Your dads defining car

We've discussed this before, but it was an old Model T that he and some friends cobbled together with junkyard parts from a Chrysler, an Oldsmobile, a bus, and a forklift, and war surplus.    









They had to push it with another car to start it, it didn't have a transmission or any suspension on the rear or brakes on the front, it didn't turn well, and and it would overheat if it ran for more than a few minutes.

 



Still, for some reason he really seemed to like driving it.

In reply to Cooter :

Does that car still exist?

'67 Fairlady Roadster. It was previously a race car that had been sitting in a field, he resurrected it and raced it at Hallett from '86-89 I want to say? This is what got me into cars and going to the track. He reached a point where he could no longer get tires in the proper size and was going to have to drop a ton of money on custom wheels and the tires in that size were dramatically more expensive, so he ended up selling it to some guy on the East Coast around ~'90-91 I think. 

This looks to be running CCW, coming up "The Bitch" at Hallett. 

My father wasn't much of a car guy, although he did have an affinity towards manual transmissions for some reason.

To my knowledge, he only bought one new car - a 1978 Datsun F10. It was the first FWD car with a 5 spd, which he wanted for his commute from our rental house in Cumming GA to his teaching job in Forsythe county.  He drove that car for another 10 years or so until he finally killed it after my parents split in 1988.  He wasn't big on maintenance. 

He attempted to teach me to drive a manual transmission with it, but he wasn't a great teacher and the transmission has a dog-leg shift pattern, so that 1-2 shift was not the easiest for the inexperienced.

My dad's defining car was a 1970 Duster with the 340 and the drag pack. It was petty blue with a 4 speed. It was one of the few delivered to Alaska (he was there for the military) I never had the opportunity to see it as he traded to a family car by the time that I was born but it's the only car that I ever heard about when he talked about cars. 

Lemon Twist 'cuda so pimp!

For sure his defining car, at least from my perspective, is the Healey but he's had a lot of cool stuff over the years. 

His first car that was his own was a Beetle in which the engine eventually locked up because there was no oil in it. According to him, he left it in a field in Erie, PA. Could have been New Castle.

He then had what had to have been one of the first Capris off the boat. After a couple years he traded it for a Mustang II........

Next was a very early RX7 followed by a BMW 318i. Through my entire childhood he owned Saabs. First a late-80s 9000, then a 92 900 4-door and then bought an 01 9-3 turbo. 

After the Saabs came two R57 Minis.

He likes cars. 

I'd have to say the 1986 RX-7 base model. I helped him snag some light upgrade parts for it before I had my license. Many memories in that car.

We didn't have much money growing up. My dad had a series of VW Rabbits and single-cab trucks that were pretty forgettable.

The one car that stands out in my memory was an '84 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe. It was already used when we got it, and not really in the best shape. I remember a bad exhaust leak and rust holes in the floorboards that sent fumes in the cabin on one particular trip back from boy scout camp. I remember the ignition wouldn't stay in the ON position, so he tapped a bolt into the steering column that he could unscrew enough that it would remain running. When it was time to turn it off, he'd just screw it back in and the ignition would slide to OFF.

I swear he drove it like that for a couple years before scrapping it, then got an Aerostar that got us through high school. 

In reply to Woody (Forum Supportum) :

They built several cars over the years, starting with rusty steel buckets and SBC Corvette shortblocks from the dealer and chain drive 4-71 blowers topped with 6 Strombergs in the late '50s for the first version.


This is the actual Weiand manifold off that first car (but not the carbs)



They went to the Hemi for the ones afterwards, but still used Gennie Henry bodies until the last one. 


^I believe this may have been the second to the last one.   That's my dad in the firesuit clowning around filming the photographer while shooting 8mm of the drags.

This should be the chassis that ended up under the Ron Pellegrini "Super Mustang" that is claimed by some to be the first "Modern Funny Car" as we know it.   Regardless of recent posts on the internet showing the later car as the one used for the build, this is the actual chassis used.   That's just sloppy story telling, and grabbing the easiest, clearest images to create visual "pop" on the webpage.

Another view of the second to last car in action to prove my point (never mind the fact that the "last" DAK altered was still being raced at that point-

  The one in my previous post was the last version with a 'glass body and a Poly 354 topped with worked Hemi heads, obviously injected on a Nitromethane/Alky mix.

This was for a photo shoot on the East Side at the water filtration plant right after the "last car" was completed.


Mid Career, unknown location.


As you can see, it would be difficult for my dad to sit in a car in 1966 if it had already been torn apart and built into a funny car in '65.





Dad sold it in '72 or '73 to buy a boat for the family.  2 or 3 grand, guaranteed to run bottom 8s, right off the trailer (and with the trailer)   Story was the buyer rolled it second time out in it.

A rumor bounced around that it was found a few years ago, and was for sale for well over 100K.   

No idea what the truth is.

My dad divorced my mother in 1973 and bought a '74 Lincoln Mark IV.  Then dated lots of women. 

That thing was a boat.  But it worked for him...

Dad was of the same mind as me, it has to be utilitarian or sporting in the extreme. Mom would pass on the utilitarian part mostly, and the defining car of my early youth was her MG TD, that they both drove a lot and with great vigor. Later, at age 55 when I was almost out of school he bought the car that did define him in everyone's eyes, Taraschi vin BT052, pictured below in the tech line at Lime Rock. He is on the right in photo.

1994 Toyota Camry. No, really. My father is the epitome of the car-is-an-appliance mentality. It was my parent's first new car purchase since I was born several years prior and it served the bulk of our daily driving and vacation duties. It was the car I learned to drive with and the only reason I didn't end up with it was because my dad was still driving it when I left for college. The vehicle I got comes in a close second: a 1986 Toyota pickup. All my earliest car memories are associated with that thing but it generally sat in the driveway while the Camry was used 99% of the time.

My dad bought a '68 Oldsmobile "98" 2 door Holiday Coupe (???) brand new from Hames Oldsmobile (south side Chicago).  It was a tank but he and I loved that car.   

His job transferred him to St. Louis and we took many trips back and forth down I55 to visit family.  I have memories of watching the speedometer sit at 70mph.  It had a 455 cid with a guzzling 4-barrel Oldsmobile Rocket engine.  Four kids in the back seat and one between my parents up front - nobody wore seat belts.

I drove it in high school and most days it was 10mpg of Premium fuel.  He sold it in 1984 to a pipe fitter at work for $500.   Every time my mom said to sell it he'd find a reason to keep it - just put on new tires; I'll sell it after we go through winter.  
 

My dad's defining cars were probably the MGs. He bought a '71 MGB-GT in '72 and never got around to getting rid of it, so it became my first car. He was one of the founding members of the NC MG Car Club. His most memorable car to me was his '59 MGA. Back in the early '80s, he found it in a chicken yard about an hour away from his house. We rebuilt the brakes, clutch master cylinder, and carbs to get it running well enough for me to nurse it home for him. He spent several years restoring it. I really hated to sell it a couple of years ago, but I didn't have the time or money to do it justice. 

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

My dad was very tightfisted. A car was just a means to get from A to B. Still, I wish this little beater was still around. 

Now, that is taking being tightfisted from boring to awesome.

So many cars to choose from...

1962 Triumph Spitfire

1966 Mustang fastback

1969 Porsche 911 S

1971 BMW 2002

1973 or so BMW 3.0 CSL Sadly, this car never had a motor or trans in it the entire six months or so my dad had it, before he sold it to Alf Gebhardt, who had another one he ran in SCCA and IMSA.

1975 BMW Bavaria

1981 Chevy Citation X-11 (became my car in high school)

1982 BMW 320i

By the late 80’s, it became a slew of vans and trucks to haul sailboats and race cars around with, until it picked back up with...

2003 MINI Cooper S

a couple of trucks again before...

2018 Camaro

and 2020 Civic

The last two were pretty much my step-mom making my dad feel good, because his mind was not sharp enough to drive at that point.  But they did manage to complete a home garage build of a 1952 Chevy pick-up before he passed.

I guess it comes down to the 911 and the ‘52 Chevy.  Both were definite project cars when my dad bought them, and almost everything (except the paint) was done in-house.  I was too young to work on the 911 at the time, but I did help some on the truck, and it still sits in the work shop at their house, waiting for me to retire and move back that way.  

Dad was always a car guy.

When we were finally doing well, and things were looking up for the family he did te right thing, went out, and bought a brand new reliable family car. A 71 Z28. And that was the first thing that came to mind but there were a lot of cars over the years, and if I think about it, it was his exploits with the many 57 Chevs that he built either as street rods or dirt late models. He loved the 57 and that was his car, always. I know he had pics of some of them, I recall especially the before and after pics of one of his nicest late models. A white 57 with black numbers and gold accents. In the before pic it was a beautiful car sitting in the pits, and the after pic of when he lent it to his best friends wife for the powder puff and she rolled it.  I wish I had those pics today.

Renault 8.    He bought it in 1964 in communist Czechoslovakia before coming to the US.  He had convert all his money to German Mark and bought the car from the dealer in cash.   They wouldn't take Czech currency.  My aunt still drove the car until around 2000.

Later in life, my father led the Biomedical research lab at GM.  As a toxicologist, years of his career led the way for effective Diesel Emission levels for US passenger cars.  However, Oldsmobile killed Diesels in US with one engine.....the dreaded, under engineered 350 Diesel.   As a GM exec, he had probably drove 20+ different new Oldsmobile Diesel company cars.  He got a new one every 3000-5000 miles.

It's a tossup between his first new car, a red/red '64 Cutlass, and a white '87 Regal T-Type with all the bolt-ons you could get in 1989 or so.  The Buick was pretty crazy for the time, and laid waste to everything from 5.0's to Porsche's to a couple of sport bikes.

"Similar to" pictures The Cutlass was a hardtop, but the Buick below is an exact match: 

Nothing as cool as a lot of what I am seeing here but Dad bought a brand new 70's Ford Fiesta in a Hugger Orange color.  It was my intro to hot hatches and lots of donut fun was had in the gravel school parking lot with Dad amd the three of us hooting and hollering for more.

My dad was schizophrenic with his car choices. Lots of Corvettes (the first in 1959, the most recent in 2019), lots of little English cars, a handful of Mustangs (I came home from the hospital in a '64 1/2 coupe), and some random stuff like a 914, Datsun Roadster, a couple Tigers, and surprisingly just a single Miata.

I'm divided on which to think is his defining car. First thought was the car he raced when I was a kid, his second Spitfire that he ran at Lime Rock primarily in the mid '70s. In this picture it's #98, but it was usually #93.

The second choice is his second '62 Corvette. I think he bought this in 1974 after selling a '67 427 convertible. Originally a white car with red interior, it had been painted pale yellow with some cheesy orange painted pinstripes before he bought it. In the mid '80s he stripped it to bare fiberglass and had a body shop shoot it Roman Red, and he treated it to a new interior and soft top as well. It was never a show car, always considered just a driver, and he's been putting 2500ish miles on it annually. When I ran Lime Rock's Track Night in America in May, he came down in the 62 and we even took it out for touring laps, the first time I rode in that car in 25 years or more. It still sounded just like it did when I was a kid.

In my infancy my Dad had a Porsche 356 and then a 911t. I don't remember them, but the stories made me want one to this day. First car I really remember was sitting behind the seats in my dad's mid 70's Fiat Spider and later his 79 RX7. After that RX7 he went family car route with Audis, a Trooper and Subaru.   The 911 is still the one...

I could argue for the 70 Boss 302 he bought after his tour of SE Asia... He didn't buy the Boss 429 on the dealer lot because it had a white interior.

Biggest car that got him in trouble and I have a vague recollection of it was a 68-70 Cougar with a 351/4spd... He took me out in it one afternoon before a nap, it was 1978.... With no car seats, seat belts, windows down, went to the end of our deadend street, dropped the hammer and clutch and promptly grabbed 3rd rolling past the house at about 80 or 90.... My mom was not impressed. I went to sleep with a huge smile on my face. 

Dad had a BMW 1600 when I was growing up. Not his car below, but that was basically it, I think even the same original color.

He was never a big car guy though overall and ended up switching to the 240 Volvos because they were tanks. I have gotten into BMWs, but I was also influenced by my friend's Dad that lived up the block as he had a variety of 80s and 90s classics. G-body cars like Monte Carlo SS, Buick Grand National, Olds 442, then he had a 92 heritage Camaro and then a 96 heritage Camaro.