[caption id="attachment_1816" align="alignleft" width="300"] Steve Portias with his 1968 Ford Econoline named "Ripped Van Ripple"[/caption] Steve Portias, Inland Vans Berdoo, wrote of his recollection of…{"id":2040,"date":"2012-09-25T15:28:13","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T22:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.pomonaswapmeet.com\/?p=2040"},"modified":"2015-09-29T13:20:37","modified_gmt":"2015-09-29T20:20:37","slug":"what-we-did-to-customize-cars-in-the-60s-and-70s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/25\/what-we-did-to-customize-cars-in-the-60s-and-70s\/","title":{"rendered":"What We Did To Customize Cars in the 60’s and 70’s"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Steve Portias with his 1968 Ford Econoline named “Ripped Van Ripple”<\/p><\/div>\n

Steve Portias, Inland Vans Berdoo, wrote of his recollection of customizing cars in the 1960’s and 1970’s. He was kind enough to let us post his work.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The most popular cars were 1955-57 Chevy’s, any Corvette, then all the Muscle Cars, V.W.’s and Vans….but, we still had to add our personal touches. After the 50’s, with their popular early 50’s Mercury’s and 32′ Coupes and the Fuzzy Dice, Lake Pipes, Chop Tops, Curb Feelers, and flat head engines came a whole new generation and custom bolt on accessories that never ended.<\/p>\n

With funds always being low, the first thing was to go to Pep Boys and buy a custom $6 Metal Flaked Steering Wheel. Maybe, put on a Brodie Knob. Then a good “Sun” Tach for about $9, no matter if you had a Hot Rod or a cruiser, you just had to have one.<\/p>\n

You had to have some good “sounds” also, so the latest, besides an am\/fm radio, was a 4 Track tape deck for about $39, later upgraded to a 8 Track, then cassette tapes. Brand names like Muntz and Craig Pioneer were the most popular. And C.B. radios were popular with the “Vanners”.<\/p>\n

Custom wheels have always been a must, which went from chrome reverse wheels, to Moon hub caps and beauty rings, to American Mag five spokes, then Centerline aluminum wheels and then the Astro Type wheels. Cost were about $29 for a good “Mag” wheel. There were popular brands like American, Keystone, Mickey Thompson, U.S., Fenton, E.T. and Cragar among others. Some of the wheels had what was called\u00a0 Uni-Lug pattern that would fit Ford or Chevy and included VW adapters. Tire trends got huge…the wider the better on the rear, from White Walls to Tiger Paw Red Line, Blue Streak, Raised White Letters and back to Black Walls. Many were aircraft or Indy type. Recap Cheater Slicks were very popular with the street racers. Recap slicks from Little Mountain Tire Service always worked.<\/p>\n

Window tint hit the market in the late 60’s, but what a mess, with the “spray on” tints, no matter how good you were it always ran and had streaks and chipped very easy…rear windows were always a mess. Tint colors off the Pep Boys shelf were Amber, Smoke, Red, Blue.\"\"<\/p>\n

Custom Paint always attracted everyone’s attention. Competition Orange paint with a stripe across the hood was a fad until the Metal Flaked Roofs or between the molding was the call. Advancing to Lace painting, Candy Apple Colors, Spider Web, Pearls, Gold Leaf, then Flames-flames-flames. Custom Scalapes and Pin Stripes could be added to any paint job. Vinyl Roofs real or sprayed on were cool for awhile.<\/p>\n

Upholstery started out with Tuck and Roll, then Diamond Tuck and Button Tuck. Black Vinyl from seats and headliner to door panels. Wood paneling and shag carpet worked for the Vanners.<\/p>\n

Suspensions always changed from lowering the rear, then lowering the front, jacking up the rear, jacking up the whole car, then dropping the whole vehicle as low as you could. The best way was to use “Air Lift” bags, or “High Jacker” Air shocks….but, if you didn’t have the bucks then Shackles on the Leaf Springs or pound a 2×4 block of wood between the rear coils. Twist In aluminum blocks in the coils ordered right from J.C. Whitney or “J Hooks” from Stouts or Norms Automotive\u00a0worked great on the front to drop it. For the Hot Rodders a set of Traction Bars from San Bernardino Racing or Mt. Vernon Racing would keep the meat to the pavement.<\/p>\n

Automatic transmissions were not popular in those days, so if you could afford one, you wanted a good Muncie 4 speed trans with a Hurst shifter and “T” grip knob, or made one from your school’s plastic shop, but if not you were stuck with 3 on the tree or old 2 speed automatics.<\/p>\n

If you wanted some Hot Wheels, then you had to have a “build Engine” which was for the rich guys. First, you had to have headers and custom exhaust with some cool chrome tips of Shark Cut or Bell Tips dumped out the back, over the rear end, or out the sides. Next, you had to have a hot thumper of a cam, like “Isky”. That lead to high rise manifolds, Holly Carbs or Tunnel Ram. Fuel injection, 202 Heads, Joe Hunt or Mallory Magneto for spark, which could be bought at places like Super Shops, J&L Speed, J&M Speed Centers were popular additions.<\/p>\n

Bodies would be fabricated; wider openings for big tires, chopped, channeled, louvered, frenching, flared fenders, tear drop hood bubbles, hood scopes, then you had to have a Wing or Spoiler. Wooden bumpers or Nerf Bars were always a cool look in place of the chrome bumpers.\u00a0Altered wheel bases, straight tube axles,\u00a0and tilt fiberglass front ends were for the serious street racing guys.<\/p>\n

Then if you had the hot set up under the hood or maybe not, you still wanted some decals like “STP”, “Hooker Headers”, “Moon Eyes”, or many others to scare off the competition. The station wagons and Woodies would have Surfboard manufacture decals in their windows like “Hobie”, “Gordon & Smith”,\u00a0 “Dewey Weber” and others. Vanners had decals like “If this Van is Rockin’, then don’t Bother Knockin'” or “Don’t Laugh Your Daughter May Be in Here” always got to the point.<\/p>\n

These are a few of the things I grew up with in Berdoo, E Street cruising and street racing.<\/p>\n

By Steve Portias<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":null,"protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[136],"tags":[49,50,55,58,56,52,43,47,57,48,36,35,54,53,46,45,51,44],"class_list":["post-2040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-automotive-history","tag-8-track","tag-auto-upholstery","tag-chevy","tag-cruising","tag-custom-paint","tag-custom-wheels","tag-customizing","tag-engines","tag-fuel-injection","tag-headers","tag-hot-rods","tag-muscle-cars","tag-stereos","tag-tires","tag-transmissions","tag-vans","tag-vehicle-fabrication","tag-vw"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t