Monday, April 23, 2018

This cruise-in puts the "Good" in "Goodlettsville"

If you’re a car nut in Goodlettsville, you know that the Goodlettsville Cruise in the Publix parking lot is the place to be on Saturday nights. Beautiful weather sparked some healthy participation last weekend, with a nice selection of classics and future classics. I brought the old truck out and snarfed down a Firehouse meatball sub. That might not be everyone’s idea of a Saturday night party, but it suit me just fine. There was also a D.J. on hand for a little auditory entertainment, and of course, there were the cars. That’s what we’re mostly interested in here, so let’s take a look at some of them. 

My favorite car of the bunch was this Goldwood Yellow ’65 Corvette roadster. I absolutely love it when they pair this color up with a white interior. This car was fuel injected, which makes it one of only 771 so equipped. This setup was good for 375-hp, which is a lot even by today’s standards. The Rally Wheels it’s wearing weren’t available until 1967, but they look great on this one. The owner recalls that this car was actually in the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green when the famous sinkhole opened up, consuming eight other Corvettes. This one narrowly escaped certain destruction.

Here is an outstanding 1950 Chevrolet DeLuxe two-door hardtop. Done up in a two-tone combination of Mist Green and Crystal Green, was as nice of an original old car as I’ve seen in a long time. It was also loaded up with accessories, including a hood ornament, wheel covers, and front bumper guard. You gotta love that fancy DeLuxe steering wheel. This one was really set up for low-priced luxury, because the Powerglide transmission, which was a new and unusual option in 1950, means you never have to shift gears. Chevrolet was really getting their styling right at this point, especially with that attractive hardtop design. There’s just nothing not to like about this one.

This ’37 Buick Century might not look like a muscle car at first glance, but in its day, that’s pretty much what it was. This was the second year for the Century, and it got its name because it was capable of running 100-mph, a big achievement back then. The muscle car recipe is always the same—a big engine in a small body. In this case, the main ingredients were the 165-hp straight-eight engine out of the Cadillac-sized Roadmaster, crammed into the bodywork of the Chevrolet-sized Special. I think maybe this was painted many years ago, but for the most part it’s a very original car inside and out.

You see a lot of nicely restored Chevy and Ford pickups, but you don’t see many Internationals like this example from 1974. Honestly, there weren’t even that many of these around when they were new. This was a 100 series, which was the lightest-duty International 4X4 you could buy, but it looks pretty heavy duty with the lift kit and five-slot mag wheels. This truck was restored to a very high level, which had to be a daunting task considering parts availability on these. It had an International V8 engine, a buddy bucket seating arrangement, and air conditioning. It may actually be the nicest one of these I’ve ever seen.

Speaking of nice vehicles, there were plenty of other ones at Saturday night’s Goodlettsville Cruise. You can check out 160 photos by clicking this link.

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