Car Of Your Youth

[Tom the Golf Nut]

Since we added some bikes in the mix, here is mine.

1979 Yamaha 750 Special. Bought this baby new. Yup, thats me in my rebel days. 

[cksurfdude]

15 hours ago, Tom the Golf Nut said:

Yup, thats me in my rebel days.

Love it .. I'm totally getting that "Rebel Without A Cause" vibe!

[404yds]

1994 Toyota Corolla. Best car I've ever had for the time and purpose it served. College student, low maintenance costs, great mileage, no risk of breaking down, and I could fix the easier issues myself.

Edited October 17, 2022 by 404yds

[cnosil]

Here’s my first car a 71 Oldsmobile Delta 88.    Drove it from when i got my license until I graduated high school.  

 

after I graduated I got an 83 Plymouth Turismo (Plymouth version of the Dodge Charger). This was the Lee Iaccoca bailout Chrysler era and the car was nothing but trouble.    Followed that with an 84 Chevy Cavalier.   
When I graduated College I bought myself an 88 Fiero GT.  

[Kenny B]

On 10/15/2022 at 5:11 PM, Tom the Golf Nut said:

Since we added some bikes in the mix, here is mine.

1979 Yamaha 750 Special. Bought this baby new. Yup, thats me in my rebel days. 

 

On 10/16/2022 at 8:33 AM, cksurfdude said:

Love it .. I'm totally getting that "Rebel Without A Cause" vibe!

Easy Rider

 

 

[Kenny B]

I thought this might be appropriate here...

[chisag]

1 minute ago, Kenny B said:

I thought this might be appropriate here...

 

... Pretty funny. I always drove a stick til I moved to the Chicago suburbs. 1.5 hrs in crawling along, stop and go traffic would cure anyone of driving a stick. 

[TheOther1]

1 hour ago, chisag said:

 

... Pretty funny. I always drove a stick til I moved to the Chicago suburbs. 1.5 hrs in crawling along, stop and go traffic would cure anyone of driving a stick. 

 

[GaDawg]

4 hours ago, Kenny B said:

I thought this might be appropriate here...

[Tom the Golf Nut]

7 hours ago, TheOther1 said:

 

No joke. The clutch only mustang was so stiff you hated to see any traffic or red lights.

[Thin2win]

I turned 16 in the summer of 1997. For my first car,  I used our orchard tractor to pull an old car from the edge of our property to my neighbors garage and spent that summer(and any money I had) getting it running. That car was a 1962 AMC Rambler convertible. 

3 on the tree and a 0-60 time requiring a strong tail wind and a long downhill stretch. Duct tape patches for the holes in the roof, a discman and some AA powered speakers for music.  The carb spewed  gas onto the engine often starting a small fire and the hub caps spontaneously ejected.

My brother took it over when I left for the navy, he drove it for a number of years and adventures.  until one day returning it to the same corner of my dad's orchard that i had pulled it out of. 

A few years ago my dad passed away.  That rambler still sitting there,  but now home to any number of small rodents... last year I did the only thing I could think of and pulled it out again. I took it to a restoration shop and will one day be driving it again. 

It will have a mustang 2 front end with brakes that stop,  the rear end from a Ford explorer, and the engine from a Mazda rx7.

One of my dad's favorite songs was "One Piece at a Time" by Johnny Cash.  With that,  I think he would approve.

[MattF]

6 hours ago, Thin2win said:

I turned 16 in the summer of 1997. For my first car,  I used our orchard tractor to pull an old car from the edge of our property to my neighbors garage and spent that summer(and any money I had) getting it running. That car was a 1962 AMC Rambler convertible. 

3 on the tree and a 0-60 time requiring a strong tail wind and a long downhill stretch. Duct tape patches for the holes in the roof, a discman and some AA powered speakers for music.  The carb spewed  gas onto the engine often starting a small fire and the hub caps spontaneously ejected.

My brother took it over when I left for the navy, he drove it for a number of years and adventures.  until one day returning it to the same corner of my dad's orchard that i had pulled it out of. 

A few years ago my dad passed away.  That rambler still sitting there,  but now home to any number of small rodents... last year I did the only thing I could think of and pulled it out again. I took it to a restoration shop and will one day be driving it again. 

It will have a mustang 2 front end with brakes that stop,  the rear end from a Ford explorer, and the engine from a Mazda rx7.

One of my dad's favorite songs was "One Piece at a Time" by Johnny Cash.  With that,  I think he would approve.

You're putting a racta (nickname for rotorys back home) motor in it?

[cksurfdude]

17 hours ago, TheOther1 said:

Haha left leg day

A ways back a friend had a beautiful metallic Bermuda Blue 64 Sting Ray convertible, slightly modified including a heavier racing clutch that was the equivalent of pushing an approx 30 or 40 (or more?) lb weight!

[Golfspy_CG2]

22 hours ago, Kenny B said:

I thought this might be appropriate here...

Hey....they should hire some 60 plus year olds for valet, then they wouldn't have to have that sign.   I can imagine what someone in the 20's would do when they saw the 4 on the floor....ha

[xOldBenKenobiX]

22 hours ago, Kenny B said:

I thought this might be appropriate here...

I will buy me a beater manual transmission in the next couple years, my son just turned 14, so he is getting close to get a driver's license and he will learn how to drive a stick.

I also miss driving a stick all of the time.

[funkyjudge]

12 hours ago, Thin2win said:

I turned 16 in the summer of 1997. For my first car,  I used our orchard tractor to pull an old car from the edge of our property to my neighbors garage and spent that summer(and any money I had) getting it running. That car was a 1962 AMC Rambler convertible. 

3 on the tree and a 0-60 time requiring a strong tail wind and a long downhill stretch. Duct tape patches for the holes in the roof, a discman and some AA powered speakers for music.  The carb spewed  gas onto the engine often starting a small fire and the hub caps spontaneously ejected.

My brother took it over when I left for the navy, he drove it for a number of years and adventures.  until one day returning it to the same corner of my dad's orchard that i had pulled it out of. 

A few years ago my dad passed away.  That rambler still sitting there,  but now home to any number of small rodents... last year I did the only thing I could think of and pulled it out again. I took it to a restoration shop and will one day be driving it again. 

It will have a mustang 2 front end with brakes that stop,  the rear end from a Ford explorer, and the engine from a Mazda rx7.

One of my dad's favorite songs was "One Piece at a Time" by Johnny Cash.  With that,  I think he would approve.

A rotary-engine Rambler convertible? That, I’d love to see (and drive)!

[chisag]

12 hours ago, Thin2win said:

It will have a mustang 2 front end with brakes that stop,  the rear end from a Ford explorer, and the engine from a Mazda rx7.

 

... I had a RX-7 for several years until I needed something larger. Loved driving it and drove it back and forth to Florida from Chicago twice. Took awhile to get used to how quiet the rotary engine was at a stoplight and several times grind'ed the ignition turning it "back on". GV60 electric will be another level of quiet! 

[funkyjudge]

On 10/14/2022 at 7:01 PM, TheOther1 said:

I bought this 1975 Mustang II Mach I from the cash I earned working as a dishwasher/busboy, just after getting my license.  By the end of that year, I had to go to traffic school and my parents insurance company dropped me from the policy.  It was just so fun to go fast!  I also dumped a lot of money into that 302, Edelbrock manifold, Holley carb, 5 angle valve grind, custom cam, custom built C4 transmission and torque converter, high volume oil pump, deep sump oil pan, hooker headers, 2.5" straight exhaust, etc.   I did all of the work myself except for the valve grind and the transmission.    Even as an adult, I ended up spending a lot of money on Pirelli tires for that thing.  I had that car until 2000, though not aa a daily driver.

Later on, at about 17, I had a 2 wheel version of a death machine, a 1982 Yamaha Seca Turbo 2.  That 650 would outrun 750's all day long.  And, of course, any Harley.    I still have the scars from that bike, we tried really hard to kill each other.  

I loved both of these vehicles!!

I have plenty of scars and a couple of exhaust pipe burn marks from the Yamaha 750 (shaft drive), Yamaha Road Star and two Harley Davidsons that I owned from 1977 through 2009.

Here’s three of my bikes (sorry, I don’t have a pic of my ‘77 Yamaha 750).  The top bike is a modified 2002 Yamaha RoadStar 1800cc bike that I did some of the custom work on (LED lighting, custom fenders, seat, exhaust, etc.). The second bike is a full-custom that started life as a Harley Fat Boy, and that blue one is a 1999 Harley FLH-R (Road King) that was massaged to more than 120 HP and 120 lb-ft of torque. It kicked like a mule and pulled like a train — and provided me with most of my motorcycling scars.

By the way, I once rode the black and silver Road Star through a ditch, across a grassy yard and down a gravel driveway to avoid being hit head-on by a pickup truck who almost took me out on a country road. Never put the bike down and never put a scratch on her! That happened only two days before that picture of me on the bike was taken. I wasn’t about to put her down just after more than $8K of customizing work had been completed on the bike over the prior 5-6 months.

PS -- That's one of my wife's manual transmission Subarus (the silver one in the background).  I believe it is a 2001 Impreza Sport manual ("poor man's WRX").

Edited October 18, 2022 by funkyjudge

[funkyjudge]

1 hour ago, Golfspy_CG2 said:

Hey....they should hire some 60 plus year olds for valet, then they wouldn't have to have that sign.   I can imagine what someone in the 20's would do when they saw the 4 on the floor....ha

I have owned and driven MANY manual transmission cars since 1966, from “three on the tree” to 6-speeds on the floor.  My wife is now 64 years old and she has only ever driven ONE automatic transmission car in the 48 years that she has been driving. Her current car is a VW Alltrack wagon with a 6-speed manual and she has owned 3 VW GTIs, a Nissan Sentra SE-R and about 7 Subarus (all manuals) in the 40 years that we have been married.

My favorite manual transmission cars that I have owned were a ‘67 Camaro (327 with 4 on the floor), a ‘97 Acura Integra GS-R, and a Renault Gordini rally car that I drove on the streets when I was in my 20s. I doubt that the Renault would be able to get registered for street use these days.

Edited October 18, 2022 by funkyjudge

[Golfspy_CG2]

How I learned to drive a stick shift.

Summer of 76, I was a junior in highschool and was California visiting my dad.  He owned two dry cleaners that were about 10 miles apart from each other...Carson and Manhattan Beach for those of you that know SOCAL.    

Clothes from the Manhattan store were taken to the Carson store each morning to be cleaned then returned in the afternoon.   I worked in the Carson store, usually just bagging clothes etc.   One day the store manager told  me I needed to take that mornings load to Manhattan.  I went to the van, saw it was a stick shift and returned to say.  "I don't know how to drive a stick shift"   He replied, "Well, you better learn how in the next 5 minutes.  Get on the road"   

And that's how I learned to drive a manual.   Cross Town LA area traffic,  I'm nto sure what shape the clutch was in after that day, but before long I looked forward to making those trips...and maybe a side stop or two on the way too and from...ha

 

[Paul Hedrick]

My first car, when I was 16 in 1972, was a 1962 Mercury Comet.  Zero to Sixty in three days!  LOL

[TheOther1]

2 hours ago, funkyjudge said:

I have plenty of scars and a couple of exhaust pipe burn marks from the Yamaha 750 (shaft drive), Yamaha Road Star and two Harley Davidsons that I owned from 1977 through 2009.

Here’s three of my bikes (sorry, I don’t have a pic of my ‘77 Yamaha 750).  The top bike is a modified 2002 Yamaha RoadStar 1800cc bike that I did some of the custom work on (LED lighting, custom fenders, seat, exhaust, etc.). The second bike is a full-custom that started life as a Harley Fat Boy, and that blue one is a 1999 Harley FLH-R (Road King) that was massaged to more than 120 HP and 120 lb-ft of torque. It kicked like a mule and pulled like a train — and provided me with most of my motorcycling scars.

By the way, I once rode the black and silver Road Star through a ditch, across a grassy yard and down a gravel driveway to avoid being hit head-on by a pickup truck who almost took me out on a country road. Never put the bike down and never put a scratch on her! That happened only two days before that picture of me on the bike was taken. I wasn’t about to put her down just after more than $8K of customizing work had been completed on the bike over the prior 5-6 months.

PS -- That's one of my wife's manual transmission Subarus (the silver one in the background).  I believe it is a 2001 Impreza Sport manual ("poor man's WRX").

Beautiful bikes, all of them.  But that second one!     Sexy enough to forgive it being a Harley!   

I almost was in a head on with an old Nova or Malibu.  I swerved into a driveway, went off the driveway into a drainage ditch about 3' deep.  Brake pedal went through the side engine housing, snapped my windshield in half, bent the handlebars.  But I walked away without a scratch!

[funkyjudge]

1 hour ago, TheOther1 said:

Beautiful bikes, all of them.  But that second one!     Sexy enough to forgive it being a Harley!   

I almost was in a head on with an old Nova or Malibu.  I swerved into a driveway, went off the driveway into a drainage ditch about 3' deep.  Brake pedal went through the side engine housing, snapped my windshield in half, bent the handlebars.  But I walked away without a scratch!

That middle bike was built by a friend of mine here in Bucks County, PA. It was quite an extensive modification, as you can see and it was very hard to tell that it started life as a Harley Softail, much less a Fat Boy.

My black and silver Road Star was the best of the bunch here in terms of comfort and ride ability, although it weighed more than 660 lbs.  It had some frame and front fork modifications and a stretched fuel tank, but it rode absolutely beautifully and in terms of handling it was close to as agile as my 470 lb. Yamaha 750 shaft drive street bike.  I participated in the build of that bike, and rode it home more than 250 miles from Virginia (maybe a lot more than 250 miles) on Halloween Day, 2002, with home NFL football games along the way in DC (Landover, MD), Baltimore, and Philadelphia. I never felt fatigued after long rides on that bike and it was more stable in crosswinds than any Harley I have ridden. I did more modifications to that one after I got it home to PA, and never should have sold it (I shipped it to a guy in Louisiana who lost 9 vehicles, including 4 bikes, in Hurricane Katrina three years later).

The blue Harley was too much bike for me, and I will be th e first to admit it. Although I owned it for almost 14 years, I never felt right riding it after I had a bad crash in my second year of ownership (2006). I had some pretty serious leg injuries, and almost lost my left leg after that crash, and it took 4 months to rebuild the bike and another couple of weeks to get the paint just right, because I wanted to match the original custom paint color. After that crash, the entire front of the bike (fork, light bar, etc.) had to be replaced because I collided with a Ford Explorer. It was a good thing that I had super heavy duty crash bars on that bike, as that is what saved my left leg and probably the bike’s engine, which cost the prior owner $20K+ to build (it was built by Jerry Branch of Branch Flowmetrics, if you know who that is). I still have the three 3” thick notebooks with the receipts for that bike (the blue Harley), along with photos and two articles about it that were published in motorcycle magazines.  It allegedly cost more than $55-60K to build, and I believe it.

[Thin2win]

10 hours ago, MattF said:

You're putting a racta (nickname for rotorys back home) motor in it?

Yes,  yes I am

[MattF]

13 hours ago, Thin2win said:

Yes,  yes I am

[Thin2win]

3 hours ago, MattF said:

It's already in:

[cksurfdude]

21 hours ago, chisag said:

.. I had a RX-7 for several years until ...

My Dad had one for a few years, also, until .. the internal engine seals started leaking and he was told the engine needed to be totally replaced .. so that was the end of that little sportster!

[Thin2win]

29 minutes ago, cksurfdude said:

My Dad had one for a few years, also, until .. the internal engine seals started leaking and he was told the engine needed to be totally replaced .. so that was the end of that little sportster!

That's kinda sad,  the internal seals only take a trained shop a few hours to change,  but a shop that doesn't know rotary would have no idea.

[funkyjudge]

41 minutes ago, cksurfdude said:

My Dad had one for a few years, also, until .. the internal engine seals started leaking and he was told the engine needed to be totally replaced .. so that was the end of that little sportster!

My former next door neighbor (we have lived here almost 37 years and he and his wife lived next door the first 20 or so) was the owner of an IMSA GT race team, and their #1 driver (he started with two cars and went to three later). He was sponsored by VW for several years, but there were about 4 years where he raced for Mazda -- the guy's name is Dave Rosenblum, and he was on the cover of VW Motorsports magazine several times.  While he was driving Mazdas competitively, his street car -- provided by Mazda Motorsports, was an RX-7 with the track package.  I will never forget the night that he grabbed me and said "lets go for a ride" in that RX-7. We have some nice twisty roads between my house and the Interstate that is a couple of miles from here, and he took a couple of the more challenging back roads, then took the RX-7 out on the Interstate for a few miles until we reached an exit where there is a shopping mall just off the exit. He pulled it into the mall's parking lot and got out, saying to me "now it's your turn". I drove it back home the reverse route to what we had just traveled (at more than double the speed limit at times).  I don't think that I ever got to the speeds that he did, but I had that RX-7 at triple digit speeds a few times on that drive.

One thing that I will never forgive Dave Rosenblum for is the VW Scirocco that he sold my then 19 year old son.  It had a lot of engine and suspension modifications (including a racing cam, and a large turbo and intercooler) that he didn't tell me were on that car prior to selling it to Chris (my son).  I only found out about it a few days later, when Dave came over with three large boxes of parts.  I asked if these were spares, and he then told me about all of the mod's that had been done to the Scirocco, saying that these boxes contained the original parts that were taken off, plus some spare brake rotors and calipers, shocks, coil overs, etc. My son was T-Boned in that Scirocco about 18 months to 2 years later and it was completely totaled; luckily, he wasn't hurt badly -- and even more luckily, he had just dropped his girlfriend off at home a few minutes before the accident, because the Scirocco was hit on the passenger side and she would not have fared well in that crash.

Edited October 19, 2022 by funkyjudge

[MattF]

1 hour ago, Thin2win said:

It's already in:

10A, 12A, 13B or 20B?