Changing automotive times and fading Glory.

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I don't have that problem with the '68, because nothing about it says "hot rod." It's a total granny car, and I like it that way. Now, my '74 Barracuda with a 440 is a different story. One game I sometimes play when someone is gettin frisky at a light, is to blip the throttle like I'm engaging. Green light, they take off, and I just cruise away in peace. "See ya, sucker!"

like_A_pike said:
I’ve learned that about 60% of the tailgaters are actually trying to read the script on the truck lid.
Click to expand...
Funny, I have a similar story. I was towing the '74 to the shop a while back, and some a-hole was RIGHT behind me on the interstate. For a good while. Finally he goes to pass, and I'm ready with my middle finger. At the same time, he's ready with a thumbs up. Whoops. I think the whole time he was riding my tail, he was checking out my car.
 
I ignore these asshats now. **** can go wrong real quick and it's not worth it. Tailgaters... I slow down to under the speed limit. It really pisses them off and if they do hit me, well, we weren't going that fast to cause much injury or damage.
 
Yeah this probably doesn't help... Combined with sublime paint which I consider to be the one year option middle finger paint scheme for Dodge

IMG_20241107_185239697.jpg
 
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People are generally in a hurry and have some place to be. I’m just out for a joy ride. I don't think it’s attitude toward me or my car. They’re not proving anything. We’re just in their way.

When you were young in the 1970s, how much respect where you giving some old guy putting around in his pre-WW2 whatever????
 
Ok so there was this one time that I kinda instigated a quasi-street race/challenge. I posted the same story a million years ago on a thread called "kill stories" I think. Anyway, I was following an old tea bucket hot rod through downtown Waycross Georgia on the way back from meeting a contractor in Millwood, with orange car. It looks like a dad driving and his teenage son in the passenger seat. The dad is getting lots of thumbs up and comments as we go down the road but the kid had his nose buried in a cell phone and completely disconnected. I am a few car lengths behind them. At some point the tea bucket stops first at a light and I got the chance to pull up beside it and I warm up the radials a little and dad follows suit. Then we both gun it on green!! Well dad leaves me at the intersection like he had 1000 fewer pounds on him and a big block or something, but that kid put the phone down, was turned around looking back, and grinning from ear to ear.

you're welcome tea-bucket dad wherever you are.
 
IMG_4722001.jpg

This is the 70 Dart that I built in the early 2000s. It has had some changes since I sold it, including a new 408 stroker, but the appearance is not much different.
I had no shortage of idiots wanting to take a run against me, it wasn't crazy fast, but it was respectable, I would take up the challenge sometimes. One of the most memorable times was a Saturday evening, I had just installed the 3 inch TTi exhaust system that afternoon and had my wife and a friend and his wife in the car, just going for an ice cream cruise.
Sitting at a red light when a Honda pulls up beside and starts revving up the fart pipe. I didn't look at him, just quietly slipped the shifter into 1st gear, then hammered it on green. He wasn't even close when I backed off on the 1-2 shift, then he turned off at the next intersection. That just felt great!
 
It's not only the new iron. I get everything from mini vans to taxis trying to get me to step on it. It's annoying when you pull up to a light and wonder what kind of moron is going to want to race me with his whatever. Not only at lights, I've had them along side at forty or fifty, just laying beside, waiting for me to accelerate so they can get off on it. Jerks.
 
Ok, guys, but there's a flip side to all of this....

Summer of '22 (I think it was) I drove my '68 F250 into town for...something or other. On the way back home, on a 4 lane County Road, (but still in the suburbs) I hit a stoplight, and a C20 pickup of similar vintage pulled-up next to me. My exhaust at the time consisted of headers, straight pipes, and some old school cherry bombs that dumped before the axle, so it wasn't exactly what you would call quiet. And I could hear the Chevy next to me, so I knew his exhaust wasn't quiet either...

Neither of us looked at each other, but when the light turned green we both punched it.

For one block, until the next light.

At that light we finally looked at each other, and both of us were laughing our asses off! After all, two old, slow, noisy trucks duking it out for a block....

I had to turn off at the next light, but I got a honk and wave as the Chevy drove past me.

Priceless!
 
44070dart said:
It's not only the new iron. I get everything from mini vans to taxis trying to get me to step on it. It's annoying when you pull up to a light and wonder what kind of moron is going to want to race me with his whatever. Not only at lights, I've had them along side at forty or fifty, just laying beside, waiting for me to accelerate so they can get off on it. Jerks.
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Exactly it's all I'm trying to say!
 
Someone mentioned how I drove in the 70s? Granted I did some bonehead moves. But just to be rude and cut people off or have to get in front of them for some mysterious reason or ride your butt so close that you can't even see their grill in your rear view mirror well that would have got you a punch in the face back in the seventies or a ticket now thanks to lawyers it's just a world of passive aggressives and jerks for the most part. Not you guys though LOL
 
I still dont understand. Are you saying that people are rude to you because you have a muscle car, or because you're driving it like an old man, or that people are just plane rude no matter what or how you are driving?

So, when you are driving around in your american muscle car (the one with a lopey cam and louder exhaust) and someone pulls up and wants to give it a go, you're pissed?

I stopped riding with my buddy back in the 1970s because he tailgated everyone all the time. Like one car length at 70 mph in rush hour traffic on I-75. Of course if you only drive 70 mph on I-75 today, someone will put you in a ditch. Where I grew up tailgating and cars cutting-in happened 5 times a day.

There are a lot more cars on the road today. People do seem to be less tolerant, particularly in larger cities/metro areas. But that is just the way it is. It has nothing to do with my experience, I'm in control of that.

If this thread isnt the definition of we're getting old, I don't know what is.
 

I get some attention when I drive the shiny one...

IMG_3297.JPEG


Sometimes people smile, wave, even take pictures. I love that....They are happy to see a car on the road that they normally only see in movies or old TV shows.
We are stewards for the hobby. The casual enthusiasts that might never own a classic car sometimes really get a charge out of seeing us out in the wild. I've obliged with burnouts, revving engine, bang shifts and other Tom Foolery...Why? Because I would want to see them do it if I were in my daily drivers and saw a cool car out on the road.
Nobody tries to race me in the read car or this one:

000 F.JPG
 
like_A_pike said:
Ok so there was this one time that I kinda instigated a quasi-street race/challenge. I posted the same story a million years ago on a thread called "kill stories" I think. Anyway, I was following an old tea bucket hot rod through downtown Waycross Georgia on the way back from meeting a contractor in Millwood, with orange car. It looks like a dad driving and his teenage son in the passenger seat. The dad is getting lots of thumbs up and comments as we go down the road but the kid had his nose buried in a cell phone and completely disconnected. I am a few car lengths behind them. At some point the tea bucket stops first at a light and I got the chance to pull up beside it and I warm up the radials a little and dad follows suit. Then we both gun it on green!! Well dad leaves me at the intersection like he had 1000 fewer pounds on him and a big block or something, but that kid put the phone down, was turned around looking back, and grinning from ear to ear.

you're welcome tea-bucket dad wherever you are.
Click to expand...
Every time I've been through Waycross, there have been some of the worst storms ever. lol
 
Kern Dog said:
Ha...
I don't care if everyone likes my car or is impressed by it.
I like it, that is all that matters to me. If someone else likes it, that is nice but it isn't what drives me to own them.
Click to expand...
Exactly!!

It’s just a mistake to think that everyone else thinks your car is special.
 
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