Some sad memmories of a great car guy.

[1969chargerrtse]

I dug up some pictures of an old friend of mine.  His name was Ralph Hall and he took his life way back in the late 70's I think.  He was 27.  He owned a Shell gas station and was a true Muscle car guy of the era.  He taught me so much about cars.  Those pictures are at Ct Dragway back in the day.  He's the tall skinny kid with the glasses.  He was the first person in the state at the time with a blower sticking out of his Nova.  The z was his baby.  I just can't remember him repainting it?  But the stripes changed color somehow.  The guys in high school crawled under the Z and opened up the headers on him one day.  He had no idea, and when it fired up loud he had to sit low in his seat and crawl out of the school parking lot by the cop guard real slow.  They were great times.  I have no idea why he took his life?  He was the type of guy I could ask anything of and he had a good answer.  He actually was my younger brothers friend.  He used to pick my brother up for rides.  I was so envious.  It wasn't fair as my brother couldn't tell you the difference from a muffler to a piston.   I was the car guy!    I remember him telling me how special the 302 in the Z/28 was.  He was like me in a way he could talk about cars all day long.  Sure do miss Ralph.  

[mikesbbody]

Sorry to hear about your Friend  I too lost a friend in the weekend he sounded like a great guy!

[tan top]

 sorry to hear about you friend Rob , good story & back in the day pictures , he sounded like a good guy

[1969chargerrtse]

Thanks guys, he was a real pure 60's 70's Muscle car guy.  The real thing.  At his Shell gas station he was running an experimental single piston ring small block chevy engine.  It was designed for super high rpm's.  All I remember back then was him telling me it had a huge vacumm issue where it would suck in gaskets.

[hemi68charger]

Sounds like you had a happy and fun car-life in your younger days..........  Keep the good memories alive............ 

Cheers,
Troy

[1969chargerrtse]

Sounds like you had a happy and fun car-life in your younger days..........  Keep the good memories alive............  

Cheers,
Troy

Yes I did. Here's the thing bugging me recently.  I grew up in that era. That's what we did as kids. At night we hung out in shopping lots and talked cars and spun our tires. Muscle cars was our life. Now it's a different world. My kids and most kids could care less about cars as we did as kids. Many times when I cruise in the Charger I can't help but feel how I'm in a dying hobby?  I look back at pictures like these and see a time long gone by.  I just feel like an old fart living in his past sometimes.  I understand it, my dad grew up in the comic book era, me in the fast car era. But that era is gone and sometimes it makes me sad.   I showed a woman a picture of my car the other day, she looked at it for a nano second and said " I hate old cars ". That bugged me for a bit. The next day I'm sitting in a DD lot sipping coffee and a guy swings by in his car and says " I had to swing back around to tell you how beautiful your car is ". Come on people make up your mind.  I know it's beautiful, but Americas love with the auto seems to be chillin.

[Magnumcharger]

I must be of the same generation as you.
My entire childhood was spent in preparation for the day when I could actually get my drivers license!
I wheeled my red-line "muscle-bike" around - laying rubber as often as I could, progressing through an endless series of home-built go-karts, and eventually attaining "co-pilot" status in the passenger seat of my friends' performance cars, until the day when I could plunk my ass in my own hotrod.
I built models....bought car magazines....saved my bottle money and bought Hotwheels....and memorized each and every type of car on the road, well before my tenth birthday.
I watched all of the "car-toons" on television on saturday morning, and it seemed like the car culture was coming at us in every direction.
I wanted to be speed racer, George Barris, Don Garlits, the Mongoose, the Snake, all of the big racers and customizers.
Now I have a garage full of cars. And a basement full of magazines.

And my 21 year old son is into X Box, Game cube and whatever Nintendo system is the latest rage. He owns a Dodge Neon that I helped pay for, and he hasn't driven it more than 100 miles in the three years he's owned it.

[1969chargerrtse]

Wow!!!   You are me! I've told my kids I would of sold my left lung for a mini bike. I was into go carts and mini bikes big time. I went to bed dreaming about owning the 300.00 Rupp Black Widow. So glad to see I'm not the only one in pain here.   I was worried I would get some negative feedback. My blue Murray F3 Eliminator with the 3 speed stick and slick tire was my baby for years as a kid.  I remember the first Hot Wheel commercials.   My Mom bought us the complete track and hid it in the dryer for Christmas.  Everytime she would go out for errands we would got to the dryer and continue setting it up and adding stickers to the motor house. Vvroooom.  

[Cooter]

This "Hobby" (I prefer "Way of life"), is most certainly not dying...I have a 15 Y/O step son that can't get enough of my 'ol Stroker Dart when I finally fired it up last night for the first time about a year. He looks at it and the other musclecars like I did when I was younger..I thought when I saw my friends cousin's 1967 Satellite for the first time, "Man! that must be what the "cool" guys drive!!" I had to have me one once I saw it in action down at the local Dairy Freeze...All the kids that don't have an interest in these cars don't know what they are missing and their fathers most likely weren't into "Tinkering" with them..Sure, they had the BRAND NEW convertible GTO's and Chevelles, but they have never had the pleasure of seeing your (Step) son's eyes light up when you ask him if he wants to go for a ride in the "ol Dart" after he's helped you work on it all day and hasn't really done anything really major, but feels like he did just the same...Parents today don't have tiime to Teach their kids anything, so they let them sit in front of a Cell phone text messaging, or in front of a computer all day, cause they are behaving and not bothering them...My boy loves to "Bench race" with the Local idiot import kids that tell him when he shows them pictures of his ratty '66 Plymouth Satellite, that his car is a "Hoopty" and he should be after that new sports car. I get a kick out of him asking me what the answer is to come back with a response to one of his croney buddies he's into it with online. Afterall, if I never told him what it was like to "Be different" then he would be just another kid..
He wants to be different and drive something that is loud, old, antique, most of all, AMERICAN and I couldn't ask for anything better......It's not dying, just waiting for a "select" few that have "the right stuff" to own one of these cars...My boy has it in spades...His name is Chris BTW.

PS, sorry bout your friend man, he sounds like someone I'd have liked to hollar at...I too lost my father to suicide and if it weren't for my auto shop teacher (Kind of my second father), getting me further into these cars and making HP, I'd prolly be just another guy looking at the cars at the shows...

[1969chargerrtse]

Great stuff to hear.  Sorry about your Dad.  Your treacher was a great man.