In a message dated 98-11-27 18:45:37 EST, shmitty99@hotmail.com writes:
> What the heck are you guys talking about? I'm 22, and all that stuff
> makes about as much since as ancient hebrew.
Ryan,
Back in the good ole, bad ole, days, in the early days of hot rodding, there
was a guy named Dick Moon who produced some very fine speed equipment. His
trademark was a pair of eyes. When you bought a piece of speed equipment from
him, you got decals with a pair of eyes to put on your car's windows to
impress everyone. These "eyes" became so popular, that he started selling all
sorts of thing with eyes on them - gear shift knobs, a styrofoam ball to put
on your antenna, valve stem caps, radio knobs - just about anything you could
imagine. They were real popular in the'50s and early 60s, but faded out for
awhile. Now that all of us old farts are re-living our mis-spent youths, Moon
corporation has re-issued these things to help us spend our money.
The other items which were popular back then:
Olds Fiesta hubcaps: Believe it or not, staid, sedate, Oldsmobile offered a
set of hubcaps on their 56, 57 models, which had a set of flippers on them.
Many "Kustom" cars used these caps as is, while other used just the flippers
to put on other types of hub caps. Hub cap modification became a very big fad.
This was before mag wheels became the available.
Fuzzy dice: A large pair of fuzzy cloth dice, about 4 inches square, which you
hung from your rear view mirror. They came in a multitude of colors.
Eventually, you could "dice" just about everything - gear shift knobs - same
stuff as for the Moon eyes.
Rat Fink: a cartoon character created by Ed "big Daddy" Roth, creator of some
spectacular show cars. A particularly nasty rodent, originally appearing on
tee-shirts. Ultimately, you could get, yes, you guessed it, rat fink gear
shift knobs, etc, etc, etc.
Bigfoot gas pedal: a cast aluminum gas pedal in the shape of large, bare,
foot, complete with five toes. You could also get a very small "foot" for the
dimmer switch, which was floor mounted back then, as it still is on some
Triumphs.
Knecker knobs: This will be the hardest of all for someone of your generation
to understand. In the fifties, about the hottest thing a guy could do with his
girlfriend was to drive around with one arm around her, and steer the car with
the other. A knecker knob was a spinner knob that fastened to the steering
wheel to make it easier to steer with one hand. Parking in lover's lane and
smooching was called "necking," hence the name "necker knob" for necking while
driving. In your generation, you go straight to the apartment, but that was
pretty heady stuff for us back then.
Jeeze, does this make me feel old!
Dan Masters,
Alcoa, TN
'71 TR6---------3000mile/year driver, fully restored
'71 TR6---------undergoing full restoration and Ford 5.0 V8 insertion - see:
http://www.sky.net/~boballen/mg/Masters/index.html
'74 MGBGT---3000mile/year driver, original condition - slated for a V8 soon
'68 MGBGT---organ donor for the '74
|