Cruisin in the 80's

[Brain75]

I'm just a few years younger (not much) that you Jim, class of '93, so I got my license in '91.... up till Jan '91 gas was $0.99/gal, then desert shield was announced and Bush said it would turn into desert storm - gas jumped to $1.99, and has never come down since. I never got to drive on "cheap gas" back in the day, got my license a day too late.

That said, we put CB's in our cars (traded out the ash tray), chased girls, 'drug main' (that is cruising up and down - not smokin stuff) and built up our cars for power and speed too.... the guys shortly after me though yeah they put more money into speakers than under the hood.

One town over they referred to it as "sportin 6th" (same thing - cruising up and down the same street back and forth).

Only reason I got a car instead of a truck back then was advice I was given by my mom... I lived on a farm and she said "If you buy a truck it will end up getting used on the farm and be just as much of a farm truck as the junk we have now". I quit looking at trucks cause she was right it would have ended up abused on the farm. Over the years with the cost of gas and the fact small trucks get so horrible mileage (20mpg compared to a convertible that can do 22/32 is horrible to me - and I have done a ton of highway driving) I never really yearned for a truck real hard. Glad I finally got one now though.

 

[Jim Oaks]

I'm just a few years younger (not much) that you Jim, class of '93, so I got my license in '91.... up till Jan '91 gas was $0.99/gal, then desert shield was announced and Bush said it would turn into desert storm - gas jumped to $1.99, and has never come down since. I never got to drive on "cheap gas" back in the day, got my license a day too late.

I graduated in 1986. Back when I went to Myrtle Beach for spring break gas was around $0.80 a gallon. You could actually get somewhere on $5.00 of gas.

 

[MaicoDoug]

On Fair Oaks Blvd it ended on the bay side of the hwy 101, shut down on Friday nights for drag racing! With an ambulance always attending. Things were cool back then in the early 70s with guys returning back from Vietnam holding to whatever was left of themselves. I enlisted in at 16, w/a GED. In '74 working on B-52s up in the cold country. Got out in '78, working hard to own a 1975 "wine red" Camaro. Sanyo Bi-Amped stereo was the hot set up. Wasn't much happening except sounds & looks. Later I hoped it up with an Comp Cams street/street cam, headers & a Holley double pumper, still got that sticker on my toolbox! With 50s. But with that 1: 3.35 rear end ratio not much was going to happen. Cruzed first street in San Jose & the El Camino. CB was the very first social media. Hanging out on Skyline Blvd overlooking the bay area was the thing. You can talk long distance. Met Neil Young in a field across the hwy on the hill top behind the spot. Ran into him a few times. I will find a pic or two of what I was doing back then. A couple of times we road tripped up to Modesto & Manteca in the valley, exactly where that American Graffiti movie was shot. There was always some sort of CB "Break" where we all would meet & greet. I would love to find an old EQ/Amp with that pretty bar graph spectrum display, they distorted so bad.

Around '73 we used to Fox hunt late all night long on the CB radio. The cops were glad they had help! I was a police cadet during my high school days. Friend had a turquoise Road Runner, (he had a incredibly beautiful Japanese girlfriend that I had to turn away often, my mistake) & a maroon '66 chevelle. Both were Stanford students, so no $$ for upgrades. I remember being the very first to install a "line level" amplifier for an automobile stereo system. Pioneer 6x9s, but the 20watt ones, not the higher rated 2 or 3 way ones. Those were junk if anyone asked me! We wanted bass. We wanted to play train sounds where there were no trains. We wanted sound. The Radio Shack had this thing with huge heatsinks, some sort of amplifier, talked a friend into buying it & we installed it. No distortion. He said it wasn't loud enough....Sometimes on a Saturday night I would put the home speakers in the back seat! Crazy kid I used to be, still am in many ways. I need to dig out 2 pictures & post them.

 

[JohnnyO]

I graduated high school in 1978. At that time 60's and early 70s era muscle cars were still common. My car was technically dad's car, a 1968 Firebird purchased new by my grandmother and my dad called dibs when she wanted a new car, which came in 1973. I got my license in 1976. At the time my dad was taking a commuter train to work in Pittsburgh so the Firebird was mine to drive to school as long as I didn't mind getting up early to take him to the train and pick him up.
The Firebird had a 350 2bbl, a two-speed automatic, and 3.23 posi highway gears so it wasn't much out of the hole but it had a helluva top end. It had A/C which was rare at the time, I added an FM converter which fit nicely where the ashtray had been, a Craig quadrophonic 8-track with four speakers, and a CB to the left of the tape deck. At the time half the county was driving black and gold Trans-Ams but the little 350 would put the hurt on a 400 smog motor T/A.
Later I added a Thrush turbo muffler, Mr. Gasket curve kit for the distributor, and of course flipped the air cleaner lid over. A neighbor had a 67 Firebird that he traded in on a new van and he sold me his ET chrome slotted wheels for cheap, 14x7 fronts and 14x8 rears to which I added E60-14 front and G60-14 rear Remington XT-120 bias belted tires.

Cruising and CB radios were the social media of the day. Like @sgtsandman, Jerry's Curb Service (where we're meeting for dinner on Saturday) was the hot spot and people would race on Rt. 51 above Jerry's. Also directly across the river from Jerry's is Hank's Frozen Custard and Mexican Food on Rt. 18. Both places are still there and a little racing still goes on too. Warm nights in the summer both places would be hopping but that was a time when the average kid out of high school could get a good-paying job in a steel mill and afford a nice muscle car or 4x4 truck in a year or two.