Now that’s real fine.
In searching I found others who get this wrong, but they get shouted down by the dozens. In addition, every reference the guys in the band have ever made about the song talk about the pink slip.
And search doesn’t bring up “big slip differential” as a term. It’s always limited-slip differential.
Sorry. He’s got the pink slip, daddy-o and he’s cooler than thou.
I liked your answers, running coach; but it’d sure be nice if you tried some capitalization and punctuation. 
When I hear it, I can almost see Brian waving the pick slip in my face.
At least there’s no controversy about what differential the 409 had.
I usually do. I don’t know why I went full-newbie on that.
Hey, it’s a retro thread.
As a side note, Chuck Berry references a flat-head engine in his 1956 tune “You Can’t Catch Me:”
The line was reprised by John Lennon in "Come Together;’ and it got him into some trouble. From wiki:
Ricers? Wow that’s a pretty racist term.
It’s not a reference to a flathead engine, and flathead engines were never called flat-tops. It’s a reference to a men’s hairstyle called a flat-top. More info here, quoted from Chuck’s autobiography.
Only if you can be racist towards an inanimate object.
I drove an early 70’s Nova V8 with column shift.
I have to say you live in a different world. I know a LOT of people who work on their car. You can easily double the horsepower of an 80’s or 90’s engine with aftermarket mods.
Factory performance died in the late 70’s. At one point Dodge had a truck that put out more hp than a Corvette. It took decades for car manufacturers to catch because it took computerized fuel injection and variable timing to meet environmental standards. Now it’s common for everyday V6 engines to produce 300+ HP. Even with all that there are aftermarket kits that can take a 400 hp engine and add 150 hp to it.
Speaking out, decipher me this:
I got a '69 Chevy with a 396
Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor
Basic meaning: I’ve souped-up my Chevy and it will dust your ass. Wanna race?
Or ride to sea and wash these sins* off our hands?
- Thanks, silenus! This made me go look that up and see that it’s not “sands off our hands”!
I was always an always a American, V-8, rear wheel drive kind of rodder. Since starting on my first real import project (1999 Honda Civic Hatch,) I’ve discovered the difference between Ricers and Tuners. Ricers are the “Kustomizers” of the import scene. Even if they put a bit of go in their cars, they’re mainly about show. Tuners are the “Rodders.” If you see an import with a ridiculous body kit, tri-llevel wing, fart-can exhaust, and is moving a a speed that suggests it has a stock motor; Ricer.
If it goes like hell, even if it has SOME questionable cosmetic mods; Tuner.
[QUOTE=Drunky Smurf]
Ricers? Wow that’s a pretty racist term.
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[QUOTE=Gary T]
Only if you can be racist towards an inanimate object.
[/QUOTE]
Ricer not only refers to the cars, but to the builders. However, they’re referred to as Ricers regardless of their ethnicity. You can have White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, whatever ricers. Of course it’s never meant as a compliment to either the person or the car
[QUOTE=ftg]
Anyway, I also thought “deuce” referred to a two-door making “deuce coupé” a bit redundant. Are we sure that it refers to 1932?
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In the hot rod world, only two things are known as a deuce. A 1932 Ford and, less commonly, the first generation Chevy II/Nova.
You could have deuce coupe (two door/two person hard top,) deuce roadster (two door/two person with removable roof and windshield and no roll up windows,) cabriolet (two door/two person with fixed windshield, roll up windows, and removable roof,) or sedan (two or four door fixed roof/5 person.) There were other models but that’s all I could think of off the top of my head.
Nope, used to be powered by rice wine
Perhaps but I can see it as an offer for someone who is into racing and doesn’t have the cash, and offers the title as the bet instead (while the other person puts up the cash)
Also a two barrel carburetor, as in “three deuces and a four speed”.
True. I was only thinking of car makes/models at the time.
Not individual parts.
Can we revisit the “lake pipes”? I’m really not comfortable with the explanation. First, people all over the country were building hot rods, and only the smallest subset of those people had “dry lake beds” to run on. But the term became recognizable wherever one went.
Secondly, these cars were built as street racers, not primarily for real unlimited racing someplace like Daytona or Bonneville. Guys made macho on the streets, at stoplights, in the new drive-in restaurants, and such. Races were one on one at the nearest corner. We used to race on a lonely stretch of rural 2-lane road “west of town”.
The big thing about “lake pipes” was that they had removable caps. With caps on, you had a tough looking, loud but street legal automobile. But remove the caps (or lever the butterfly valves) and you had a wide open, down and dirty racing machine! If the common practice had been to build these cars to be run in the wide open places where street-legal didn’t matter, they’d have been built with tuned open exhausts, not half-measures like “lake pipes”. But instead you could drive your hot rod to the sock hop, become engaged in a challenge, and – with your manhood and your pink slip on the line – head down to the corner to “stand side by side”. And before your buddies signaled “GO” you opened those exhaust ports, giving you more horsepower and perhaps the winning edge. At the end, you capped the exhausts again, before the cops showed up.
I was alive and present for at least part of the “muscle car” era, back to 1950 anyway. And I have faint memories (I really wish now that I hadn’t been so wasteful of brain cells back then! my memories might be more clear) of advertising for early versions of these exhaust systems from a builder/manufacturer with “Lake” in the company name. Like Lake Exhausts, or Lake Manufacturing, or Lake Speed Shop or some other variant. I can (dimly, dimly) still see the ads.
My memory (or what I’m using these days in place of memory – perhaps just make-believe, I admit) is that the very first “lake pipes” were one-offs put together by hand in some enthusiast’s garage. And then seen around town, and passed along the gossip line, which was red hot for any technological innovation. Other people (garagehounds being what they are) copied the idea and popularity soared. Before too long some enterprising capitalist started manufacturing standardized versions made to fit some of the more popular models of hot rod, like Ford flat heads. And that company had “Lake” in the name. National recognition followed. If you wanted straight exhausts with dump ports for your little deuce coupe, you ordered them from Lake. And the name underwent the same transference that Scotch suffered with clear cellophane tape. “Lake Pipes” became iconic and the original company faded away.
I’ve tried to find evidence of this, but my google-fu is weak. And I suspect there aren’t all that many newspaper and magazine ads from that particular point in time. But I’d sure love anyone to either affirm or deny my – memory? Fairy tale? Whatever.