Car Cruises

We have attended many car cruises since 1980, and over the years have added various items to attract attention to the car. 

Drive-In Speaker - that works!!
One 'recent' addition is a drive-in speaker that actually 'works'!   Here is a photo of it.   (more photos below)


My GTO, sitting next to my cousin's 1974 Bricklin at a car cruise in 2010, with the drive-in speaker (as it looks today) .  Story below.

Note:   Click all photos to enlarge.

Background story

I purchased an old drive-in speaker unit around 2007 or 2008 at a video store that was closing in our area.  It was being displayed  as an 'antique' item from  'days gone by' at the old drive-in theaters.
I inquired if the display was for sale, and we agreed on a price.  

The original metal pole and large base (originally cemented into the ground at the drive-in) was, of course, heavy to carry around.   Its weight and one-piece construction made it difficult to put in the back seat (no room in the trunk because of other stuff that we carry), so I took it to only a few cruises during the summer of 2008.

Photo taken in 2008. 

Speaker was purchased from a video store. 
It had been  used as a 'nostalgic' static display.

In the store,  the individual speakers were attached to the pole with a white telephone cord (obviously not the original cord from the drive-in). 

Making Improvements!
In September 2008, my cousin Mark and I attended a cruise together.   Mark kept studying the unit all afternoon, and then said the famous words:  "Let me take that home.  I'll do something with it."
 

Here is a photo of Mark (center) seeing the speaker for the first time, and offering to 'do something' with it!

RECONDITIONED DRIVE-IN SPEAKER UNIT - 2009
In July of 2009, Mark called and said he had finished working on the unit and would bring it to the next show we were going to attend together.  My wife and I will never forget how astounded we were to see what he had created!  We were speechless!  

Mark had done the following:

• Separated the speaker holder from the original pole and base, and substituted a much lighter but sturdy, hollow PVC pipe for the metal pole.
   
•  Removed the heavy metal base, and made a an amazing new 'base' (box) out of metal sheet.   This ingenious box now encases an actual car radio and CD player, AND after removing the pole, the box can be carried by handles he attached. 
• Ran wires running from the radio/CD player up through the PVC pipe and into the speakers via jacks.   Therefore, we can either play the radio or CDs through the speakers!   Plus it has a remote control! 
• Polished the speakers so they looked brand new.  They still have the name of the drive-in on them. 
  
  The entire display can be taken apart in sections and can now go into the trunk.

 

We just couldn't get over how amazing this is, and the amount of work he put into it!

The speakers and CD player get a lot of attention, as parents and grandparents explain how they watched movies on the giant screen of the drive-in theaters, while they sat in their car.

There still ARE a few drive-in theaters in our  area; but today you use your car radio set to a certain frequency to pick up the sound from the movie. 

The speakers are a nostalgic reminder of our youth and even the decades before, when this was the techology available.  However,  they didn't always work too well, if at all.  And many were damaged by drivers forgetting the speakers were still hanging on their car window as they left their parking space! 
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Photo showing the front of the CD player in the new base.

Again, click on photo to enlarge.

 

Features of My GTO

My GTO has the following features:

 I did not pre-order the car, but it had all the

features I would have wanted. 

The color - Mayfair Maize
This was just right for us - a lighter yellow, and not 'extreme' as some of the muscle cars were.   My wife particularly liked the color because it is similar to her father's 1953 Studebaker, which had a revolutionary, avante-guard, sleek design.  (The Starlight Commander had a low profile and got a lot of attention wherever it went.   Curiously, there seem to be very few at the car cruises.)

 Interior:  
- Black vinyl, with bucket seats,
- lift-up cover on storage console between the seats.

Convertible top 
- Black vinyl (and is the original)

Engine
- 400 cu. in.
- 350 horsepower
- One 4-barrel carburetor

Transmission
- 4-speed Manual (Hurst)

Wheels
- Rally II
- Tires that came with car were red-line  Uniroyal
   Present tires are B. F. Goodrich w/white lettering

Seats
- Bucket vinyl seats

Radio
- AM only (was standard equipment; FM had to be ordered)

Other Options
- Hidden headlights - vacuum powered
- Driver-side adjustable exterior rear-view mirror
- Vanity mirror, passenger
- Trunk release button in glove box
- 24-hour rally clock in dashboard (presently not working)

Purchasing Our GTO in 1969

AUGUST 1969

It was August 1969, toward the end of the 1969 car season, when the 1970 models were soon to arrive on the showroom floors of all the car dealerships.   

To put the time in historical perspective, the famous Moon Landing had just occurred a month earlier in July of 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out onto the moon's surface. The Viet Nam war was still raging. It was also the era of the hippies and Woodstock.

 

I was in my third year of  Army Reserve duty. In my civilian job I was a payroll

accountant at a major corporation in Pittsburgh (my wife also worked at the company). 

We owned a 1967 Tempest (red with black vinyl roof and interior).    It was the first car I ever 'ordered' to my specifications.   It had a 'slanted' rear antenna that retracted, and a 4-speed manual transmission, with the gearshift on the floor - not unusual, except we had a bench seat in front!

 Even though the red Tempest was only two years old and I was quite happy with it, I just wanted to see if there were any deals at the Pontiac dealership on new 1969 models before the '70 models arrived.  I wasn't really serious about buying a new car, since we just finished paying off the red one! 

My wife and I were about 25 years old and had been married for five years.  In 1962 when we were dating, I bought a new 1963 Corvair   then traded it in for a 1964 Pontiac Tempest right after our wedding in '64;  and I ordered the red 1967 Tempest in Sept. '66.

 

It was not unusual in those days to keep buying new cars in order to maintain a

warranty and to keep up with the latest car models that seemed to change every year.  

A car payment was accepted as a permanent part of the budget.    

However, my wife was not enthusiastic about purchasing a new car in 1969.  She wanted to save the money for a house, and very reluctantly agreed to go to the dealership, with no intention of buying a car.  It was amazing to see the showroom actually just about empty of all cars!   

However, the salesman said he had a '69 in the basement.

He didn't say what model and didn't act particularly enthusiastic about it. 

(Maybe he acted that way on purpose! )

Little did I realize what I would see as we went down the steps to the basement.

 

There sitting almost in the dark, with one or two lights shining on it, sat this beautiful yellow and black GTO convertible, with four-speed manual transmission on the floor!  

 I was totally stunned!   It was everything I could have wanted in a car.

 

Actually, I hadn't been looking for a GTO.  They were  expensive, and I figured it would throw our budget too far out of whack.   (However, insurance wasn't as much of a problem for 25-year-old married men as it was for single men.)  

And once we saw this car, even my wife knew we wouldn't be leaving the
 dealership without signing papers and taking on car payments again!  More accurately,
she knew I was not leaving the dealership without buying this car!  

So a few days later, after we signed all the papers and the dealer got the car prepped, my wife and I drove out of the dealership in our gorgeous new GTO convertible (top down, of course) . We marveled at seeing the sky as we drove.   Of course, I was thrilled with the four-speed transmission and the  powerful sound that was coming from the engine!

As we enjoyed our ride back to our apartment (the 1st floor of an older home, with no garage, unfortunately), we never dreamed we would still have the GTO all these years later, and that many of the miles we would put on it after 1980 would be to travel to 'car cruises', which weren't even around in 1969!

As of this writing,  we have been going to car cruises for 30+ years! 

Car Shows v. Car Cruises

Our first 'car show' was in 1980.   The GTO was only 10 years old, and there was an advertisement in the paper for a 'car show' about 2 hours' drive.  We thought we were going to the show as 'spectators' to look at cars from the '20s through the '50s..     But they insisted we put it with the show cars, to be 'judged'.  They were welcoming all 'muscle cars'. 

We didn't win anything (the undercoating took away points), but we enjoyed being there, talking to so many 'muscle car' owners.  Little did we know where that was going to lead. 

There were only a handful of car shows in our area at first, (it was difficult to get judges),  but 'cruises' now number in the hundreds, with no official judging of cars.  Everyone just enjoys showing off their cars. 

We finally did buy a house in 1973, with a proper garage to park the GTO, which was still our only car.   It had been through several winters parked outdoors.  However, it was protected in parking garages in the city during the workweek.)  I also had it heavily undercoated, which worked against it at car show for points, but it wouldn't have lasted this long without it!

This blog will be about our past and present adventures with our GTO!

One further note:  We discovered a few years ago that our car was built in Baltimore during the week of the Moon Landing, July 1969.    The factory must have had to re-tool quickly for the 1970 models to be in showroom floors in September, considering there were quite a few changes to the body of the 1970 model.  .   



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Cars Owned Prior to '69 GTO (1963-1969)

Although this blog is mainly about my '69 GTO,  just for my own benefit I will eventually be reviewing all the cars I have owned.  (It will be nice seeing them all in one place here in my blog!)

I will start with the cars owned before the GTO.

 I plan to post photos of them, but first I'll have to find them and get them uploaded into my computer.

1963 Blue Corvair Monza*  $2400
 (navy blue, matching vinyl interior)  ordered in Sept. 1962

1964 White Pontiac Tempest  $2400
(white, burgundy interior)  purchased Feb. 1964/showroom

1967 Red Pontiac 326 Tempest*  $3000
(red, black interior and black vinyl top)  ordered  Sept. '66

(*) specifc order)

The 1963 Corvair - Our first car!
As a young man graduatiang from high school in 1960, naturally I looked forward to buying my first car.  As it turned out, my fiancee (now wife) and I would purchase 'my' (and her) first car.  We met as young teenagers - 16 and 17 years of age in 1960, right after I graduated, and before she started her senior year (at another school from mine). 

We dated for two years (borrowing our respective families' cars)  and in 1962 finally got clerical jobs. working in the 'big city' of Pittsburgh, PA    Prices of cars and the wages we were making in 1962 are amusing now!  Together we made $5,000/year; and cars cost around $2,000 - $3,000.  The Corvair cost $2,400.  (By the way, Corvettes cost about $4,000 - out of our price range!)    Our monthly payments were $142 for 18 months.  Our plan was to have the car fully paid for before we got married sometime in 1964.  (As you will see below, it didn't quite work out that way). 

Naturally, we were anxious to buy 'our own' car so that we would not have to borrow our parents' cars anymore.  We planned to get engaged in 1963 (and did), and bought the ring in 1962, just about the same time that the '63 car models were appearing at the dealerships. 

In September of 1962, we ordered a red Corvair Monza with black interior (with all the options I wanted, including 4-speed transmission, bucket seats)  , and were told it would take 8 weeks to come in.  That seemed like a long time back then, in our youth!   We kept checking with the dealer, and he kept saying it wasn't in yet.  Finally after week 10 (by now it was November)  he said "Well, the red one you ordered hasn't come in yet, but we have a nice dark blue one that has most of your options." 

Opinion:  Someone saw 'our' red Corvair when it arrived (on time) and insisted on buying it.  Inasmuch as we were youngsters, the dealer thought he could make a switcheroo without our complaining.   Indeed (although we suspected the above - we weren't stupid), we took the blue car because it WAS pretty, and we WAITED LONG ENOUGH!  

*  *  *

It was my goal to trade a car every few years in order to keep the warranties current.   It was accepted that one would always have a car payment, but you'd have a new car every few years.  Car manufacturers, of course, promoted this idea! 

*  *  *



A Blog about My 1969 GTO Convertible

This blog will be mostly about the 1969 Pontiac GTO convertible that my wife and I purchased new and have owned for over 40 years.

I was a young man when I purchased this beautiful car 41 years ago, and I'm now, you might say,  an 'older' man, in my later 60s.  My wife and I are about to celebrate our 47th anniversary, but we were in our 5th year of marriage  when we bought the car at a dealership near our home. at the end of the 1969 car season. 

Writing this blog will take us back down Memory Lane, as we recall our long journey with our GTO.




This photo was taken on

July 22, 2007, on

Mt. Washington, PA, which overlooks the City of Pittsburgh. 

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Also Featuring Car Cruises

The blog also will feature highlights of past and current cruises that we attend every Spring through Fall (and have attended since 1980, when the GTO was only 10 years old).   Western Pennsylvania seems to have more car cruises than any state in the U.S.!!  

Posted Jan. 3, 2011