Some old cars & trucks from my youth, Post yours too!

[mchook]

When I was a kid my father had a small junkyard of about 100 old cars & trucks. He bought and sold constantly so we never had anything for too long. After my Grandmother died in 1976 we used her old house (it was on the same property) as storage for car parts and antiques. We went to a car show/flea market every weekend and sold car parts, antiques and any other old stuff laying around. We went all over N.Y. N.J. C.T. P.A. & V.T. sometimes spending a week at a time for the big ones "Hershey & Carlisle". At the shows we had a board with pictures of cars for sale and he put adds in Old Car Weekly and Hemmings. It was a blast as a kid, my sister and I had an old Suburban full of hub caps and we would bring 2 huge military mail bags full and sell them for $2.00 each so we both got a buck. Sometimes we would make good money and I would always blow mine on models or Hot Wheels. 

Anyway, the other day I was at my parents house and picked up an old photo album that had some pictures of the old house and a bunch of the cars we had. I thought it would be cool to share just a few of them with you but remember these are pictures of pictures so they're not the greatest quality. I wont overload you with pics now but there are a lot more. If anyone else had some cool cars around when you were a kid, post them here too. I'd love to see them.

The last 2 pics are of 2 of mine when I was about 17.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Great stuff. What was the story on the shoebox Ford stretch?

[mchook]

3 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Great stuff. What was the story on the shoebox Ford stretch?

Hey Bill, It was an old Ambulance that my father found locally. It still had some of the equipment in the back. That one was great, it would freak out my sisters every time they saw it. Probably because I would ask "How many people do you think died in that thing and still haunt it".?

[Hard_2_Handle_454]

I'll add picks of my Chevelle I got just out of college.  1972 SS I was trying to restore.  Lost my job just after I started making calls to restore it.  Had to sell the car at a loss. 

 

I'll also add my latest two cars just because they're cool cars.  A 2009 Challenger SE.  It was a fun car until I had my rear fuse box go out.  Apparently Dodge discontinued those parts and after rummaging through junk yards for parts I decided to upgrade to a newer Challenger.  The red car is a 2015 SXT.  It's an amazing car.  Got a few after market parts too.

[ChrisBcritter]

When I was just shy of 16 in 1976, I was determined to get something vintage for my first car. Living in the Chicago area meant everything in my $300 budget was thoroughly rusted out, but there were a lot of solid cars where my folks grew up in western Kentucky. While on vacation there the previous year, I fell in love with this green '41 Buick Special sedan:

Poor old thing had been parked since 1967, and my dad's cooler head prevailed. While driving to West Paducah, we spotted this (also green) '50 Plymouth Deluxe sedan:

Bought it for $200 from an older gentleman named Lapoleon Bridgett (I'll never forget that name!). My uncle topped off the master cylinder and we drove it back to my grandparents' house. It had 72,000 miles and ran and drove OK, although my uncle noticed it had a bit of rod knock. Never got it back to Chicago and ended up selling it for what I paid.

I moved to California when I was 21, and after my '74 Coupe deVille was lost to an engine fire, I spotted this ad in the L.A. Times:

Since I already had the Revell kit, I borrowed the money and bought it:

Enjoyed it for almost two years until a hit-and-run a-hole clobbered it in front of my house.

After replacing the Imperial with a tired but trusty '65 Skylark, I (like Eric above) got a '72 Chevelle SS:

Factory 350 4-barrel, so not a hot rod, but a fun driver. Note the '69 deck lid script and non-SS bumper (I added the emblem later). Looked good but had a number of little mechanical issues that I had to keep fixing, so after a couple years sold it when the trans started slipping. Wonder if it's still around?

 

 

[Mike C.]

Have 4 pics of my bus and 1 with my dads bike. I have a few more on my phone.

[Mike C.]

Had to switch to my phone. Some of the old Brockway from when my dad was in business. I k ow I have some pics somewhere of the 73 F 250 we had as well as a few more.

[Mike C.]

Found a few more. My cousins in the Mack lowboy and my cousin who appears to be on the phone but I'm pretty sure it was the 80s so phones were much bigger then and only millionaires had them. That's another one of my cousins Mavricks back there. The last shot was one year my cousins hunting  cabin upstate PA. Chevy squarebody in the background. Sorry about the side flip. I cant seem to fix it

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by Mike C.

[mchook]

Great cars & great stories guys! Keep um coming! 

[RSchnell]

Great thread! Here's a few of mine. One is me & my dad looking at a mid 30s International Pickup at the old Ormond Beach, FL car show in 1984. The shot with several Model A Fords is another Ormond Beach show pic from the mid 1970s, the brown Coupe & Tudor Sedans belonged to my dad & grandfather. I rode in all of these quite a bit as a kid. The Southgate shopping center one is one of my '56 Fords at a local shopping center that kept it's original sign from the 1950s. The yellow & black '55 Ford Sunliner was my dad's car. He traded a '41 Lincoln Continental for it-which I think he got the better end of the deal!

The last photo is of a family friend's '31 Ford A400, he saw the one we were restoring and wanted one of his own! I'll post more in the next day or two, I just happened to have these on the computer.

Edited February 28, 2022 by RSchnell

[RSchnell]

One more- Halloween parade 1983. I meet the Burger King. My grandfather's Model A Roadster & my Dad's '55 Sunliner along with a family friend's '55 Thunderbird.

[OneTrickPony]

Pictures from my dad's wrecking yard in Beaumont, TX. from around 1960. He would pick me up from school in 1st grade and take me back to the shop with him until he closed around 5:30.

[mchook]

On 2/27/2022 at 11:23 PM, RSchnell said:

Great thread! Here's a few of mine. One is me & my dad looking at a mid 30s International Pickup at the old Ormond Beach, FL car show in 1984. The shot with several Model A Fords is another Ormond Beach show pic from the mid 1970s, the brown Coupe & Tudor Sedans belonged to my dad & grandfather. I rode in all of these quite a bit as a kid. The Southgate shopping center one is one of my '56 Fords at a local shopping center that kept it's original sign from the 1950s. The yellow & black '55 Ford Sunliner was my dad's car. He traded a '41 Lincoln Continental for it-which I think he got the better end of the deal!

The last photo is of a family friend's '31 Ford A400, he saw the one we were restoring and wanted one of his own! I'll post more in the next day or two, I just happened to have these on the computer.

Beautiful cars, thanks for posting!

 

17 hours ago, OneTrickPony said:

Pictures from my dad's wrecking yard in Beaumont, TX. from around 1960. He would pick me up from school in 1st grade and take me back to the shop with him until he closed around 5:30.

Wow Dave, those are great pics! Looking at those pictures, I can smell the old oil, gas and for some reason a cutting torch burning through some old iron. It must have been fun spending time there as a kid, I know it was in my fathers yard.

[NYLIBUD]

This is my old 69 Dart GT,my Kawasaki KLR 650,my 88 Lincoln Mark 7,and my 89 Kawasaki ZX7R.All of which I never should of sold any of them.Sorry the pics suck,they’re old??‍♂️?

Edited March 31, 2022 by NYLIBUD

[Suburban_Hooligan]

neat thread.

sense i seem to be a wee bit younger than some here, this won't be as interesting.  this is my 71 Super Beetle maybe a month after i got it back in 1999.  the other is of the same car rebuilt in about 2006 parked in front of my next door neighbors 50 or 51 i can't remember Studebaker.  i took it in black and white trying to make it look like an old pic.