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Old School Hot Rods Pimped & Tricked!

Early Road Trips
The Right Direction
Tricked & Pimped

Where ever you find open road to travel by car having the right road gear is the bomb. Finding the parts you need to have a tricked out ride the right way with out giving away an arm and leg is the big bomb.

There was a time when the way to a have a tricked or pimped out ride was to get a really good paint job some rims and tires. At that time once you fixed up your car it was called a hot rod. What you would do is get yourself an over bored caberator, a motor with a high lift cam and a good set of headers. Put on a thrush muffler for the right sound do yourself some ridin and cruising around town. If you were on a tight budget you would just install a glass pack muffler. It was not the same cause the high lift lifters added a sound that was all it;s own and the bigger the cam the heavier the sound was.

If you wanted to have some sounds in your ride you got your self an fm radio. Then along came 8 track tapes what a joke. A tape lasted maybe a good month on average. After you bought yourself an fm radio you would get some speakers. The systems at that time only pumped out about 4 watts a channel. When you turned the volume up to much on the speakers the sound became scatchy and high pitched and the speakers would rattle. All that has changed mobile entertainment systems are able to produce ear splitting audio.

Most of the time hot rodders would work all weekend to get their cars running, then go cruising the hangouts. People would start showing up about 10 at night and hang out till 2 or 3 o'clock. We would be out bragging and talking about who kicked ass. Around here where I live at the time we had two favorite places to gather up the Good Corner and the car wash. At The good corner you could buy drinks and get your eat on. The car wash was the place to hang out to do some drag racing. The fast and the furious don't have a thing on us.

At that time we didn't need no nitus oxide the cars got 2 or 3 miles to the gallon and produce raw horse power. Some of the heavy weights were running engines capable of putting out over 500 horses. During the mid to late seventies a gas shortage developed that forever changed the street rod. There was a saying about the cars passed everything but a gas station. In order to understand that saying you have to know that gas station were at every exit along the highways. In the city they were on every other corner almost. In those days getting even 10 miles to the gallon us unthought of.

The gas formula had already under gone a change doing the late sixties to remove lead. Lead was used as and anti knock agent.  Without lead the gas would preignite or when you turn off your car it would keep running. The run on would take place after you had driven your car awhile and the hotter the motor the worst the knocking and run on would be.

When the gas shortage came along there were devices installed to get better gas mileage. At first this devices were a total pain. For the most part they really did not work.  The anti pollution devices were mostly some type of pump that would freeze up. At any rate the cars of the mid seventies to late eighties were not for hotroding. Street rods as known before that had faded away.

Now once again the street ride is back. The changes and the improvements made to control emissions have actually improved the proformace of cars with better gas mileage to boot.

Those were not Your Granddaddies Rides

Now if you really want to know about how old school pimped and tricked a ride then visit with your great granddaddy. I am talkin fresh from the farm straight to the city. For some of you That's your great great granddaddy.

Now imagine this. These boys didn't have much money so they used the things that were easy to come by. You fresh city whipper snappers would catch hell from them they would leave you in the dust with your tonuges hanging out. They had a style of walking that was all thier own.

You see most of the things they used to pimp their rides they made them, their selves. Those sun visors that you see across the top of windsheilds. Your great granddaddies made their own. You should have seen them country boys mud flaps. They had mud flaps for real. You see the mud flaps on semi trailers that's what I am talking about mud flaps.

When they got real fancy they would get them selves a raccon's tail and have that hanging from where ever. Places like the rear view mirror inside the car and outside too. They would hang them from the license plates as well with small reflectors. Their idea of radar trap protection was a wire dragging on the roadway.

Then there was the real steer horns across the front of the hood. Here it is that you thought you came up with the idea about pimpin a ride. They would be ridin hard with their cowboy hats and boots with their kackie blues on. They paid less then 5 cents a gallon for gas.

Then there was the thing with horns.  Durring this time horns were a fashion statement. They were not just something that was put under the hood and forgotten about. They made lots of different sounds and were mounted on the top of the hood or cab. When on top of the cab the horns were placed on the drivers side and they were actually quit decreative.