Did you have a car in high school? Looking for stories

[Guest hmunster123]

I'm looking for stories for a photography book I'm creating on old cars. If you drove a car in high school(or junior high) and have a story to tell about it please let me know. Anything printed will be anonymous. Thanks.

[Guest]

I sure did and am still driving it 53 years and 499,000 miles later. Not right today though as I am overhauling the engine for the second time.

[keiser31]

Would you like the stories posted here or do you want them to be sent to you?? I have many stories about driving my 1931 Dodge to high school.....mostly funny.

[D Yaros]

How about, in 1963, driving a rather rare 1960 Olds with a factory stick?

[Guest Oldengineer]

I had a 1937 Dodge Business Coupe in high school. My favorite story about that car: Went out on a blind date in it during Christmas break my first year of college. Had to sell the car a while later, but, still got the girl. Been married to her since 1968.

Regards:

Oldengineer

[PONTIAC1953]

hi, i still have my second car from my high school years, i was 17 in 1973, when i bought my 1953 pontiac chieftain custom catalina from it's original owners. my dad allowed me to buy it because it fit into his idea of a car for me, "no car with a V8 engine", pontiacs from 1933 to 1954 were built with straight sixes and straight eights, pontiacs from 1926 to 1931 were built with only sixes, in 1932 pontiac had both a six, and a one year only L head V8. one weekend during my senior year - 1974, i was coming back from lompoc, ca. to santa monica, ca. on pacific coast hwy 1, i got the pontiac coming down a long downgrade, i manage to get the old car up to 95 to 97 mph. dad never knew, but he was right about his thinking, that i was going to be alot like he was, in his own high school years. "let see how fast it will go". my favorite story is of the day i saw, and bought the car. my dad had bought me my first car with his own money, $100.00 in 1972, he gave me a 1962 chevrolet impala sport sedan (four door hardtop) that had a 235 cubic inch inline six and a powerglide automatic transmission, i drove that chevy over 10,000 miles in six months, when the head gasket failed, making the engine run rough. dad got tired of seeing the car just sit, i was working jobs, saving up my money so i could afford to have the car repaired. one day i come home from school, and the chevy wasn't where i had park it. dad was home from his job, i asked "where's my car ?, is it getting fixed ?", dad said "no, i sold it", i said "what !, you sold my car !", dad said "who bought the car ?, who's name is on the pink slip ?", i told him i was saving up money to fix the car, i ask my dad "how much money did you get out of the car ?", "ten dollars" he said, i said "TEN DOLLARS ?, just one tire one the car is worth ten dollars". well a week or two goes by, and i had gone with dad to a local grocery store in santa monica, i found a bulletin board where people posted ads, there was a index card there, saying 1953 pontiac for sale, and it gave a local phone number. so i took the card and showed it to my dad, asking him, "what does a 1953 pontiac have under the hood ?", my maternal grandfather had bought new in 1947, a pontiac, and i had seen pictures of him and family standing near the car, my thoughts were upon seeing the posted index card, was grandpa had a pontiac back then, maybe i would like a pontiac too. dad answered "pontiac didn't get a V8 untill 1955, so there's either a six cylinder or a straight eight", i replied "straight eight ?, what do you mean by straight eight ?", dad explained to me what a straight eight was, i thought ah ha, i got ya moment, "that's not a V8", dad said "ok,ok, we'll go look at it, and if you want it, you can buy it", well we got home, unpacked the groceries, i called the number, an elderly man answered, saying yes the car was still for sale, and we were welcome to come look at it. they lived four blocks from where we lived, their house had a detached garage, there was enough room between the house and the garage so a car could be driven into the backyard. as i walked past the eastside of the house and viewed the backyard, there the 1953 pontiac sat, parked under a large shade tree, with the backend of the car facing the house, one of the first things that caught my eye was the continental kit on the extended rear bumper, then the two door hardtop bodystyle, and the driver's door spotlight, the two tone paint, the spinner hubcaps, the seller gave me the keys while him and my dad were talking, i was told to start the engine, i turned the starter on, and let go of the key, i couldn't hear the motor running (i was born with a small hearing loss), i said "is it running ?", i was told to look at the oil pressure gauge, sure enough, it had the needle in the middle of the gauge. i was told it had a four speed automatic transmission, "a four speed ?", the chevy had had only a two speed. well dad and the seller agreed on $150.00 for the car. i back the pontiac out of the backyard where it had been kept for two years, having been kept with a supply of gas, and getting started every two weeks or so. i drove it home, washed it, and wax it, i gave my dad back the $150.00 that he had given the seller. i made my dad promise not to sell my pontiac like he had done the chevy, dad kept his promise, and when i turned 18 years old, i put the car in my name, three years later, i got PONTIAC issued to the car as my personalized california license plates. i liked my first car, i fell in love with my 1953 pontiac chieftain custom catalina. charles coker, 1953 pontiac technical advisor, pontiac oakland club international.

[Guest hmunster123]

Would you like the stories posted here or do you want them to be sent to you?? I have many stories about driving my 1931 Dodge to high school.....mostly funny.

Either is fine, whichever you feel comfortable with. Thanks.

[Guest hmunster123]

I entered high school in fall of 1979, south Orlando area, I remember some of the guys driving muscle cars to school, probably handed down by an older brother, or grandmother!

[Guest hmunster123]

Thanks for all of these great stories, keep them coming if possible. Love live Pontiac!

[The Old Guy]

I got my license at 14 in 1947. Michigan law allowed that until September ,and I turned 14 in August. My first car was a 1931 Buick and I drove it until I found a 1937 Century 4 door with side mounts. I immediately installed the dual carbs from a 41-42 and split the exhaust. I drove it for about 1 year and passed my Dad doing over 100 MPH. The 37 was IMMMEDIETELY taken away and my Dad sold it and bought a 1939 Pontiac 6 . I drove that through the rest of high school (senior year) and it wouldn't run 80 MPH over a cliff, but it probably keptt me alive

[Guest]

I had three cars in HS, Two I still have and the one I sold I wish I could have kept. This was a 1959 Pontiac Catalina 2dr hardtop sport coupe. Originally specially ordered by my dad to be his weekend warrior/street A/Stock Automatic drag car. Equipped with a 389" four bolt main, Tri-Power, 4 speed Super Hydramatic. The car instead of being built in South Gate Ca. like 99% of all Pontiac's in the L.A. Zone area the car was built in Michigan primarily because the engine was hand built in the Pontiac tool room like all the NASCAR engines were built. One day, summer of 1968, I had just finished dusting a guy street racing and decided to drive along the beach. I ran the car up to 100 and just ahead of me a L.A.P.D. patrol turned out of the Scattergood steam plant coming toward me so I turned my lights out hit my brake light kill switch and hammered the throttle opening the two other carburetors. The cop immediately did what we call a brodie and gave chase, he was driving a 1968 Belvedere and was a dead ringer for Adam12. I was well out front and drove through the next city and flew by the Edison Generating station and just into the next city hung a right-hander, down a half a block and a left turn and down a alley, found a open garage swung in and close the garage door...just hoping the owner of the house wouldn't come home. Three PD departments looking, I stayed there two hours....took the long way home.

[Guest hmunster123]

That must have been a long two hours, lol. It's amazing that so many people have kept there high school cars, that's true dedication to your car.

[avgwarhawk]

My HS car was a 1978 Buick Regal 2D. White with white interior and red carpet/dash. She sported the 231 V6. A very capable motor that turned 100K without issue and with the original transmission. I came about the car through my mom. It all started with a movie most if not all here have seen. Stephen King's "Christine." Most impressionable kids at that time who's right of passage is getting the driver's license fell in love with the 57 Plymouth. I was one of them. Before the movie I did not give much thought to owning my own vehicle. After the movie owning my own car became an interest for me. In Westminster MD was a junkyard called Vogt's. He kept a lot of the older 50-60's cars. Some just parts. Others good cars to restore. Driving by one day there she was(just like the movie) a 1959 Buick Invicta. She was complete and needed work. $600.00 on the windshield. I fell in love with the lines and slanted headlights. I had the money to purchase. I asked my mother if I could purchase the Invicta. She said she did not want the rusty hulk in the drive(just like the movie). She did however say she was done with her 78 Buick Regal. She drove it for 5 years. Would I like the car. The car was not free. She always felt if one paid for a car they would respect and take care of said car. $500.00 and she was mine. The Invicta forgotten but the desire to own a car from the 50's was still there. The Buick carried me through HS. Prom, work and weekend good times with friends. I took the Buick to college. Sad to say she was totaled in a accident. My love affair with cars was embroiled in that 1978 Buick Regal. My desire to own a car of the 50's was still prevalent. When I was able I purchased a car from the 50's. Another Buick in a long line of Buicks my family has owned.

[Bill Harmatuk]

My favorite and most fun car was a 63 Volkswagon.

The car had been in the water, once, to see if it would float, like the commercial. It had been run through a local store window when the brakes failed.

I bought it for 125.00 less front sheet metal. I bought another for 10.00, less motor, from a friend. Swapped front sheet metal and was good to go.

Later I along with a friend, rebuilt the 40 hp motor in high school with a big bore kit, 3/4 cam and a header from JC Whitney. Eddy Brame, who owned an 11 second Volkswagon, (in the 1/4 mile), bored the jet in the stock carburetor. I forgot to mention that in auto mechanics, my friend and I, PORT, POLISHED and CC ed the stock heads. Added a Hurst shifter.

Fastest Volkswagon in New Bern in 1971.

Then I spent a month in San Diego CA and every where I looked there were Baja beetles.

When I returned home, I promptly took a wax pencil and drew out the Baja Beetle shape across the back of my car, shortened the rear fenders, and jumped on it with metal cutting saw and side grinder. A set of J-60 Baja tires and adapters, dune buggy header, from JC Penny, and I was the man. Only Baja beetle in New Bern. It would lift a front wheel thanks to the solid motor mounts I made.

To make a long story short... a bottle of wine was the demise of a 19 year olds hot rod and first and only night spent in jail.

I think of it as a learning experience.

Fun car made from basic air flow theory.

Bill Harmatuk

[keiser31]

Most of the stories about my '31 Dodge involved driving the car somewhere other than to school, but I remember an incident just after school one day. A friend wanted to race me with his Renault sedan. We went to the street just behind the high school and lined up side by side. We were off and my car lurched ahead. Being that it is a 6 cylinder, I was out front of his little four banger. My brakes were not the best at that time, so when I slowed down for the "S" curve and stop sign ahead, my buddy swerved out in front of me and stopped abruptly. I hit the brakes into the "S" to no avail and "SMASH, CRINKLE & BOOM"! Totaled out the rear section of the Renault and wrapped it around the engine. No real damage at all to my '31 Dodge. The guy told his folks that he came out to the student parking lot and found his car smashed. He did not want to get into trouble for racing. Here is what my car looked like when I drove it to high school........

[keiser31]

One day I replaced my 1936 Dodge differential gears because of a broken tooth or two. I got through doing the work and when I went to back out of the garage, the car when forward instead of backwards. Put the rear end gears in upside down. Heck, I was only 17....what did I know?? Well, I drove the car to school and asked the auto shop teacher if I could fix it. He told me to leave it there and his vocational auto shop students would fix it. I picked it up after school and drove around Royal Oak with a bunch of friends in the car. After dropping them each off at their respective homes, I headed home. I got to the corner of my street and turned left. All of a sudden, the right rear corner of the car dropped to the asphalt and the spring shackle made a groove in the street bringing the car to a halt. I got out to see the right rear wheel laying in the middle of the intersection. It was still wearing it's hubcap! I took the cap off to see that the guys in auto shop never tightened the lugs. They were all stripped. It was rush hour, so I had to act fast since I was blocking two streets. A friend was working at a gas station, so I called him to see if he could get the tow truck and bring my car home. He could not get the tow truck to hook up correctly to my car since the bumper hung out there so very far, so I had to fix it in the middle of the street. I ran the half block to my house and got under my 1936 Dodge Brothers "parts" car and removed a drum and lugs. I was able to get the car fixed just as my Dad was driving up the street coming home from work. Here is that car......

[Guest AlsGarage]

1970 Mustang Convertible, 302 V8. Kind of tricked grandpa into giving it to me... About 4yrs old, he used to let me sit in it when I hung out in the garage while he restored this or that. Not being serious, he told me that it was "my" car because the blue color matched my eyes. Several years later, I overheard him talking to a man at the movie theater about selling it to him. My mom remembers me running to her and crying that Papa was going to sell my car. Well, he couldn't sell the car and rest is history! Still have her, but she's garaged now. There were a lot of gawking faces that first day I brought her to school! A lot of wonderful, loud memories! Also noted that I drove all that horsepower through snow most of the year at 6000 feet!

[Restorer32]

I drove a badly faded blue 1960 Corvair 4 door automatic with torn seat covers. I swear I walked a mile for every mile that thing actually ran without breaking down. Every time I drove it I could almost count on it breaking down at the exact furthest point from home. Left HS one day with bad bronchitis and of course it broke down and I had to walk 2 miles home in the cold rain and developed pneumonia. It eventually caught fire and was mercifully scrapped.

[oldcarfudd]

How were you able to set the fire so nothing else was damaged?

Gil Fitzhugh, Morristown, NJ

[Restorer32]

Ironically just weeks before the Corvair burned up I finally discovered why it would randomly let me sit even after having several hundred $ spent on it at the local dealership. As the car was being driven one of the valves in the fuel pump would become unseated and turn sideways. This would make the pump inoperable. As the car sat for a period of time that valve would settle back into place and the pump would once again work. Eventually the car would "fail to proceed" again and I would walk home. Dad would later take me to retrieve the car and it would start right up, making me look like a fool. Luckily one day it stopped in the back yard and out of frustration I tore the fuel pump apart and there was that valve, standing proudly at a right angle to its seat. The car was fairly reliable after that until it caught fire and burned up the engine compartment.

[dei]

OOOHHH Yes, I had not one car in High School but three which were all the same year and make.

1st, was a 1958 Buick Limited 2dr Hdtp that Dad handed down to me, as not wanting me to drive hot rods like some of my friends. This was in the spring of 1971 and the car had sat on the front lawn with a broken U-joint since Xmas. If I helped him change it out and paid to have the exhaust fixed (dual system here) I could have it. Being the boat it was, not everyone thought it was cool but I didn't care, I was driving!

That summer I sneaked three of my buddies into the Drive-in in that huge trunk which just about killed them as there were holes in the wheel wells which was a common issue with those cars after some years.

2nd, was a 1958 Buick Special (red) convertible that came to me from a guy that knew I had the Limited. What I had in the bank was only 150 bucks and while his asking price was much more, shook his hand and said I would be back with the money. Fortunately my Grandmother knew I wanted it badly and lent me the rest much to my fathers displeasure.

Being at a High School with 1200 students offered little available parking and because I lived somewhat close only drove it there once. The day I did, over the PA comes, "would the owner of a red Buick convertible please report the the Office or the car will be towed". That never happened again but... went back to my 10 year Class Reunion and drove the car (yes I still have it, even today) and parked up on the front lawn in front of the Library! No, there was no announcement to move the car. Most remembered the car, some not so much me (until I returned to the School's 25th Reunion last year).

3rd, was a 1958 Buick Roadmaster convertible I found in Old Autos magazine in 1975 for all of 100 bucks. It was not pretty, with the drivers door smacked, the drivers seat bracket broken, two flat tires but.... all there and the engine would turn over. Managed to talk a friend of Dad's who had a trailer to help me go get it and when my mother came home that day, found it parked on the front lawn right where the Limited had been when it broke down Xmas of 1970. Don't really need to say SHE WAS NOT HAPPY!

That car was never on the road but.... I have been fortunate to be able to afford reasonable storage for not only it but the other two as well over the years. I even dated my wife in the Special and after we were married don't I find another 1958 Buick limited 2dr in a Cleveland ad! Since my 1st Limited was pretty well worn out and this car showed only 57,00 miles she saw the wisdom in buying it and keeping the original car for parts (at least that was my conversation with her then).

Can't wait for my 40th year Class Reunion!