8. WHEELS:
As
you can see from reading the above, cars where very important
to me as they were to most young boys. The first car I bought
was a 1960 Oldsmobile 88 that I bought for $75. from Skip Crews.
It was a pretty nice car, but it needed a cross-over pipe so the
exhaust was loud. I never registered that one, but (as usual)
I did drive it up the dirt road. One time Kit and I were in it
and got to the top of the hill and it quit and wouldn't start,
we walked back home and got my brother's 1962 Impala convertible
and jumpstarted the Olds and got it back home.
The first car that was actually registered and insured was a 1962 Chevy Impala that I bought from Nehr Chevrolet in Ilion for $300.
This
was the car I drove to college and to work when I started at the
Beech-Nut. One evening I got into an accident coming home from
Van Hornesville. It was on the bridge on Rt. 80 just before Starkville.
The bridge was narrow because of snow and the road was slippery.
I hit a Mercedes head on. We were going slowly so there wasn't
really too much damage and no one was hurt. The next morning I
was heading out to Springfield Center to see John Soposki. He
had a '62 Chevy in his yard and I wanted to see about getting
the hood and grille from it. I got outside of Van Hornesville
and the road was drifted to one lane. I got sideswiped by car
coming the other way. I told them we could meet at the bowling
alley to exchange information. I headed on up the road to turn
around and when I did, I got t-boned in the driver's door. Three
accidents in two days!
Eventually we put a red door on the car and my sister drove it
for awhile. Oddly, all three of us kids had a 1962 Chevy at some
point. My brother had the dark blue convertible, I had the gold
hardtop and my sister ended up with a white 4-door hardtop.
I needed a car for work, so I bought a 1965 Chevy Impala from Roosevelt's Chevy in Palatine Bridge for $595.
This car I raced at South Glens Falls and won my class. One day after work in the Beech-Nut I had gone up to my friend Dave Brodowski's house in Jordanville. He was working on a BSA motorcycle in his cellar and we messed around with that and other stuff. I didn't realize it, but while I was there we had gotten an ice storm and everything was covered in ice. I crept down toward Van Hornesville but when I got near Allen's Orchard I was afraid to go down through the steep curves. Another car had gone down ahead of me and I heard it hitting the guard rails. So I pulled into Allen's. Mrs. Allen had been my teacher in 7th and 8th grades. I went to their door and she loaned me boots, gloves, and a hat and I walked all the way home from there. A few hours later it warmed up enough for the ice to melt and my father drove me up to get my car back.
The next car I bought was another '65 Impala but this one was a convertible. It needed body work when I got it and I had that done and had it painted. I put headers on it and dual exhaust. When I started driving that car, I took the hardtop off the road and it was eventually sold to Cheryl Gay who would become my sister-in-law. I drove the convertible when I was dating Marie and her daughter, Michelle, was afraid of the noise it made. We had to bribe her by getting ice cream to get her into the car.
I traded the convertible in for a 1970 Chevy Camaro Rally Sport at Beadle Chevrolet in Richfield Springs. That was probably my favorite car of all that I've owned. It had a V8 engine and stick shift. I bought the factory style rear spoiler for a '72 Camaro and had it put on and had the car painted by the same guy who had painted my convertible. I put different wheels and tires on it, an Edelbrock Torker manifold, Holley carburetor, dual exhaust, Flex-a-lite fan, Accel Ignition, and Lakewood traction bars.
I raced this car at South Glens Falls too, but had to race in bracket class because of the manifold and carb. It wasn't eligible for stock class and wasn't built up enough for Modified Production.
Perhaps the biggest let-down of my life was trading this car for a 1973 Chevy Vega station wagon at Roosevelt's Chevrolet. I was getting married and the Vega was more practical. It actually served me pretty well because I was driving to the police academy in Troy everyday and it got good gas mileage. The fuel crisis was going on then with gas rationing and odd and even days for buying gas.
1973 Chevrolet Vega
I did jazz it up a little. I painted the grille black and bought the chrome trim for a Vega GT and put it on and added fog lights to the front. It was actually a nice looking little wagon with the wood-grain trim on the sides and on the tailgate.
Then I made probably my biggest mistake in car buying. I traded the Vega for a 1973 Opel Manta at Johnstown Dodge. I bought it because it was more sporty than the wagon and I liked the looks of the Opel Manta Rally. I didn't keep it long.
I traded the Opel for 1972 Chevy Monte Carlo at Kentris Chevrolet in Johnstown. The Monte Carlo was a nice car; pewter with a black vinyl top and wire wheel covers. I put an Edelbrock Streetmaster manifold on it and a Carter AFB carburetor, Mallory Uni-Lite ignition, a B&M Trans-pack in the transmission, a stainless steel fan, dual exhaust and air shocks. That car was raced at South Glens Falls. I raced it before I did all the work to it, so I could run in stock class, but they put me in E/SA when I should have been in I/SA. When I complained later the tech guy said he thought it was a 454 not a 350.
1972 Chevrolet Monte Carlo
The Monte Carlo was traded in on a 1976 Chevy Nova at Longwell Chevrolet. After that, I had one more car that I souped up. It was a 1977 Plymouth Volare with a V8 and a stick shift. I put an Offenhauser Dual-port manifold on it with a Carter Thermo-quad carburetor and larger exhaust.
From then out I just had a string of normal family cars with the exception of a 1966 Chevrolet Impala SS convertible that I bought. I drove that for awhile, and then traded it for a 1985 Pontiac Fiero. I liked the Fiero a lot; it was a fun car to drive. I added an additional sway bar to it, a computer chip, and wood grained interior. It had a sunroof and a V6 engine. I ended up selling it back to the guy I bought it from. He wanted it for his daughter and she took it to Oklahoma. That car was driven all over the country and ended up with tons of miles on it.
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