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Yes some of the Parking lots looked like the Friday session line-up at a National Meet! When the big Hot Rod Nationals came around, it was like the first time you saw the cars in the daylight!
Cool a Sorenson Corvette! The hills and old Downtown neighborhoods had a lot of wealthy homeowners, and with Sorenson being such a small dealership, the shiny ones were snapped up fast!
Those Rickers cars were rolled out and parked in front for years and years, even after the racing ended! I do have a picture of them!
I would have loved to see the peak of York Field action! That is what I most miss is that it was like an impromptu car show each weekend! The other neat thing is that the racers were always installing new stuff! I do remember if you put the local speed shop stickers on your car, you got at least 10% off! Our group forbid the stickers (except kill flags), and I definitely couldn't stick them on the family station wagon!
The parking lots were divided up by cliques! The larger lots were open and where you fished! Actually the OC side was 1/2 in OC and half in Los Angeles County! But darn the cops had no respect for the County Line when it came to running you down for a ticket!
My cruising the Boulevard group consisted of a Green 396 Chevelle single plane big Holley, no hood and head work that flew fighter pilot kill flags, a tubbed Chevy Luv Pickup with a blown 454 Chevy, a tall snorkel track Mustang 428 SCJ, my CAmaro (stripped bare) and had a tunnel ram there for a while on a 302??, a 383 Roadrunner with wide meats, a stripped of everything 440 In a Satellite, a blown like 73/74? Charger (I want to say that was a four door), a 72 Vega with a 283, Charger then honestly a bunch of lessor cars, and some new stuff and some imports! We were a group from just over the hill in the Heights!
Last edited by TCracingCA; 04-27-2019 at 10:44 PM.
I beg to differ about the "Hot Rod Rally" album being the Beach Boys. Looks like a Robert E. Petersen production because of the HRM logo. The picture looks like the LA Roadster club rather than Stick City, which mostly handled later models like '55-up AIR.
The red race car nosed roadster was a HRM cover car, and is that Tommy Ivo's trend-setting T in the background?
I had to get me a street sign, employing some creativity!!!!!!!!!!!
One of my brothers has a 6200 Sylmar Avenue street sign from Van Nuys in his family room (from in front of the LA Sheriff Station & LAPD Van Nuys Division Station).
He also had a Van Nuys Boulevard street sign from the block where he was hit by a car while riding a moped (he may have it tucked away).
Nice photo collection.
Big Willie Robinson and his hemi charger. He lightened it so much he cut out the floor pans except under the driver. He was a determined individual.
I beg to differ about the "Hot Rod Rally" album being the Beach Boys. Looks like a Robert E. Petersen production because of the HRM logo. The picture looks like the LA Roadster club rather than Stick City, which mostly handled later models like '55-up AIR.
The red race car nosed roadster was a HRM cover car, and is that Tommy Ivo's trend-setting T in the background?
They had two different locations and the one I am most familiar with where I bought the Porsche looks different ! I read or was told? That they cleared the lot special for this Roadster shoot! It definitely was not a shot of cars for sale!
For the eras where I wasn't around, it is nice to get personal knowledge from guys that were there during the other years!
Last edited by TCracingCA; 05-01-2016 at 01:27 AM.
I have to ask about Carbon, old Brea CutOff, Turnbull, and Baldy & Glendora?
When I was attending Cal Poly and living in Pomona, Diamond Bar, and Claremont these were some of the local places to find twisty fun. I had a Spitfire and chased a D-Type in Carbon Canyon up and back a few different times, and with a few other makes. I saw the tail of Robert Plant's metalflake red Ferrari more than a few times (and talked to him at a Mexican dive at Pathfinder off the 57 many times). Turnbull was a bit west and took effort, unless we were going west, but the others were good and close for clearing the mind.
I often rode my DT400E between the freeway and Diamond Bar, in the oaks where SEMA and the Auto Club Dyno Test Lab is now. I jumped over to the fire roads above the Heights only a few times, as the trails from Temple and Valley over to Carbon were longer and more remote going east.
The Stick City location I'm most familiar was toward the east end of Whittier Blvd., maybe in La Habra. Which reminds me, I've been trying to track down a guy named Ray who had a Stick City connection (employee? family?) He had a dark green '68 or '69 BB 'Vette with 16" Americans. He ran thin Goodyear race tires on the street and had flats on a weekly basis. Later he drove a '68 (?) new-style Grand Prix with 428 and four-speed. Believe he went to Servite HS in Anaheim.
So laying around a lot to the benefit of this thread! The Stick City location when I lived in Hacienda Heights and came back to visit while in the Navy was on the east side of Beach south of Whittier where the Albertson market is or actually not the market but the lot was more where the Cold Stone ice cream place and those other businesses are! The next older location was on Whittier just to the west of Beach on the north side! Part of that is still a vacant lot to this day!
A lot of cars driven on the Boulevard where brokered thru Stick City who also sold on commission! If you were a Hot Rod cruiser that ever walked onto that lot, there were no less than 20 dream cars or more for sell at anyone time! Plus a ton of other cars that would be dream cars in any other part of the country, but kind of normal and routinely seen on the Boulevard! Stick City also advertised itself as a big Corvette outlet and tried to keep no less than 10 minimum hot offerings of various Corvettes in stock at all times, usually advertised one dozen Corvettes to pick from! Usually either modified Corcettes or the higher horsepower stock ones that got traded in for something faster!
I talked in other threads on the phases of the Boulevard and what became the fad to cruise! Everything from the old Hot rod T-buckets, Roadsters, Coupes of the 1950s and 1960s, into the Altered cars, the hippie Vans, back to modified old sckool muscle cars, the Mini Truck phase, the VW Cal Look phase was basically the end of it all! When I had the Corvette 1982, their was still Action well into the later 1980s, but you couldn't be caught parked in any business parking lots except the bowling alleys or food places! The police had cones up for years and officers would ticket you if they thought you were cruising (they passed a Law to ticket you if you passed by multiple times), so up and back down (one lap) then you went to do something else. Like my canyon racing! Or you would cruise down thru Camelot entertainment place off of the 91 Fwy, or cruise and hang like at Angelos cruise in down in Anaheim! This was one OC place which was one of the pioneer cruise in, to get a burger and hang and show what you drove places, going back in history to the early days!
My final Whittier drag racing was not in my Corvette! I never drag raced the C2, but my father liked to drive my 1963/4 roadster, so I could take his 68 Vette out and still rip up on someone occasionally! But technically the last drag set up car I had was--- Me and my girlfriend bought a Karmann Ghia and turned it into a low 12 Second quarter machine with a Dellorto Stinger ignitioned 2110cc (82 x 90.5) when most were running 1641, 1835 with just a few bigger bore at our size or about the largest was 2180cc (82 x 92)! Because she had it to drive, I got the Porsche! We (I) would find races against anything that would race us in the Ghia (being Muscle cars, Hot Rods, or I ran against DKP- Der Kaiser something Panzers I didn't want to hang with those ***$, because it seemed like none of them had girlfriends or they all were staring at my girls a$$) so raced against them as an independent a few times) in our Ghia (dragged raced that thing a lot from 1981 to 1984! That group probably got a bunch of street credit from my exploits, because I was always mistaken as being one of their group! Family living during these military years now in Brea and the Yorba Linda (home of John Force)! And then I had the Canyon Racing Porsche till early 1983 and played up with my own Canyon racing Club as long standing President and founder from 1978! We left the Ghia up in Brea, and used to come up on my Crotch rocket Suzuki.
Also when I came back with the Imports, my old group was still cool toward me, but our new style of Porsche and VW were not acceptable to hang in the lots, but I would still be given intel on the drag racing going down! When we pulled in to say hey, I had to emphasize "girlfriends VW" and being the girls car, they were cool! So make connections with the Station Wagon, went to zero status with the Buick version Monza! Then got credit and full acceptance back with the CAmaro (full crew status) and then back to them feeling like an intervention was necessary when I got the Porsche! But up in my Turnbull Canyon I was Road Racing royalty! I left for the Navy owning the 1967 CAmaro leaving it at home and initially went to Great Lakes and picked up a hot 442 that I talked about in the other thread and returned stationed SanDiego and then did the Shipyard rebuild in Long Beach and then back to SD! I used to leave the C2 at my families places up near the action and road up on the crotch rocket Suzuki still! She had died of Cancer by then.
Talking to the other roads, we had a more touring fun section connecting from Hacienda branch of West Road (best going west from Hacienda) East Road (Ok going east from Hacienda) connecting into Fullerton Road, before Fullerton Road was bypassed and modernized or little Kashlan Road which was a single lane with just a few farms, but now has a lot of residences with blind driveways)! Also from Some of the old sections of Fullerton Road are still there, but the glory of an enthusiast run spirit is gone! Also very populated area of side roads and driveways! As for Carbon Canyon only one super fun section where you have the elevation change and the double hairpins! The Kashlan Road, we had a two lane road (hill climb ) up Cypress to almost Avocado Crest! We would cruise the Boulevard and get to the end and loop back thru these twisty roads and back to the Boulevard! Carbon Canyon was right where my family was living (Brea), interesting section down near the Biker hangout cafe is where the cops usually sit and then the rest is just a nice pleasant drive through the hills! To race, the rest would require speeds in the 80+ mph range, some sections getting to upwards of 120mph plus! The road just is a little too stretched out straight or long speed sectioned to be a smart road to race on! Too populated being a thoroughfare of traffic 24/7 between Chino and Yorba!
Old Baldy road backside is still the best Rally level road in the entire south land! And Glendora is a great enthusiast sweeping high speed turn, beautiful fun enthusiast road, but never really held or staged races up there, because the motorcycles are usually a problem! The motorcycle went clear to the top, heading up toward Crystal Lake, way above the East Fork turnoff. These two roads came into popularity for car enthusiasts when they punched thru the direct road connection with the mountain tunnels directly into the city of Mount Baldy! That caused those other two roads to be vacated mostly as a used route by the tourists or local property owners! Only the local residents living along Glendora commute that rode now! Old Baldy, mostly empty of traffic, but you still have to be careful of a Forest Service vehicle or a bunch of pesky imports touring down the road! Not a panoramatic scenery road either, so the motorcycles don't use that backside connection! It is a visually interesting drive, but I call it Rally level because most of it is single lane and a half wide and most of it has no center dividing line and a ton of blind apexes! Thus I do recommend super super late apexing if you danger it, at any level of speed!!!!!
Last edited by TCracingCA; 07-19-2021 at 02:46 AM.
I don't know what your time frame for Stick City in Whittier is, but in Summer 1965 and for a couple years after that there was Stick City at 9000 W. Washington Blvd, Culver City, in the same couple blocks as Big Johns, Shelee Motors, Sports Arena Cars and maybe others. Most of them specialized in Corvettes as can be seen in these pages from the LA Times Classified Ads.
The Big John lot was prominently featured in the 1967 movie Point Blank starring Lee Marvin.
for you kids out there, R & H is radio and heater.
I was pretty young in the 1960's, too young to know how different the scene was here! It was just a typical day riding with my Father or family and getting a little stoplight excitement or seeing cool stuff! I was building model cars early and that honed my eye as to what I enjoyed seeing! I remember some of the Dealership visits and remember my Father stopping at car lots to look at cool stuff! We always went to the races, to watch our father drag race, or just going clear out to Riverside! We had all of the cool slot cars, so I knew about the real cars very young!
I would like to continue unlocking history and the Big Johns I knew about and other places! An original Stick City lot more out near the beaches makes sense, especially if that album cover is a Stick City lot! I do have I think two books detailing out all of the Performance shops in the entire US for I think 1966 and 1972! I don't know the dates of the Stick City out on La Habra on or off of Whittier! Maybe even the top cars shown were from that original lot! There was a move toward the suburbs to get away from the congested areas! I am going to see if I can find better pictures of the Funny cars of Stick City to see if they were La Habra or thus other location! On the HAMB sites a lot written on that guy, the Owner! I have been trying to for years date the Car Deslerships and have done so for specific Speed Shops also! I was working a little of histories of these smaller performance lots also! Harder to find stuff on those! It is hard to find stuff period on this kind of stuff! And piecing history together from people's memories is so subjective to how good those memories are!
Says it was owned by Stick City owner Wayne Smith! Hal worked as a North American Aviation control analyst, so I doubt he was living clear out in Whittier/La Habra! But you never know!! At the time of that car 1969/70 they claimed Stick City was the largest hot rod lot! This car was the former Pisano Brothers funny car! Paint job by Molly! Chassis Masters chassis, L88 mill 470 cubes built by Gary Slusser!
Last edited by TCracingCA; 07-19-2021 at 02:49 AM.
We think of the west side south of Santa Monica as the heart of the aerospace industry, but, North American Aviation was based in Downey, so it is possible that Mr. Smith had moved his car business to La Habra by 1969-70.
The La Habra Stick City was owned by the same guy and popped up in the very early 1970s! Maybe 1969! Chassis Masters was out of Orange and I think that engine builder from out this way!
Also many of the Whittier Blvd crowd is mixed up between Stick City and Street Rods (owned by Norm Rabbit Samuels)!
All kinds of mixed up stuff floating around like Rabbit working at Stick City selling them cars and doing work!
Street Rods was down originally in the Tourist section, but I think I was wrong and they were the new lot to the west of Beach in that lot! Stick City on Beach south of Whittier and an earlier location out by the beaches!
So guys are either making stuff up on HAMB, have bad memories, or are completely confused as to Street Rods or Stick City!
Last edited by TCracingCA; 05-01-2016 at 10:56 PM.
Thanks for the feedback on canyons in the Puente Hills and Carbon. When I moved to Cal Poly I looked for some kind of scene like Mul, and little was happening.
I took my GTO to a place on Whittier, right after I moved down there (possibly Stick City). I had the car for sale in a dirt field in Diamond Bar and the place in Whittier left their card under the wiper. I drove down, on Whittier a bit west of the 57, and let them make me an offer. One of the guys asked for a ride. So I took it down Harbor and Katella (I think) and a few streets by Angels Stadium. I opened it up, 4.88 gears and the Caldwells barked with each shift from the T400. I think the guy just wanted to see what it would do. $1,200 offer. I drove it back to Pomona.
A guy who worked for Farmers Insurance corporate bought the car for $2,200. A test drive around Cal Poly. Two upshift runs and sold. He asked how a kid could afford the insurance on a GTO, and who insured it. It was insured, with Farmers, as a '70 Tempest.
Used to be a shop called xxx bros (Ill find out) I know youll know the shop
One outdoor lift small shop did performance stuff.
Friend, Koster worked there for yrs drove a 76 Capri yellow 67 rs very sleepy very quic sbc. Midnight blue 67 4 spd very active on the st back then. Ill get the nameof the shop they were big on the scene where youre talking about, Terminal Island too. Guy still has that car today still wont sell it to me. 1st ride in something real hot (had at least a 4500 stall)cam that wouldnt smooth out til over 3k or so. As a kid riding in that was nirvana. My dad hatedhim, can still hear that 12.5:1 mill idling around 1200. Thats the stuff!
Old Baldy road backside is still the best Rally level road in the entire south land!
Got a vid of myself, my old ZR1 and another member tearing that road up good somewhere on Dropbox. TIGHT switchbacks, man was that hrs of fun. Awesome.
We dont need no stinking heated seats patting our butts dry.
When I first tried to take my GTO to the place on Whittier Boulevard I got lost. I had Fullerton and Harbor in my mind and ended up way down by the big A. I didn't know Fullerton Road in Hacienda Heights turned into Harbor Boulevard. Instead I took the 57 way down past CSU Fullerton to Anaheim and got lost. I ended up on Katella, lost. Getting un-lost, pre-cell phone days, required a map and I had none. I found a speed shop and asked for directions to the fast car dealership. One of the guys working in the shop said he knew a place. He rode shotgun as we tore up and down streets until we gave up. Back at the speed shop I was directed to work my way back up Harbor. Being totally lost I called it a day and drove back up the 57.
A borrowed Thomas guide eventually got me to the dealership on Whittier, on another try. Did Stick City also take in Panteras and exotics to sell?
When you talk the back side of Baldy, do you mean the dirt road down to Lytle Creek?
When I first tried to take my GTO to the place on Whittier Boulevard I got lost. I had Fullerton and Harbor in my mind and ended up way down by the big A. I didn't know Fullerton Road in Hacienda Heights turned into Harbor Boulevard. Instead I took the 57 way down past CSU Fullerton to Anaheim and got lost. I ended up on Katella, lost. Getting un-lost, pre-cell phone days, required a map and I had none. I found a speed shop and asked for directions to the fast car dealership. One of the guys working in the shop said he knew a place. He rode shotgun as we tore up and down streets until we gave up. Back at the speed shop I was directed to work my way back up Harbor. Being totally lost I called it a day and drove back up the 57.
A borrowed Thomas guide eventually got me to the dealership on Whittier, on another try. Did Stick City also take in Panteras and exotics to sell?
When you talk the back side of Baldy, do you mean the dirt road down to Lytle Creek?
If you were down near Anaheim Stadium way people did cruise down there also! I know some cruising on State College and even down on Tustin and other places! Also Angelo's Drive in burger joint was down there!
Yes Stick City had exotics also! Like my Porsche, but a later business that opened and that still exists on Whittier in La Habra dealt more exotics than the former Stick City! That business is still there, the name just is on the top of my mind, can't retrieve it this early withou
Last edited by TCracingCA; 05-02-2016 at 01:21 PM.
Regarding the ZR1: in 1980 I worked at Powell's Alameda Honda, as a shop guy. We sold Honda, Kawasaki, and Suzuki. My job was to un-crate, assemble, de-grease, prep, and test ride the new deliveries. CBX Hondas, GS1100's, KZ1300's.....tough job, but someone had to do it! Well, Bill Powell Sr.(the owner...a big, Clark Gable type guy) had about 20 brand new 1978 Z1R's that he had never uncrated in the '70's and there they were: new and in the crates. He had us prep a couple and put them out on the sales floor for $1750. Beautiful silver/blue bikes, with the coffin tank and quarter fairing. Totally clean compared to the 1980 stuff we were selling. Those Z1-R's road like a dream, and were FAST. The other young gofer and myself would cruise for girls at Alameda beach on our lunch break, each on a brand new 1978 Z1R! We sold every single one of those bikes in record time after the word got out!
Did any of you guys run Antelope Valley Raceway in the early 80's (Bernie later change the name to Los Aangeles County Raceway, LACR, to bring more drivers up to race)?
My GTO that I sold to fund my Cal Poly education.
I won Street Eliminator for the day, and paid the rent that month, but it was not enough to place better than second in the season point series (the 2nd place guy won the season). The bracket cut off was 14.0 seconds. It was all heads up with brake lights at the end (nothing like the computer controls of today, and the start/bog/run 8.90 class that I can't stand to watch).
Street Trim & Caldwells on the back... My buddies & girlfriends are all in the upper left corner of the photo.
I only ran grudge night a few times to test the bottle. I ran with, and without, the 29x9 slicks to get an idea of the street potential. It proved to be a good sandbagger car for night duty.
Tech would not pass the car on Sundays with the bottle in the car. I was allowed the plate spacer at AVR, but had to disconnect and tape off the solenoid wiring. When I went to the Bracket Finals at Famoso I had to remove the entire bottle system.
04-30-2016, 10:42 PM
I agree cool sharing
