1 2
Tony Sestito
Tony Sestito PowerDork
3/15/18 3:59 p.m.

While doing some research for an upcoming story I'm working on, I stumbled upon a relic of the past: 

http://www.beforeblack.net/

To my surprise, the site looks EXACTLY like it did when I first found it, via HotBot or Lycos, in my high school's computer lab back in 1998. It's still full of good knowledge on the pre-EFI Turbo Buicks.

Then, that jogged another memory of another website I used to go to for knowledge for my then-daily driver Mercury Cougar: 

http://www.coolcats.net

That's also still a thing! The site covered the 1983-88 Cougar/Thunderbird twins, and was the definitive resource for anything pertaining to those cars. It actually has been maintained all these years, with a substantial redesign two years ago. The "Reader's Rides" section is still full of mid-late 1990's gold, as viewed by terrible quality bitmap pics:

What sites that you used to frequent still exist? 

 

barefootskater
barefootskater Reader
3/15/18 4:09 p.m.

I think myspace is still going? That is about as far back as my internet-ing goes.

Duke
Duke MegaDork
3/15/18 4:15 p.m.

www.neons.org is still going, and the FAQ I wrote using Nutscrape's crappy HTML editor in 1997 through 1999 or so is still available.

www.spacejam.com

 

Jay
Jay UltraDork
3/15/18 4:15 p.m.

Most of the original rice rockets are long gone, but astonishingly Bryan's Rice Boy Page is still around. Good times.



The "mono blade" wiper 'conversion' never went out of style. Nope nope.

Tony Sestito
Tony Sestito PowerDork
3/15/18 4:20 p.m.

In reply to Jay :

MY GOD THAT STILL EXISTS!!!! Wow. 

My go-to pages in HS Computer Lab were the two I posted, Rice Boy, and the dearly departed Mullets Galore. 

MazdaFace
MazdaFace HalfDork
3/15/18 4:22 p.m.

What was the one that was like Myspace for your car?

Keith Tanner
Keith Tanner MegaDork
3/15/18 4:32 p.m.
MazdaFace said:

What was the one that was like Myspace for your car?

http://www.cardomain.com/

Red Pepper Racing is still around, but has effectively died and been replaced with a FB group. I am sad to see that StreetKiaz.com has apparently shut down, it was a terrible place.

ae86andkp61
ae86andkp61 HalfDork
3/15/18 4:36 p.m.

I used to check out Matti Kalalahti's site from dial-up in my dorm room back in college...some of the best Toyota technical info available online in the mid-to-late 90's....and still there:

http://www.kalalahti.com/tm_index.html

 

A few years later Billzilla's site came along...or maybe I just found it a little later! It got some edits along the way, but has been frozen in time for probably fifteen years anyway, and still a good resource.

 

http://www.billzilla.org/carindex.htm

Suprf1y
Suprf1y PowerDork
3/15/18 5:44 p.m.

One of the very first times I was on the internet I found Turbo 3 haven by accident. I was actually looking for a Mk1 VW GTi at the time, but had a mild interest in the Canadian market Suzuki turbo cars. The rest is history.

The forum is still there but its been dead for some time

EDIT: I looked around a bit there and saw some of my posts from the early 2000's. Doing nitrous trials on the turbo3, building a challenge car, and land speed racing. The good old days!

 

Crxpilot
Crxpilot Reader
3/15/18 5:47 p.m.

http://www.nsxfiles.com/stories.htm

With beautiful frames even.  Great rambling stories that will eat hours.

Stefan
Stefan MegaDork
3/15/18 5:51 p.m.

http://www.thedodgegarage.com is still running in all of its framed goodness.

Ian F
Ian F MegaDork
3/15/18 5:56 p.m.

TDiClub 

The site and forums haven't changed in the 16 years I've been interested in TDI's.  The home page hasn't changed much since 1996. The site is still the best place to go for TDI info or even just basic (non-gas engine related) VW repair info.

cmcgregor
cmcgregor Dork
3/15/18 5:59 p.m.

Pour one out for turbosaturns.net, although there's a mirror of the front page at http://www.scottjsousa.com/tsn/


I killed a lot of time between that and Gus Mahon's turbo minivan page.

Dusterbd13
Dusterbd13 MegaDork
3/15/18 6:13 p.m.

Moparchat.com

Bigblockdart.com

Hotrodders round table

 

All still there. All about the same.

Which is why im here.

NOHOME
NOHOME UltimaDork
3/15/18 6:20 p.m.
Keith Tanner
Keith Tanner MegaDork
3/15/18 6:25 p.m.
NOHOME said:

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/

I think that one has changed over time.

June 2000 version of GRM

NickD
NickD UltraDork
3/15/18 6:45 p.m.
Keith Tanner said:
MazdaFace said:

What was the one that was like Myspace for your car?

http://www.cardomain.com/

Red Pepper Racing is still around, but has effectively died and been replaced with a FB group. I am sad to see that StreetKiaz.com has apparently shut down, it was a terrible place.

There's someone in my area that has a Kia Spectra that is wearing a constantly-changing array of horrendous body kits and terrible paint schemes and is rocking StreetKiaz plate frames.

Keith Tanner
Keith Tanner MegaDork
3/15/18 6:47 p.m.

We used a Kia block in a high power build back in 2002 - it's the same as a Miata block. Unfortunately, this signaled to the StreetKiaz community that we were now supporting their cars. I eventually had to go back and erase all mention of the Kia block on our site, to the extent of photoshopping one of the pictures to remove a Kia logo.

pheller
pheller PowerDork
3/15/18 6:59 p.m.

First car website I was on was way back in 2000. I frequented the Fox/Quantum forum on VWVortex.com 

Then, in 2001ish I moved over to Turbododge.com. 

Both are still going strong. 

Car websites/communities are much better about integrating new models into their forum's community than in the past. 

Pete Gossett
Pete Gossett MegaDork
3/15/18 7:13 p.m.

In reply to Tony Sestito :

Back around the late-90's/Y2K there was a group of (primarily) import guys around Bloomington-Normal/Peoria, IL that started a club & forum called Central Illinois Imports. A bunch of them got seriously into autox and still do to this day. There were some ownership/financial issues and everything died probably by 2010 or so. Some of the guys started a new site - Central Illinois Car Enthusiasts - but it looks like that site is down now too. 

pinchvalve
pinchvalve MegaDork
3/15/18 7:35 p.m.

https://www.aol.com

Back in my day, there was no way onto the web other than AOL.  You grabbed the CD from WalMart (or one of the ten they mailed you a month) and created a free account that was your e-mail and web access as well as your landing page and source for most news.  

Before that, I used to dial a phone number on a headset, then put the headset on a cradle...oh never mind.  Get off my lawn! 

Fueled by Caffeine
Fueled by Caffeine MegaDork
3/15/18 7:41 p.m.

 

Not car related but. 

 

http://maddox.xmission.com/

1988RedT2
1988RedT2 UltimaDork
3/15/18 8:01 p.m.

Before AOL was the BBS.  I frequented one called The Blue Ridge Express back in the early 1990's.  It appears that some still exist.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/11/the-lost-civilization-of-dial-up-bulletin-board-systems/506465/

 

 

 

Ranger50
Ranger50 UltimaDork
3/15/18 8:11 p.m.

www.corral.net

Been off and on since 96? I remember when that was one of the last mustang sites to upgrade to use vBulletin. Before that it was still a threaded board.

Damn I’m old....

Dr. Hess
Dr. Hess MegaDork
3/15/18 8:57 p.m.

My site is still up and mostly unchanged from the late 90's.  I need to update it.  Eh. 

 

Billzilla is a great guy.  He got me the ECU for my 4AG 20v back about 1998 out of NZ, where he was living at the time.  That's way before you could get them with a couple clicks on ebay.  After he got his 747 pilot certification and copilot job, I think he moved to Oz.  That's about the time he stopped updating the site.  I think he ran out of time.

1 2

You'll need to log in to post.

Our Preferred Partners
DrzWEPj0Yw4adxzHRQQyFfLniMkh28Y09nIBhd7hAtGLTjb471pUWYdxpZjRBfdn