great big american shite

[Taff]

i love driving shite cars but i also think that i missed out in life. see, I was born to be tattooed white trash, never happier than when i'm barreling through the badlands in a big-arsed gas guzzler with a cracked windscreen and a dozen empty Marlboro packets on the dash top

 

here is my latest foray into the great big american shite, a 1959 Ford Galaxie, just (literally, as in 21st dec 2011) arrived from Kansas

 

prior to the Ford I owned this muddy-funster, a 1949 chevy 2 dr sedan, 4200cc straight six and no sound proofing at all, i always thought it was like being in a dambuster

 

and before the chevy, I was a real-deal rednek in this, a 1966 chevy C20 fleetside, 4400cc straight six and floor change, check out the furry dice and chrome truck mirrors

 

also owned Cadillacs, Buicks, Pontiacs and so on and so forth and as soon as i can find some pics of them, i'll post them up too, love them for no other reason than I can

 

anyone else love tatty yank shite, or is it just me?

[Negative Creep]

I'm liking the pickup. Ideal for throwing empty bud cans out of, parking outside schools or chasing down "certain types" of people

[trigger]

That pick up is the sex, If i was a rich man I'd be smokin about in a 50's one.

[eddyramrod]

I had to ask, didn't I? Taff, you are a total hero! Marvellous stuff, and I'm in love with your 59 Ford!

[lovejoy]

Seconded, Taff, love the Galaxie, had a '72 in black with a lazy 351 lump in some time ago, down in Dorset, traded it for a Renault 12 Estate

from a carpenter who needed summat more practical to carry his timber n tools in; the Galaxie was chock full of wood shaving when i got it!

 

No pics here to put up, but it ended up being driven to Spain by the next owner, had an LPG conversion too, came in from USAF base in Belgium, but at that time there was no place I could find LPG available.

 

Love the pickup too, great character - post up some more of your others, cars from an era never to be repeated, cheers !

[Rocket88]

''61 Galaxie wagon,'64 Galaxie rag top, '64 Impala rag top '65 Galaxie 4 door pillarless, '71 Riveira boat tail, 2 Camaros, Nash Metropolitan pick up [The Pharao, some of you will have heard of it] 2 Chevy Monte Carlos [the 70's G body ones] 3 Cadillacs of various vintage, '78 Chrysler Cordoba, '65 Thunderbird, a '78 Firebird, Ford F150 pick up, '90 Chevy Caprice wagon,

[bigstraight6]

That Ford is superb Taff, I think those 59's were one of the best looking late fifties Yanks, An excellent choice I've always wanted something from this era, my MK3 Zodiac gets close in looks if not scale! Any more pics?...

[Cavcraft]

Galaxie and C20 are top drawer.

Can you talk us through importing stuff from America please Taff, it'd be interesting to know what to do, costs involved, import duty etc?

 

Edit: Only Sceptic motors I've had were a GM Sierra 2500 pick-up (with a 4.3 Vortex engine) and a GMC Suburban 6.5TD.

[oman5]

Before wife and kids I used to love scruffy old yank shite...it doesn't seem to be around in the same quantities as it used to be. I had

 

1976 ford f150 pickup, 351(5.7) V8

1981 chevrolet caprice classic 305 (5.0) V8

1981 cadillac seville with 350 olds diesel. just awful but i loved it

[Taff]

i've got some digi pics of my caddy on here somewhere, pics of my other huge yank shite is proper pics, so i'll get themscanned and posted up soon.

 

i've imported three cars now and it's really not a big deal. i'll write up the process and attach it as a word doc, easier on bandwidth that way.

 

There used to be load of old yank shite kicking about but i guess it all got used up either as V8 donor's for hot rods or went banger racing (certainly seen plenty of shonky old yanks on the oval down at chedder and at Standerlake).

 

the only prob with owning the C20 was the size of it, as the bed was 8ft long, it ended up being filled with re-cycling and then off to the tip once a month with a bed full of carboard and glass. uber-cool fun getting there though, and it pulled like a train.

 

The '59 has a siezed motor and rotted out sills, thats why it was cheap!!

couple of more pics

 

[Rod/b]

Lovely stuff. My yank desire is a 68 Galaxie 500 Sedan, because if it's good enough for the KLF...

[AeroNautiCal]

Very, very nice!

 

Check out this super, old school series for more yank festiveness and great tunes; http://youtu.be/nQS16P2m2Lc

[wuvvum]

I've had a '76 Cadillac Sedan de Ville, a '77 Seville and a '76 Ford LTD wagon, in varying states of disrepair. I've also had a tatty Fox-body Mustang and a couple of Chrysler K-cars. Had a late '80s Taurus and a '99 Cadillac STS too, but they were both quite tidy...

[Taff]

just found the pics of my old cadillac, 1952 Coupe deville fitted with a 6600cc chevy motor

 

 

[HMC]

Fantastic! So your no longer the owner of the caddy?

[boobydoo]

Yup, I love yank stuff. That Galaxie looks the nuts. I used to prefer late 50s finned stuff, but now I seem to be getting turned on by their chintzy 70s styles.

They seem to have such evocative names for their cars too-

 

BelAir, Biscayne, Fleetwood, Fury, Caprice...much better than Montego or Escort.

[scooters]

In a last life I definitely lived in a really shonkey trailer park just outside Cousinfucker, Arkansas. Despite my family's best efforts to educate me well and my wife's best efforts I keep being drawn to the white trash life...jeans, bad cowboy boots - dodgey tashes, in the days when I smoked, a fag packet rolled in my tshirt sleeve - too tight - and a loving of bad rock music and cheesey country...I have some dismal mid west hell hole radio station on my phone app bluetoothed to the car stereo..you get really pish ads like:

 

"Ernie Kaltenbrunner's Rib and Lard Shack...fo' all yo' rib & lard needs"

 

Really appreciate the pics of the dreadful tin...I especially like the way your cars are in true 'shite' condition - so often yanks over here are far too polished for my liking.

[eddyramrod]

They seem to have such evocative names for their cars too-

 

BelAir, Biscayne, Fleetwood, Fury, Caprice...much better than Montego or Escort.

 

We can do Montego!

[Taff]

Really appreciate the pics of the dreadful tin...I especially like the way your cars are in true 'shite' condition - so often yanks over here are far too polished for my liking.

 

 

thanks, i think

 

when hauled up in front of the classic courts for crimes against yank tin, my brief will spell out in my defence "m'lud, while they all looked like shite, they were fundamentally sound, had legitimate MoTs, ran very well and in the case of the chevy, actully tuned up so as to be quite economical*

 

I know what you mean about shiney, though i am also a lazy tw4t who hates flatting back at the best of times!!

 

* if 22mpg on a run can be ever called economical

[Pete-M]

Big old Yank shite is ace. I've messed around with a few bits and always thought of it as an almost justifiable "guilty pleasure".

 

They're not bad at what they do. Even the most underpowered, detuned 70's tat tended to be a 4.0 litre so at least there was normally a bit of torque to surf about on. My old 5.7 V8, 145 bhp, "oh man you shot Marvin"* Malibu Coupé was an ace motorway waft-mobile even in standard spec. It'd wallow along at 80 all day and be a perfectly acceptable and enjoyably burbley way to get about. Provided you left lots of braking space, preferably about three times what you think you'll need. Bloody big white vinyl bench seat, insanely over assisted steering, column selected 3 speed slurry auto, cruise, aircon and an AM radio. It'd do about 24 mpg on a run provided the run was clear enough to avoid stopping often.

 

I had a 66 Dodge D100 pick up with a 3.8 or 4.0 straight six for a short while. 3 speed manual column shift. Proper hillbilly spec one in white. That was ace fun. Noisy and more than a bit crashy over bumps but a bloody good giggle. Wasn't too tragic on fuel if driven half-sensibly, but that wasn't the way to drive it. It thrived on being driven badly, so that's what it got. I'd have that back tomorrow.

 

A lot of my mates when I had RS2000 Escorts had Yank stuff. Billy had (and still has) an immaculate '65 Mustang hardtop with a very lairy 289 in. Gary had a mental Pontiac LeMans which only used to play out on a Saturday night. Carl had a 67 Camaro RS SS with about 600 bhp, two speed auto, no power assistance on anything and drums all round. Alan had an Oldsmobile Delta 88 and a few other random things, a Jim Rockford Trans-Am being one of the most rust riddled things I've ever known to constantly pass legit MOTs. Went like stink, that thing. Had the "Radial handling pack" or summat and a couple of minor tweaks here and there. Never class it as anything other than exciting when it came to going around corners, Al had two ways of driving it. His techniques for getting the thing around a bend always involved huge amounts of throttle and a large amount of blind hope. It could do the Knotty Ash / M62 roundabout in a huge shouty circle of its own tyre smoke. A terrifyingly amusing spectacle to observe, and gut bustingly funny to follow. The view from inside the Trans-Am was pretty funny as nothing in the thing appeared to be actually attached and the 'shaker' hood confirmed that not much was attached properly on the outside. I wish I'd bought it.

[Barry Cade]

I love Detroit iron, have owned a few over the years, highlights were a 1978 Dodge d100 with a hoofin great 400ci big block, which had been breathed on quite a bit. Paid 450 for it iirc and it was insane 33x10x15 back tyres would light up on a whiff of throttle, side pipes would shoot out huge blue flames on the overrun, and the noise was AMAZING.. used to potter about multi storeys like Ryan O Neil, then hoof it and set off every car alarm in the place. 8 MPG hurt tho.. The engine lives on in a Willy's coop drag car.

 

Next fave was a 1972 Dodge Challenger, which was my dream car... well a '70 was my dream but too expensive. It was 2 dollars to the quid at the time so I got a whole load of tuning bits from the States for next to nothing... engine parts are stupidly cheap. It was quick, totally reliable, and actually handled pretty well, but the drum fron brakes were crap, and the thing was rotten.

 

On the bucket list is a 77 Trans Am, an IROC Camaro, and a Fall Guy GMC. And a 70 Ford Torino. And a '68 Charger. And a 70 Firebird... OK I'll stop now.. drool.

[Guest]

Great thread!

 

Some Septic tin is on my list, for definite. Right at the top is a 1970 Ford Maverick with some kind of disgusting 302 \ T5 combo. Followed by a '69 AMX Javelin, and then a '63 Buick Riviera.

[Rod/b]

If you like your classic Amerkun Iron, you'd love it here in Qatar. Petrol costs 17p a litre and there's usually a decent selection of cars and trucks on www.qatarsale.com or www.carsemsar.com.

[boobydoo]

I remember on my first ever trip to the States in 1994, getting quite excited by the array of interesting cars pounding the highways, most of which I'd never seen before.

 

One that particularly took my eye was a Buick Skylark...it seemed quite popular and was invariably driven by older folk. This is it:

 

 

I think I just liked the styling of it and the fact that it looked a bit naff.

 

The other was the then current Pontiac Bonneville, which I thought was a very handsome car...again mainly driven by overweight older folk in lurid velour tracksuits and those peaked visor things on their heads.

 

[scooters]

If you like your classic Amerkun Iron, you'd love it here in Qatar. Petrol costs 17p a litre and there's usually a decent selection of cars and trucks on http://www.qatarsale.com or http://www.carsemsar.com.

 

I like this old Cutlass

 

http://www.qatarsale.com/mycar_e.aspx?carid=62631

 

65K in Qatari Thingimybubs is about 12 grand in pounds..VAT and shipping add another 2.5 grand and that is not bad at all for a minter

[Taff]

don't know if it's of interest, but i noticed that a cdouple of you liked my old truck

 

http://modelthaven.com/63p.html

 

cheap for that money and i've bought a couple of cars through Model T Haven, they make it very easy and I had my 59 galaxie shipped straight to Milton keynes by them.

btw, at todays exchange rate, that truck is only £1454.......

[Charlie Croker]

I love Americans from the late 60s to the early 70s. A Kojak shape Buick Regal for me like.