| Author | Message | ||||||||||||||||
     Sshbsn |
Never could find a suitable cafe project for my son and I down here, so I ended up buying a 1986 IROC Z with 5-speed manual transmission for us to tinker with over the winter. Got me to thinking: this car is over 20 years old! It's probably on the verge of "classic" eligibility. Does anybody else feel like the '80s weren't that long ago? I mean, I still remember when we stopped wearing bell bottoms and stepped into parachute pants like it was yesterday...And now that I've got the IROC, I'll have to find a babe with "camaro hair" to go out with.   Life really flies by doesn't it? Anyway, an IROC with a manual transmission! This oughta be fun. | ||||||||||||||||
| Spiderman |
Start growin that mullet and sportin that wife beater  | ||||||||||||||||
| Ducxl |
Cool car,and yeah life really flies.I did a '69 Camaro with great success. IROC remember what that acronym stood for? Italian Retard Out Cruising Back then the hot rodders had cars like my '69 Camaro and SS454 Chevelle's with Cowl induction.It was a cool time,but technology only moves forward and the IROC was a big step.Have fun,my dad did with me and mine.He used to tell me how in the 50s' they'd split manifolds.Nothing like a hot rod to bring together a father and son.  | ||||||||||||||||
| Tq_freak |
UROC? no.....IROC!!  (Message edited by tq_freak on November 04, 2007) | ||||||||||||||||
| Swampy |
Watch the freeze plugs, they were notorious for rusing out and leaking, especially the ones at the back of the block. | ||||||||||||||||
| Gjwinaus |
Its always the ones at the back of the block that go first | ||||||||||||||||
| Paint_shaker |
Never had an IROC... But I did have an 1988 Monte Carlo SS in black! Always wanted to drop a 350 in it, but never had the $$$... oh well, I still have the mammories... opps... memories!!! LOL | ||||||||||||||||
| Cityxslicker |
like um oh my gawd, remember when MTv actually played videos ? Ah the 80s, classic Coke, and the New Camero. Good ol detente with Red Commie evil empire, and Reagan in the White House. Just had my 20 year reunion this year, you should have seen all the Skullets! Nothin up top and all party out back. Now I feel old, wheres my pac-man wrist watch and rubics cube? | ||||||||||||||||
| Slaughter |
Yeah - Sunny has TWO of these bikes: 1984 VF500F Interceptor. Her other one is a streetbike. Still nearly a daily rider. (before you beat me up for being with a "non-Bueller," her Buell is the XB Racebike that I wadded up for her)  | ||||||||||||||||
| Djkaplan |
"Just had my 20 year reunion this year, you should have seen all the Skullets!" Skullet... that's great! I was asked to leave a party I got dragged to when I inadvertantly insulted the host. When I was introduced to some guy, I looked at his head and said, "You must be on tough sonuvabitch... every mullet I ever saw in the 20th century eventually killed it's owner". I thought it was funny. So did everyone else... but Mr Mullet, the guy who's house I was at. | ||||||||||||||||
| Mikef5000 |
Does anybody else feel like the '80s weren't that long ago? Were their paved roads back then? | ||||||||||||||||
| Djkaplan |
The roads were paved, smartypants... but the cell phones were the size of shoe boxes. | ||||||||||||||||
| Stevedplumber |
"but the cell phones were the size of shoe boxes" so were some of the cars yugo( 4 door model was called a "wego") ford fiesta | ||||||||||||||||
| Court |
Actually . . . that's inaccurate, they were MUCH larger than a shoebox.   My first experience was with what was known as IMTS (Improved Mobile Telephone System) and my number was YP-80895. The procedure was something like this . . . dig through book (the books were hard to find, we used the Thermo-Fax to copy them) and find the city closest to you with a tower. Select that channel. (Note, these were all VHF in the 151.000 range) Squeeze the trigger, release the trigger, listen for the squelch tail . . . Repeat for about 15 minutes until you heard "mobile operator". Then the fun started. . . "Operator this is Topeka, KS based mobile YP-80895 calling off the Joplin tower and I'd like xxx-xxxx" A good month would be a dozen successful outgoing calls and one or two inbound.
Several years later . . when I started C. L. Canfield companies in 1983 we used a really "modern", but still IMTS system. It was a couple years after I started in business, about the time I opened the Dallas office that we got wind of a "new deal" call cellular telephones. I popped $3700 each and headed up to Josey Lane in Carrollton to have a couple of the first ones installed. In those days, there was limited cell service, if I wanted to call someone with a cell phone in LA, I had to call the LA access number and get an LA dial tone . . . We quickly progressed through all the Model 8000 "brick phones", flip phones and so forth. I've always been a communications freak and we spent lots more than we should have . . . including a complete digitally synthesized Motorola Syntor UHF and our own truck mounted portable repeaters. . . fun stuff. Radio gear . . . like motorcycles . . is additive. Yeah, I have a repeater in my attic. Didn't know what to do with the equipment when I sold the company and it's nice to know if the entire city of NYC goes down I can talk to South Jersey from the Tappan Zee. | ||||||||||||||||
| Court |
Two other fun memories . . . 1) My IMTS phone was Sea Foam pastel green. 2) One of the first calls I got (I was about 30 miles North of Goodland, KS . . look it up . . it's truly nowhere) was from Erik Buell calling with some good news. My office had given him the number and damned if the phone didn't work . . . I still remember when the phone rang it scared the crap out of me! | ||||||||||||||||
| Froggy |
Court, were talking about the 1980's, not the 1880's, lol. I remember seeing things like those in movies. I laughed watching wargames when the kid had to pick up the phone and place it on the modem for his computer to get on the internet. | ||||||||||||||||
| Stevedplumber |
"wargames" would you like to play a game? | ||||||||||||||||
| Jayvee |
Anybody still carry a pager or beeper that is ONLY a pager? (Didn't think so...) I had to carry one from work, for much of the 80's, when I was in Production Support. Get beeped on the freeway, you have to get off I-80, find a pay phone, call up and see WTF. Now one can hardly even find a pay phone, outside the airport. Remember 'beeper codes' ? Pre-cursor to the text message abreviations I suppose. | ||||||||||||||||
| Djkaplan |
I remember constantly calling the number on my beeper to find the damn thing. | ||||||||||||||||
| Court |
Dudes . . . I owned a Buell and an IMTS phone at the SAME time. | ||||||||||||||||
| Ft_bstrd |
Many of us have underwear older than you, Froggy.  I used to work for GTE/Contel Cellular/Cellular One in the late 80's/early 90's. I was in the credit department. It took anywhere from 24 hours to 1 week to get approved for a phone. Back then, we ran your credit report and called three references for each phone. We pulled Duns reports for companies as well as calling references. Decisions came back as +5 No Deposit (you could finance your phone for 3 years and no deposit was required), No Plus 5 (no phone financing, must buy first), $250 Deposit, $500 Deposit, $1,000 Deposit, or Declined. We had one individual who received a phone with no deposit who managed to rack up $7,000 of cell charges with calls over seas. They skipped out on the bill and didn't pay it. I was the only guy in the department. When the credit report came back with delinquent child support, they were an automatic decline with the "girls" regardless of their credit score. There were only two phones available, the car phone and the bag phone. We were all very excited when the "brick" came out. Everyone was simply giddy when the first flip phones came out. The best part was the LED display and the 1 hour use life. I had the gigantic expansion battery giving me 3 hours of talk time. I was also part of the original "Paygo" department. For folks who were declined, you could buy a phone and prepay your minutes. When you went over, we shut off your service. I had the dubious honor of cutting the line for 1,428 people all at once 12:00 midnight Friday night. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth. | ||||||||||||||||
| Diablobrian |
In the eighties we got calculator watches that had buttons that were too small to push without using a pen/pencil, but if you did the buttons would break.  It didn't matter though, our math teachers wouldn't allow them in the one class we wanted them in. Now days my grade schoolers are required to have a calculator for school.  Anyone else want to admit to wearing multiple swatch watches in the eighties? complete with the swatch "guards". Then again we were wearing pastels too 'cause Don Johnson wore them on Miami Vice. | ||||||||||||||||
| Tx05xb12s |
I remember my first cellphone back in 1988. It was a gigantic white Motorola 8000H with a big black rubber antenna. It got signal sometimes, and when you did you could talk for at least 45 minutes or so before it started beeping at you about the battery being low. What were we paying for airtime back then, $.50 a minute? And oh yeah, somebody please call the State of Texas and tell them it's not 1985 anymore. Can you believe we still carry around beepers? WTF! Can't they just call my cell? So when I'm on call, I am required to carry my phone, the state's phone, and the state's pager. For that matter, remember land line residential telephones? | ||||||||||||||||
| Natexlh1000 |
I had one of those watches. Just use your fingernail. :P | ||||||||||||||||
| Jlnance |
I laughed watching wargames when the kid had to pick up the phone and place it on the modem for his computer to get on the internet. You've never done that?  Kids. Believe it or not, the internet actually existed in the 80s. Thats when it was invented (not by Al Gore.) | ||||||||||||||||
| Toona |
I didn't have an IMTS like Court, but I've had my cell phone long enough to ask for, and receive, the same last 4 numbers as my house phone. | ||||||||||||||||
| Slaughter |
First solo Feb 18, 1968 in a Schweizer TG-3 - WWII surplus training glider. How about 1943 vintage?  Yeah... we're old farts some of us. 80's is VINTAGE??? Naawww | ||||||||||||||||
| Brumbear |
Hey I just bought a 1986 trans-am TPI black on black so good luck with that i wish i knew how to do pics on this darn computer. I think of the 80's with a smile It must have been a good time for me cause when I woke up I was broke and a daddy. But seriuosly it doesn't seem so long ago and everytime I watch the wedding singer I get a little misty. GO SOLID GOLD DANCERS!!!!!!! but don't let the guys know cause DISCO SUCKS!!!! and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA RULES!!!!! | ||||||||||||||||
| Diablobrian |
I think my first computer (timex-sinclair 1000) had an 8 baud modem and you had to put the handset on the modem. I had cassette tape drive too! and IIRC 8k ram. I was on compuserve back in the day with a monochrome screen and I'm only 38! Back then my family laughed when I told them that some day soon everyone would be doing everything online (not just us geeks) | ||||||||||||||||
| Sshbsn |
I remember laughing at the people who played Pac-Man because all the REAL gamers played Defender! I spent the first part of the '80s rebuilding wrecked motorcycles for Dad to sell. That was a nice direction to head in life, and I still owe him. Brumbear: hi, fellow camaro person! Mine isn't TPI, it's carb'd which is why I had to buy it. Carb/manual/t-tops proved too powerful for me to resist. It needs, well, a pretty thorough renovation but it runs great and has no rattles, so it's a good basis to work on with my son. |
