What were you doing 46 years ago today?

[strangebrew]

I was tracking the "cold war" bad guy's nuclear submarines for the US Navy from the beautiful island of Guam.
My son was tooling aound in my 1971 Toyota pickup out in front of the apartment. :auto-driving:



Of course, on my time off, I was scratchbuilding modifieds to run on my "home-built" track. :D
Of course they weren't vintage mods then. :D
.............Island wear, at the time, included lavender Ts & bell-bottoms. :roll:

[Fitzy]

Trying to convince my Mom I could drive this! I was 5 still remember the HO track my Dad setup for us in the basement it was on a 4 x 8 table wish I had all that stuff now.

[4424ever]

I was 9 probably chasing someone with a stick and putting pennies on the railroad tracks :D

[dreinecke]

Congrats you crazy newlyweds! :)

I was 4 and still learning to keep Model Motoring cars on the track.

[chappyman66]

First off....congrats on 46 years! A great testament to both of you!

Second...yeah, I was in 3rd grade. Slot cars would have been the Marx 1/24 set. My sister drove the Ferrari, I drove the Chaparral. Hmmmm......still have the set in the basement.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

These are great. Keep 'em coming!

After the wedding, we got into our brand new 1972 Vega GT fastback coupe, and drove all the way to New Orleans-- almost. The gas shortage had hit in those days, and we ran out of gas just a few miles from the hotel. Yes, we ran out of gas on our wedding night!

By the way, the next year we bought a Vega Wagon GT for my wife. Because I have always been a gearhead, I knew to never allow the engines to overheat (steel pistons in an aluminum block with no sleeves- what were they thinking?), swapped the thermostats as a safety net, and got long mileage from the Vegas. Mine went 160,000 before I traded it, and my wife got 180,000 from hers before we traded it. Never burned a drop of oil in either one of them.

[crossovercrazy]

Best thread on this board in years!

I was eight years old, probably racing on our Eldon set older brother Skip bought at Sears (I think), set up out in the garage. I spent the first $5 I ever had for a 1/32 Eldon Mustang (still have it), and never beat his Camaro (I don't think I have still beaten him, in 46 years of slot car racing). I remember he picked up a routed banked oval and later had it in that garage, but I never remember racing on it. I remember the "Gilligan's Island" style radio out there, with the Evil Kneviel/Harley red-white-and blue #1 painted on it, playing Top 40 hits like Bill Withers' "Aint No Sunshine", The Undisputed Truth's "Smiling Faces", and some James Taylor and Carole King thrown in, and hopefully a Charlie Daniels' "Uneasy Rider" or Commander Cody's "Hot Rod Lincoln" to lighten things up. My brother's 70 Camaro would have been in the driveway, soon to be joined by his and my dad's Bucket T street rods, an occasional dune buggy, rail dragster, kit car and even an old Trans Am racer at one point, and a few stock cars for the local race track (the last one of those in that driveway was my 66 Galaxie in 1987). Grates in the driveway let us conveniently pour the used oil right into the sewers.

Speaking of local short track, here's a pic of me around that time, leaning on Bobby Isaac's K & K Insurance Dodge Daytona, just after it set the world speed record, behind the grandstands of our local Louisville Fairgrounds Motor Speedway (eat your heart out for the purple hippie-flower britches, boys):



My 1964 Cadillac Coupe De Ville stock car (pictured in my avatar) or 1972 Buick Centurion race car were not housed in that same driveway, but my last race car (with me in it), the 66 Galaxie "Executioner II" (bearing the wounds of my last wreck in it) is parked in the same driveway and front on the same garage, about 15 years later:



The dawn of the Internet in the mid-90s opened the world to us, and even let us preserve globally our past, but in turn we lost the mystery of our worlds being defined by our neighborhoods and things that plopped into them from our mailboxes or touring shows, and we lost a lot of the wonder we enjoyed in those days.

[historiceng]

11 years old, riding a Raleigh Chopper, delivering on my paper round, had my eye on the girl across the field and enrolling in the ATC (Air Training Corps, a little like scouts but connected to the RAF) and first glider flights.
I always wanted to be like the Californian boys on TV, riding a Schwinn Stingray and tossing the papers into the garden without stopping!

I had a pet Labrador / German Shepherd and we had Jersey cows, pigs and lots of animals.

I had an Austin A60 to roar around the field, my brothers bought a BSA bantam for me, but I stood and waited for my turn until finally they handed me a smoking hot seized poor old thing that was now only ok to scoot down the lane making motorbike noises... they did the same with a Scalextric track and Shark Nose Ferrari too :/

For 50p I cleaned the boots, leathers and bib for a local speedway rider Mike Keen of Swindon Speedway, my first introduction to a dirt oval speedway track, after that all of my bicycles were converted to knobbly tyres and big wide 3/4" water pipe handle bars!

And gathering everything Apollo 16 too!


Happy Anniversary waytoomuch!

Cincyslots and FC47 .... Great answers ... FC47 very subtle :clap:

[slothead]

Hey, crossovercrazy, it seems to me those purple hippie-flower britches of yours must have been very popular back in the day. Looks like Sears must have had a sale because Strangbrew got a pair too. :banana-dance:

From time to time guys on this sight wonder how can we expand the hobby and keep it going. All of these stories suggest to me that where ever there are motorheads there are potential slot car addicts. Dave Kennedy - if your reading this let the Scalextric brass know they need to fund a booth and layout at some vintage car races, such as Historic Trans Am and have a bunch of their TA cars for sale along with some race sets. I go to cars shows and cruise nights all the time in the summer and a slot car track would be a big hit and let folks know the hobby is still alive and well.

Slothead

[waaytoomuchintothis]

CrossoverCrazy: I never noticed that Caddy. I always thought it was a Pontiac when I saw it. And I had a 1959 Cadillac! It was a hearse/ambulance with flowers and crap painted all over it in spray paint, but still...

[Audi1]

Teaching HS Biology while I figured out what I wanted to do with the rest of my professional life............

Allan

[crossovercrazy]

waaytoomuchintothis: why not reproduce your car in slot form - I know at least 59 Cadillacs are abundant on EBay, to start from! I want to see it, fully adorned!

[crossovercrazy]

[BIG E]

I was working as a mechanic's apprentice at the local FORD dealer here on Long Island.
On the weekends... playing drums and singing in a rock and roll band (still doing a bit of that) on Friday or Saturday nights.
Sundays... bangin' gears in my big block '65 Galaxie at New York National Speedway! Unfortunately, no spare $$$ for 1/1 scale racing now - but lots of great slot cars to race! Since '63, the HO slot car track was always set up in the basement and got as much use as time would allow. Oh yeah... girls. Lots of fun with them back in the day, either ridin' in the car or the "groupies" that used to follow our band locally.

Man, it was good to be young! Not so bad bein' old, either! -- Ernie :>)

[waaytoomuchintothis]

Full marks for being a reader of literature, Crossover Crazy!



I'll look for a model of the hearse. I've never seen one.