I have always loved cars. I know I made a pest of myself to my next door neighbor when he owned a brand new beautiful all red 1962 Corvette fuelie with a white ragtop. When I learned the name of the paint color (Roman Red) I even painted my bike that color. I had a body shop do it and mowed the owners lawn all Summer in trade to pay for him doing it.

I will never forget my first ride in my dream car, or the one time he let me drive it... Top down, I felt sooo cool, UNTIL I got stopped by a stupid bridge opening for a boat to pass. The vette was stopped going UPHILL, and I had to get it moving again without stalling. Wasn't so used to a 4-speed and a clutch........lol

That neighbor was from Iowa, and he had an old Army buddy named Henry Gregor Felsen, who was a writer. I even got to meet him once.

As a kid, one of my prized possessions was a set 5 of this writers most popular books that my dad gave to me for Christmas. Thanks Dad (passed in 1987, but still the best man I have ever known)!

They were all Hot Rod type books with stories about teenagers set in the 1940's and 1950's, written for boy readers maybe 10 - 12 years old or so.

Does anyone else remember reading "Hot Rod", "Crash Club", "Street Rod" "Fever Heat", or "Rag Top" as a kid? Not to show our age or anything...

To read them as an adult, they surely have corny silly storylines and all that, but they were really cool to a 12 year old boy who was car crazy (to borrow the term from Barry Meguiar) about as long ago as Barry ever was.

Memories...

Tonight I was going through some old stuff and I found my entire set of these books, all in very good condition.

Old fart of 57 that I am, I may not read them again, but what memories they bring back.

For a car nut but there couldn't have been a better time to be growing up than when I did, being a teen in the mid 1960's.

I see all the muscle cars on the Barrett Jackson Auction, and remember them when they were commonplace and affordable and we even rode around and hung out in some of them, or even beat or lost to them in street racing (not that that was ever safe to do, so I do not recommend doing that).

Those were the days...

 

nope do not rember G H Felsen. But I was a teen in the early 70's and just as car crazy. Had a summer job at a car dealer, lets beat those chargers and cuda's. My job was to take the cars down town through the city test prior to them going on the lot. Almost got fired for burn outs..

Friends and myself had some pretty fast cars. Big block chevels, one had a 409 impalla, mustangs, nova's belairs,any thing we could stuff a 396/427 into. What a blast those years were..

 

I do not recognize the writer, but there was a movie back in the 60s named "Hot Rod". I wonder if it was based on that book. Had a guy putting a hemi in a 39 ****** and outrunning the local favorite. Had some great drag racing scenes in it. Robert Culp played the local kid's dad and the bad Mayor of the town. I recorded it several years ago, now I want to go watch it again.

 

 

Don't know about that, sometimes the title of the book doesn't make it to the movie.

I DO know that his book "Fever Heat" was made into a 1950's or so movie starring Nick Adams...

 

"She's real fine, my 409..."

 

I think I remember seeing those books in my elementary school library back in the 70's. I was more partial to the Hardy Boys series, however....

I agree with you though -- growing up around the "car culture" of the late-50's through late-60's would have been awesome for a car guy! Although, I wonder how much of this is simply viewing the past through rose-colored glasses? Let's face it -- the guys buying Torino's and Chevelle's and Roadrunner's in 1968 were the same guys who were buying Pinto's and Vega's and Omni's just a few years later!

For what it's worth, however, when I was out on my run this morning, I was thinking about how I remember all of my sister's old boyfriends not by their face or their personality, but by the cars that they drove.......

 

When I started driving (14 years old in 1957), you had to build your "hot rod'. I had a 51 Ford Business Coupe, then a 54 Ford Coupe. My dad and I put a 57 Tbird engine in the 54. 312 cu inch, 4 barrel carb. It was fast for it's time. I loved running the 57 Chevys. Oh, I had 411 gears, and if they were only one car length ahead when I hit third, I knew I could pull past them. But I will never forget the feeling when my best buddy's dad told him he could pick out anything he wanted for the new family car. This was late 1961 and he ordered a 1962 Impala, 327, 4 speed, 4 barrel. We all new that hot rodding had changed forever when you could go order something that fast, instead of having to fabricate it.

 

WE always had "stationagons" until my dad finally bought a really cool 1964 Buick Skylark!

 

Buick came out with the Gran Skylark and Olds had the 442. I tried out a 65 Gran Skylark, had 4 in the floor. Those little Buicks would run!

 

Yeah, I used to own a 1970 GS conv. Never should have sold it, along with several others...

 

Really cool car.

 

My dad has told me all about the 50s Meteor he built up for his first car. (Guess it helped that his uncle owned a shop) He also put a 312 in his and he loved taking it to the track and beating up on the Chevy guys.

My uncles loved to bug me about the cars they all owned, XR-7 Cougars, Cudas, dad had a 67 Stang. Among all the other hod rods, and big blocks they had, and gas was under 30 cents a gallon. Ive driven a few of the old Muscle cars and after that any of these modern "sports" cars just dont feel as fun to drive. Nothing ever compares to that old Mustang I drove once with the CobraJet and 4 spd. 3rd gear merging onto the highway, hitting the gas a bit to accel a little and seeing the tires just go up in smoke

Sure shocked the hell outta my dad when I started modding my first car, 85 Fifth Avenue that belonged to my grandpa. He was kinda pissed at me at first but after my uncle told him he saw me ripping around in it one night, he seemed a little more impressed than anything.

 

You can produce hopsepower, or an equivalent, with a supercharger or a turbo, and you can move a freight train with a sewing machine if you have enough gearing.

The ONLY WAY I know to produce awesome "pin you to the back of your seat" torque -

Cubic inches................lol

 

No replacement for displacement