots on the back porch or basement.

Hollow-state BW tv’s – the frame rolls at beginning and end of each commercial, hum bars drifting through.

real Army-Navy stores.

Coke bottles that were ~ ½ to 1 gallon.
PEZ dispensers.
Hula Hoops.
Slip n’Slide mat for simple summer water fun.
Junior high – you could bring an antique gun to school for public speaking class.
- Troll dolls

Philco 3” records – yes - 33 1/3 rpm.
Magicubes,
loading roll film.

At the door besides the milkman and breadman, potato chip man and Fuller Brush man, our family doctor too.

The roar of the coal being delivered to some of the unconverted houses.
The ice delivery trucks.

Air raid drills (yes we can wage and survive a nuclear war).
Nike sites, Civil Defense.
(Nikes were an expensive missile, not an expensive shoe.)

Arthur Godfrey (an AM’er) on the radio – "how-why-ya how-why-ya".
The MacGuire sisters.

Ernie Kovacs on TV in Phillie.

[W1RKW]

Bob, A girl came with your car....kooool

The Bug was a good car to take for a walk.... much easier than a Fiat Spider that ended up on a picnick table...

A friend of mine was driving on I90 in his bug and the steering wheal disconected from the dash.... fun times

Gud off road car though... used it for hunting in the snow/mud season.... klc

No unfortunately, she was an add-on.

That bug was definitely a good off road car.  Took it through the trails many of times in my old town before it became an urban sprawl town.

[W2XR]

Carl,

I think the car in question here was the BMW Isetta. It was based upon a motorcycle drivetrain and was produced from around 1956 thru 1958 by BMW. The engine was on the order of avout 12.5 bhp, with a manual transmission. A far cry from the BMW autos of today!

Back then, the air-cooled VW Beetle was 36 bhp and was considered a high end car to most Europeans, compared to the Isetta or it's chief competitor; the Messerschmidt Kabinroller (yes, that Messerschmidt). The Kabinroller was very similar in concept to the Isetta. Poor reliability, being grossly underpowered (especially for the American marketplace), uncertain after-sales service and spare parts availability and an uncomfortable ride, led to the early demise of these odd little cars. As the Europeans became more prosperous after the war, companies like VW with their Beetle, Citroen with their 2CV, Renault with the Dauphine and the 4CV, the Morris Minor, etc., dominated the economy car market both in Europe and later here in the U.S.

When I was in high school in 1971, a guy offered me his Isetta for $40.00. I bought a used 1967 VW instead, but always wished I bought that Isetta. It was in really nice shape as I recall. Always thought they were cool little cars. I saw a pristine one here on Long Island about 5 years ago. The guy loved it and was a member of a national Isetta collectors club.

73,

Bruce, WA2OGS

[w1guh]

"Citroen with their 2CV"


The car that Tom McCahill  called the "ugliest car ever made."  But his road test was a riot!

[The Slab Bacon]

My first car was a '53 Chevy.  Made it into the ultimate Chevy Stove Bolt Six rod.

Had a 3/4 race Wolverine Cam, Carter WCFB 4 Barrel Carb with a home brew ram tube intake manifold and splits/ headers for exhaust.  Turned down flywheel, heavy duty clutch, milled head, engine bored out to 250 cu in., oversized pistons.  Hurst shifter on the old 3 speed manual tranny.  Used the old Chevy torque tube rear-end and blew that up a few times!  But...what a great time I had with that car.  I used to go looking for flat head Fords that I could eat up.  Ah yes...the good ol days!

73,  Jack, W9GT

Ah, yes and hammer the babbit out of the connecting rods!! I remember them!!

[The Slab Bacon]

My first car was a 1960 Pontiac Catalina from my Dad. I dropped a new timing chain into it then a carter AFB and Duals. When I installed an advance curve kit I could beat my friend across the street with a 1960 Ford 352. Then he dropped a set of 406 heads on and his compression went to about 8. He really was bummed then.
I later painted it primer red and my friends called it big red. Best car I ever had for parking.
We were real goat ropers back then.
It had a full frame with a big X across the middle 4400 lbs of iron. 

Ah yes, Frank, My first car (that I had tagged) was a 1960 2 door Chrysler new Yorker!!
4700 lbs of "tail finned road locomotive"! What a fun car!! 360 hp 413 under the hood, already had 4bbl and duals. A carb upgrade (daytona AFB) and a curve kit, and a little careful tweaking made this the most fun street racer I ever had!! NOONE expected it to fall out of a tree, but it would run mid-high 15 sec ets all day long. I had more fun eating 396 impalas amd chevelles, 383 road chickens, 390 fairlanes, and many other cars that should have eaten me alive.  With something like that, its no shame to lose to what should have been a faster car, but one hell of a lot of bragging rights when you win!! that car was the king of the "power brake" burnouts. People to this day still talk about the tire popping burnouts that I did with it many years ago! Life was sure fun back then!!

                                                               The Slab Bacon

Oh yea, it also had a HUGE fully carpeted trunk that was big enough for 2 people to comfortably climb into and close the lid.....................................

[The Slab Bacon]

Many of life's fondest memories escape from us as we grow older. You remember the old passage from a song "you dont know what you got till its gone".

One of the things from the past that I miss the most was holiday get togethers!!
Ours used to be at my aunt Liz's house.( the family matriarch figure) Dozens and dozens of people!! Kids coming out of the wood work.And the food!! Oh, my God, the food!! Oceans of food! Home made from scratch lasagne, and all kinds of dago specialties, turkey with all of the trimmings, and a desert table that would give you diabetis just looking at it!! The women used to cook for days, and we used to eat leftovers for what seemed like weeks. It was a total food orgy beyond all of your wildest expectations. the family fellowship was just as awsome!

As I came into the ranks as an adult, I became part of the other part of the tradition.
that was  nickle-dime poker game that went on literally for days without stopping except to occasionally eat again (and again). Everybody pissing and moaning becausing they were losing a few bucks worth of change. It sure was fun back then.
Aunt Liz died some years back, most of the other family elders are also gone, and the tradition has died with them. Those fond memories are sorely missed!! It just goes to show: "you dont know what you got till its gone"!! I would give anything for those days back!!
                                                            The Slab Bacon

[Ed Nesselroad]

Slab,
     Mine was a '54 New Yorker...the locomotive before the fins!  Trunk and back seat large enough to sub-divide, little tuners under the radio push button caps, and a steering wheel befitting an ocean liner.  Oh, yeah, the old Hemi, too.  Two tons of fun at about nine miles per gallon.
     I'm afraid I maxed the test.  And, growing up in Kansas City, I remember all too well trying to pester a chunk of ice from the milkman on a hot summer afternoon.  A matching refrain: "Those were the days, my friend.  We thought they'd never end."

[w1guh]

OTOH...a counterpoint to "Those were the days" would be "Is that all there is....let's break out the booze and have a ball."

Seriouselyl, Bacon...holiday memories are the mother lode of memories.  I'd best not get started on that (especially since most (all?) of the things I loved and kept going as long as I could are impossible nowadays.  Sigh

[WA1GFZ]

Frank,
My old poncho had a 4 speed auto with very low first gear. I was very mean to that poor trannie. The last day of high school I put rubber across the student parking lot.
Rev it in N and pop it into first.
About 1/2 way through third the carb would go dry unless I had lots of gas in the tank. that old 413 kicked buttt.
Talk abut memories. My Dad just told me about going past ice flows in the north Atlantic during WW2. He was an engine room guy. He said they would watch the hull buckle as they went by hunks of ice....and pray.
We are beach people but Dad never owned a boat because every one he was on
got damaged. he said boats were like jail......After his second tour during korea they wanted to send him to watch nukes in south Pacific. He decided making my brother was a lot more fun.

[The Slab Bacon]

Frank,
        you just jogged another memory with the 4sp automatic. I forgot all about them. That was the original "Turbo - Hydramatic" They actually used to run pretty good if you could keep them together.  B&M used to build "racing" versions of them and call them the "B&M Hydrostick". That was all before the days of high stall torque converters. In those days they used to launch the cars with the imfamous "neutral drop" start. Parts would usually fly!! But so did the Chrysler guys with the pushbutton autos as well. But ANYTHING was better than a "powerslide"


OH, I still have a set of the old style 60's Chrysler outboard cross ram manifolds for the wedge motors laying in the basement .

[The Slab Bacon]

Slab,
     Mine was a '54 New Yorker...the locomotive before the fins!  Trunk and back seat large enough to sub-divide, little tuners under the radio push button caps, and a steering wheel befitting an ocean liner.  Oh, yeah, the old Hemi, too.  Two tons of fun at about nine miles per gallon.
     I'm afraid I maxed the test.  And, growing up in Kansas City, I remember all too well trying to pester a chunk of ice from the milkman on a hot summer afternoon.  A matching refrain: "Those were the days, my friend.  We thought they'd never end."

Ed, I had 2 of the older hemis in past years. One was a 54 331 cid, and the other was a 57 392 cid version. I wish i had the 392 back, it would be all the incentive I would need to build nice street rod!!  Smallblock Chebbies are like that certaim part of the anatomy, everybody has one!
                                                   The Slab bacon

[The Slab Bacon]

OTOH...a counterpoint to "Those were the days" would be "Is that all there is....let's break out the booze and have a ball."

Seriouselyl, Bacon...holiday memories are the mother lode of memories.  I'd best not get started on that (especially since most (all?) of the things I loved and kept going as long as I could are impossible nowadays.  Sigh

The holidays always remind me better times from days gone by! I would give everything to have one of them back!

[WA1GFZ]

Frank,
Turbo came later when they went to 3 speed. It was just plain hydo. Yup big strong box as long as you stayed out of N.  The probblem was it shifted out of first early and you couldn't control it. 3.3:1 so pulled out of the hole.
We had a 57 plymo with a 318 before the 60 poncho. fins baby. My dad blew the motor in that one. I think he was drag racing on the Pratt Whitney runway at night.
Tossed a rod. (Mom was not happy that day) I rember jamming the trannie buttons on Sunday afternoon loading the car on the way to Grandma's for the big feed.
tork flight was the king of strap back then. Now they are crap boxes. 392 was the balls back then.