OT What Was the 'Coolest" Car Your Parents Had?

My dad had a ‘68 Volkswagen bug with a cammed Porsche engine. Flat black and lowered with the widest street legal tires you could have on the back. It had bullet tail lights from an early ‘60s Impala frenched into the back fenders. I used to sit on his lap and steer it down the road.

 

I’ll have to get the scoop from my dad and report back lol. It’s his old mini beer fridge that had been in his shop since before I was born.

 

The Dart was a very dependable car. Always wanted one back in the mid 60s but never had the money.
Then I was all set to by my ex roommates late 50s Austin Healy for $500. All it needed was a new head gasket. But about a day or two before we were going to seal the deal I got my draft notice and my world turned upside down.

 

Ahh, OK...like I said, I knew there had to be a story there.

 

Sit on his lap? In '68 I was dodging 150 mm rockets in a war.
By the way, In '63 I talked my mom into buying an Impala from ABC Chevrolet on West Burnside. Greatest car she ever owned.

 

Not sure what engines those had but the slant 6 was a very solid power plant.

 

Agree. These things were built really well.

 

Hey, the minute details are not always important, but this is old cars, this shit means something

 

I had 3 of them in my life...each one cost 300 dollars and I sold them for 300 dollars each time..basically the free cars of my life..they are wonderfully reliable, ugly cars with decent mileage...that slant six in those darts was one of the best american motors ever put in a car in my view....you had to put a new starter motor in them once in awhile because they were so low to the ground they'd eat gravel and weren't like other starters that were easy to rebuild....only design flaw
not chick magnet cars though...meat and potatoes no frills transportation

 

Our neighbors on our block had MGs and other neighbors had an Austin Healy and a Sprite. I loved all of those cars. Another neighbor had a Volvo which got me interested in Volvo. My dream car was an Austin Healy.

 

Yeah, I loved their dependability.

 

Yup, I'll never get back all the hours I spent working on my cars...especially the Triumphs. But at the time, it was worth it.

 

I read somewhere that this is the last year for the Impala.

 

ok vertically challenged dude!

 

The Rabbit was the American version of the European Golf. Essentially the same car.
Saw a conversion of a Rabbit to a Golf on Wheeler Dealers. Different bumpers, different headlights. The changing of the square American headlights to the round headlights of the Golf meant a lot of body work.

 

Not true, my Georgia grandmother bought a '64 Impala. I never liked that styling.

 

That was a great car.
I had a buddy in college that had the pickup truck. He once hauled a tread from his bulldozer in it and drove over rough terrain. He was a logger near Coos Bay. Now retired, he lives on the major fork of the Coos River about 25 miles out of town. Right on the River. Owns enough forested land that he once had two resident herd of elk. Truly God's country.

 

lol...Lanny, I was talking about THIS year being the last year for the Impala.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a31153803/chevy-impala-end-production/

 

I quit following cars since '63 except for the Super cars of the late 60s.
Also, I haven't seen many Impalas on the road so I guess I thought they were dead. Hey, talk to me about electronics or math or physics. I even know something about history and politics. Cars? I wish and often fantasize that I owned an extremely large collection of Classic cars. I also wish I owned a large collection of mostly closed restaurants like Shakey's Pizza, Morrison's Cafeteria, A&W Root beer car hop restaurants, Orange Julius restaurants, Haagen-Dazs and there's one that was based in California, I believe in the Bay area that had a roast Turkey, rib roast and ham in the window it was called something Hof Brau.

Edit:
Sam's Hof Brau suddenly comes to mind. They use to have one just East of Portland State University, once known as Vanport college. By the way, I actually saw the Vanport flood. I think my dad drove us to about the location where the original GI Joe's was. I got out of the car and with my father's hand on one side and my mother's hand on the other side I saw water across the road at our feet and as far as my tiny eyes could see. That was the death of Vanport College which they then moved to it's current location. At that location it was originally known as Portland State College. I think it became a university in about 1964.

I'm the king of trivia.

 

wow....lots of car memories here

I'll switch gears a little and talk about the most 'un-coolest' car I've been in, and it was my own. In 1970, I was working on a construction job in Bates, Oregon (east of John Day). I bought my first car for $75. Yeah, you're reading that right. It was a 1961 Rambler Classic Station Wagon. It was ready to go except for a tire and a starter.

it looked just about exactly like this:




now again....$75. The tire and starter ratcheted up the price to about $100. And I was mobile. Sure, it was the opposite of a chick magnet, but it got me to a lot of places. It had some dents, and a rear door never really closed tightly, but I put 40,000 miles on that thing in 3 years and only had to change the oil. The rear seat folded forward so I slept in it a few times when I was camping or the rumor is partying too hard

ugly car dear to my heart