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Trivia about the American Graffiti cars, the Merc and Milner's duece

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One of the few Lp's I wore out.
Milners Duece is an absolute icon, loved that film.
 
My favorite movie. When it came out, it was like a reflection of my life/environment at the time, except I was on the east coast.
 
The man a fre intake looks cool but how did it work? inquiring minds want to know
 
As a somewhat interesting bit of trivia about the movie I remember an episode of Meguir's Car Crazy where he met up with Jeff Beck in England and showed the car that Jeff has that is a clone to Milner's Deuce complete down to the correct Cali tag number... Here's the second half...I couldn't find the first half...

 
It was a great movie, my fave though was probably Hollywood Knights... I guess because of Project X...as a kid I followed that cars many lives through HotRod magazine... I guess it was a little closer to my era...and Michelle Pfeiffer was a lot hotter than Cindy Williams!!!
I could watch both repeatedly and never get bored!

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My favorite movie. When it came out, it was like a reflection of my life/environment at the time, except I was on the east coast.


...and me but in the early-mid 1980's Ohio!
 
It was a great movie, my fave though was probably Hollywood Knights... I guess because of Project X...as a kid I followed that cars many lives through HotRod magazine... I guess it was a little closer to my era...and Michelle Pfeiffer was a lot hotter than Cindy Williams!!!
I could watch both repeatedly and never get bored!

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80's Hollywood Knights Movie Poster.jpg


that lifestyle carried on well into the late 80's out here,
Northern California, that was my youth
Walnut Creek Ca. (SF east bay area) was a killer cruise,
lots of cars babes & especially lots of street racing
every fri/sat/sun, Encino Grande parking lot was the meeting place
Willow Pass & Concord Ave., then out to Ignacio Valley rd. for racing
so was Modesto, the 4th street loop
so was Cupertino,
so was Fairfield, then out to Ball Cannery Rd. for racing
(it's about the only good thing about that area)
so was Sacramento cruise, especially the L-street Loop
then out to the street races out in El Camino area

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I have both on DVD

American is a better movie overall

Knights is a comedy , with cars mixed in

Both have there car scenes obviously

Knights



American

 
I liked Milner's car, and his demeanor.
I saw a Plymouth with a "look" like that, I didn't realize that there were any Chrysler cars that could have a Hot Rod Coupe look. Sorry I don't recall right now what year and model, but it had a Gen 2 Hemi, and that plus the look of the car made me Mopar Proud.
If I had a car with that "deuce coupe" look, it would HAVE to be a Mopar, and it would HAVE to have either a Roots style blower or Hilborn fuel injection stacks...on top of a 392 or 426 based Hemi, and whatever it took to grab and go, and wheelie bars to keep the front end from going too far skyward. In yellow, of course!
 
34 Plymouth, don't care for the rubber bands...
but 392 with the blower.

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Article title is somewhat misleading but in 1984 Dayton OH was voted best city for cruising!

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Interestingly, they mention "Burger Boy's", which was the spot and on the main street for racing I was familiar with, however I never read the magazine back in the 80's, and when I finally got a copy about 10 years ago...

Turns out there was another Burger Boy's on the other side of town, and that's the one they were talking about!

Hard for me to believe since Woodman Drive was THE place for street racing and was "the most dangerous road in the county" at that time.

I was in 10th grade at the time and routinely patrolled Woodman in my poly 318 66 Coronet looking for gm 350s and any new monte carlo ss that wanted any.
 
The only race that car ever lost that year was to a maverick with a manual trans and 4.5x gears.

Bone stock 80K mile poly 2 barrel with single exhaust.
Carb dialed in.
Careful point tune and advance dialed in (IIRC, removed or stretched one spring).
Independently filled air shocks to distribute weight to non sure grip drive wheel.

Typical race went-

Poly would out torque 350 off the line about a half fender, then the 2.94 gear would walk the gm 3.08 another half fender up around 75-80 MPH

LOTS of dissapointed young boys with fresh, expensive (to me) 4 barrel engine builds and shiny fresh painted malibus running around Dayton that year, scratching their heads after gettin' whooped by a 2 bbl 318 in a somewhat rusty Dodge.

Got a few camaros and firebirds too. I knew not to mess with cars that might have big blocks, turbos or blowers.

I really hated when losers would point at the "440" on the fender and say that's why I won, because the car obviously had a 440. Then I'd open the hood and they'd still claim it was a 440 and say "look how wide it is", paying no attention to the tiny 2 barrel and exhaust manifolds.
 

Iola Car Show shared a link.​

May 31 at 8:35 AM ·

We are sad to announce Bo Hopkins, a celebrity guest who was planned to attend the show, passed away this weekend. Our condolences to his family and friends during this hard time.
From his official website, http://www.bohopkins.net/: May 28th, 2022 - It is with great sadness that we announce that Bo has passed away. Bo loved hearing from his fans from around the world and although he was unable to respond to every email over the last few years, he appreciated hearing from each and every one of you.
 
Some of the Ladies from American Graffiti will bee at the Iola Old Car Show next month
 
You could have bought all the main cars for under 5k total!!!

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We had a local car enthusiast that hosted an annual car show called The Fleetwood Cruise-in, in London, Ontario. This man is a millionaire and has quite a collection of Classic Cadillacs ( hence, Fleetwood ) and other interesting GM products. The show ran all weekend, starting with a catered meal and '60's era bands on Friday night. Saturday was the main show day with up to 4,000 cars present. Different guests were invited and flown to the show. Batman and Robin were frequent guests, as were actors from The Dukes of Hazard show. Bo Hopkins, Cindy Williams, and Candy Clark were often on hand, signing autographs. George Barris and some of his automotive creations were on hand for many years. It was fantastic to see these automobile icons at a local show that raised funds for local charities.
I was sad to hear of George Barris' passing, and now Bo Hopkins.
 
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I can remember when the American Graffiti movie was coming out, that some of the actors of the movie were appearing on late night talk shows to hype the movie. I still remember the night that a little-known actress, Suzanne Sommers, showed up on the Johnny Carson Show. She was wearing a slinky floor-length blue gown and was absolutely gorgeous. They never even gave her a name in the movie. It is hard to believe that was 50 years ago!
 
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