True Tales - 1st car 1969 Honda

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"1st car, 1969 Honda" by Steve Wander

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Being brought up in a working class home, where I was making minimum wage $3.35 an hour while my dad was making about 10, I quickly found the value of a dollar. Any time I could save one or make one, I did. My first car became reality about 5 weeks into my drivers license. I had saved up about $150 and was really getting tired of riding my bike 3 miles to school (one way) every morning and then riding that same bike to work the closing shift at the local Wiener World.

I saw an add for a 1969 Honda AN600 coupe. I had never seen this model but the price was right, $200. I quickly had my dad drive me down to the beach community where the car lived. We turned the corner and saw the smallest car I had ever seen, It was like a Morris Mini, but about 10 inches skinnier. I curiously looked it over and declared that I would probably fit in it with a small passenger, but that was about it. It did have a back seat, but the driver seat was adjusted back so it was touching the rear seat bun. 

True Tales - A Valiant Race

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"A Valiant Race" Copyright 2007-2012 by: E.C. "Stan" Field by:    E.C. "Stan" Field
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My buddy Jay and I loved to race cars. All kinds of cars. Big ones like Cadillacs, medium ones like Valiants and Ramblers and small ones... Like Fiat-Abarths and Volkswagens.

Due to lack of money, we did almost all our own work. The only things that ever got farmed out were transmission and machine shop tasks.

Since I had been raised on road racing in Mexico, during high school, I naturally paid a lot more attention to my suspension and handling than raw horsepower. This proved very handy one winter night.

Now my two door 1964 Plymouth Valiant was a cheery sight back in those days. It was running a 225 slant six with an automatic and anyone standing outside normally considered it a family car. Underneath, I had Monroe Load Leveler shocks all around, with coil-overs and a sway bar in the back. The tires were Firestone wide ovals and a custom exhaust that let it breath just a bit better. My previous best top end was about 95 mph, but it handled very well indeed.

True Tales- First New Car

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"First New Car" by Paul from Dayton, submitted 2012
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August 1971, after getting out of the service, I bought my first brand new car. I had my eye on a Scamp most of the summer and told my wife that if it was left when they started selling off the '71s to make room for the '72s, I was going to buy it. It was a beauty in my eyes, charcoal gray, black vinyl top, black inside with high back bucket seats, dark centered rally wheels, a 318, and a three speed stick, floor mounted. The window sticker claimed 3.55 gears and sure grip in an 8.75 housing, well someone goofed and it had 3.23s with the sure grip, still plenty of go for that little body.

It wasn't long until I saved up a few dollars and bought a dual exhaust kit for it. It was an easy change, cut the "Y" pipe just as it began to cross over under the back of the engine, clamp a cup-like plug onto the new cut, replace everything on the other side and slap on this pair of Purple Hornies I had bought. Purple Hornies were nothing but a copy of the bullet shaped Cherry Bombs painted purple, but constructed much better than the tin can Thrush mufflers available. 

True Tales - The Skinny, Flame-Spittin' Car Before This One!

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"The Skinny, Flame-Spittin' Car Before This One!" Copyright 2007-2012 by: E.C. "Stan" Field

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The golden days of drag racing, spawned many legends.  Like most sports heroes these people were only human and depended a lot on their underpaid, overworked and incredibly loyal crews to help them over the tight spots.  The following story has been told at many get-togethers over the years.  I have heard it with minor variations from at least a dozen people.  It's absolutely true of course.

During the early 60's, the corn fields of the Midwest were often buffeted by the sounds of huge V-8 engines.  Gentlemen farmers during the week, the weekends they reserved for visits to the famous US-30 Dragstrip.  Nearby, one crazy farmer of greek descent had about a mile of ruler-straight blacktop in front of his place.  Almost exactly a quarter-mile away through the rows of corn and millet, was a railroad overpass with a blind cross-street on the opposite side.  Very late at night, after working many hours on their rail, the crew would fire up a "junker" '57 Chevy with a split railroad tie for a front bumper and push the racer out to the road.  You know, just for a quick test run.  They also had an old pickup with a wrecker hook on the back that could lift the race car and haul it back to the barn in just a few minutes.  This seemed perfectly reasonable to them since it wasn't uncommon for several hours to go by without traffic on this piece of backwoods.

True Tales - Jay's VW

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"Jay's VW" Copyright 2007-2012 by: E.C. "Stan" Field
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My buddy Jay and I loved to race cars. All kinds of cars. Big ones like Cadillacs, medium ones like Valiants and Ramblers and small ones... Like Fiat-Abarths and Volkswagons.

One thing we found out quickly, was that when you race cars, they will break. And if you have to take a broken car to a dealership to be fixed, it will cost a lot of money. Money was one thing we were really short of, back in the 1960s, and so, out of desperation and need... We learned how to be hot rod mechanics.

Most of the time, we were working either out in my side yard, another friend's barn or Jay's really small garage.
One particularly cold winter weekend, I was at his place and our wives needed to go shopping while I helped him work on an old 36hp VW. Since it was the weekend and we were not in any real hurry, as soon as the ladies left, we started working on the first of several six-packs of beer.

True Tales - Anything Fits!

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"Anything Fits!" Copyright 1993-2012 by:    E.C. "Stan" Field
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Back in 1966... or maybe it was '67, there was a real excitin' street racing fraternity around northern Indiana.  Every town had one or more sections of farm road, fairly smooth and straight that the local boys could use to break their cars.  One of the lessor-know champions of impromptu dragstrips was a really big fella called "Meat".  Now Meat only drove Chevrolet products.  He had several late 50s race cars and a radical '62 Corvette with wider tires under the back end than anyone had ever seen on a street car.  But... that's another story.

One hot summer night me and meat and about a half-dozen other foolhardy streetracers were about halfway though a keg of Milwaukee's finest when the subject turned to engine swapping.  Since Meat's four-car garage had enough tools and equipment to outfit a complete race-team, he bragged long and hard that he could fit anything into anything else.  Nothing was impossible to the dedicated mechanic!