Car Culture

I got in on the end of the car culture in the mid
60's. We had a circuit downtown that everybody
drove on Fri and Sat night, just like in the movie
American Graffiti. The car was king, its where you
showed off your tricked out 57 Chevy or 1950 Merc.

The Big Boy was where everybody ate and they had
an army of car hops that brought the food to you in
your car. We lived in the cars without actually living
in them. This had been going on since the late 50's
and it was gone by the late 60's. The guys with the
coolest cars always got the best chicks, but only if
you had booze. And those 50's guys were always
willing to buy it if you gave them a couple bucks for
their trouble.

It was a part of life to ride the circuit endlessly on
weekend nights. No drugs, no cell phones, just beer
and smokes and the coolest cars you ever saw or ever
will see again.

Quote: Evenbob

The Big Boy was where everybody ate and they had
an army of car hops that brought the food to you in
your car.

Speaking of cars and the local Big Boy, I once worked with a guy had some kind of car with a monster engine back in the day. I forget what it was exactly except that it had dual quads with the second one set so you could manually engage or disengage it, which is how the conservation got started. They would drive and hang at the local franchisee of the Big Boy, called Eat-n-Park. It was at the end of a very long and straight bridge that was over 1/4 mile long and had a traffic light at the one side, plus a long hill at the far end--need I say more? For those history buffs out there, the bridge split thru and over the site of the famous Homestead Works, where the big Carnegie/Frick strike was.

So there was some waitress there who thought she was about as hot as her car was, and they both were! She was a Shirley Muldowney type and would bet $50 or something against a night with her if your could beat her in a race across the bridge. Well one night this guy had to work and his buddy borrowed the car. He won the bet! Last time she made it.

The guy I knew was pissed!

Quote: Evenbob

It was a part of life to ride the circuit endlessly on weekend nights. No drugs, no cell phones, just beerand smokes and the coolest cars you ever saw or ever will see again.

Now you can slink around and pick up granola girls.

And half the songs on the radio were about cars.
GTO, Little Deuce Coupe, 409, Fun Fun Fun, Drag
City, Shut Down, Dead Man's Curve. We cruised
around listening to songs about cars. Your car
was everything. I can't imagine a car song now.
My Ford Focus, its really rad.. Yeah right..

And all we had was the AM top forty, that was our
connection to each other. There were no FM stations
in your car yet, no internet, no smart phones.
Your AM car radio was your lifeline. Can you imagine?

All the action on the Circuit was at the traffic lights. It
was common for the guy in a car to hold up a 6 pack
and the two girl passengers in the car across from him
would abandon that driver and hop into 6 packs car. It
went on and on like that for hours. Gas was 25 cents a
gallon, who cared if you were getting 12 mpg.

Quote: Evenbob

And half the songs on the radio were about cars.
GTO, Little Deuce Coupe, 409, Fun Fun Fun, Drag
City, Shut Down, Dead Man's Curve. We cruised
around listening to songs about cars. Your car
was everything. I can't imagine a car song now.
My Ford Focus, its really rad.. Yeah right..

We could update a few songs......

"She's real fine, my 4.9"
"Pink Lexus"
"Fun, Fun, Fun til her daddy takes the Camry away"
"Hot Rod Altima"
"While Driving in my Maxima" (BEEP BEEP remake)

Then again, maybe not. Face it, nobody working in the VW Passat factory will bring it home "One Piece at a Time"

The car songs evolved and were popular because
it was a car culture. In the mid 50's we fell in love
with what Detroit was putting out and it lasted
about 15 years. Of course we thought it would last
forever in 1964. Speaking of 64, you can't know what
a hit the Mustang was unless you were there. I knew
a guy that had a 66 Mustang Cobra with a 429 and
it scratched rubber just shifting into 3rd normally.
It was a frightening car. Looked like this:

Some people dream it and then some people live it.

Driving a vintage car in 2013 is not quite the
same thing. You can use a candlestick phone,
that doesn't mean its 1926.

Is there a "car culture" in the UK and European countries where drivers licenses are tough to get and cars are even tougher? Or are my perceptions of these countries out of date.

In the USA "car culture" supports massive industries such as Performance Shops that "tune" engines for power and sound obsessions beyond all sane considerations, car races, crash festivals, etc. Do such things exist in other countries? I somehow don't envision Iceland as having very many hot rods.

Quote: Fleastiff

In the USA "car culture" supports massive industries

The car culture here has been dead for 40
years. There may be a car cult now, but the
culture that spawned a newly designed car
in every model every year from Detroit is
long gone. The culture that spawned all the
Top 40 car songs is long gone. Most of the
drive-ins where you took your honey on a
Friday night and watched the movie from the
back seat of a 57 Dodge are gone.

Sept was always a magical month because the
new model cars for next year were unveiled.
Fins and chrome and cool wheel covers and
a suspension that made you feel like the car
was floating down the highway.