Where is 69 Yenko Camaro 124379N663539

[GM_427_Racer]

Originally Posted by PeteLeathersac

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Awesome updates Gary and please keep 'em coming!
The Duster story w/ your folks and polka dancing reminded me of this Nester Shydlowsky Album as pic below, note the modified Beep-A-Beep sign also cool shoes!

~ Pete

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Thanks Pete,

I apologize in advance, sorry car guys, not a car story here, but definitely about my youth and my Mom, gotta give her some Love since I always talk about my Dad (what a guy).

Sometimes a word will jog this old memory. When I said it folded like an accordion, (it really did look like that), the word accordion made me think of my Mom's side of the family and it also makes me think of hearing polka music (really don't hear that type of music much anymore). She was one of eight children, 4 older sisters, and 3 younger brothers and her parents came here from Yugoslavia and she was very proud of her Slovenian heritage, even though she was born in this country in 1921. Whenever I think of her and all of her siblings, polka music always has to come to mind because their mother and father were very old school and they had dual citizenship. When I was growing up, the siblings would have parties all the time and that meant my two uncles would pull out the squeeze boxes (their father, my grandfather, had these made in the old country) and the dancing would begin, it didn't matter if it was outside on a concrete driveway, in the basement, in a living room, the hooting and hollering and dancing was something to watch. It was a very, very HAPPY time and my MOM was always at the center of it. Once the music started, she would dance for hours and hours til the music stopped, which sometimes was in the very early morning. As you can see in the picture above, standing by the Yenko on the trailer she was only 4'10", but she was a fireball and usually the life of those parties. As they all grew older, the parties were less frequent, but when they did get together, the music and the dancing would start, just didn't last as long. They are all gone now, but when my last Uncle passed a couple years ago, I thought that now the Polka Party could really start since they are all back together and he was the youngest and I'm guessing the squeeze box came out as soon as he arrived.

For those of you that have never heard polka music, it will kind of all sound the same, but it has great rhythm, well I always enjoyed it and like I said above it is "HAPPY" music.

Great times!!

GM

[GM_427_Racer]

Originally Posted by markinnaples

Gary, thanks for all of the old stories. This is probably my favorite thread on the internet. Hope you share more if you can, thanks again.

Thanks markinnaples for the kind words. Thinking about the ole Duster kind of jogged my memory a little about an earlier tow vehicle that didn't happen and of course my Dad was involved and probably a larger degree my Mother had a say in what happened.

I should preface this by telling a little bit more about my Dad. I'm pretty sure I explained about how strong my Dad was (even in his later years) in one of the earlier stories (installing the transmission), but I didn't say how he came by having those muscles. Dad worked for a burial vault company for about 40 years, this company actually made concrete burial vaults for single caskets and Dad not only made them, but he was usually the main installer. The burial vault system consisted of a base, which was about 7 feet long, about 30" wide and about 2-1/2" thick concrete. The upper portion which I called the dome again was made out of concrete and was made by using molds, just a lot bigger than what was used for the base and they made probably 5-6 systems a day. This was back in the 1950's, so other than chain blocks and trollies, there was not any automated equipment, it was all done by hand. When I was a little guy, again back in the 50's, sometimes if Dad had a Saturday installation, I would get to go with him. I always knew if I went, Dad would always stop for ice cream somewhere during the day, so if he asked me, there was no hesitation cause I was going (what a treat). Watching this installation is when I realized how strong Dad was. When he would get to the cemetery, the hole was already done, so before the funeral procession would arrive, it was Dad's job to get everything prepped for the interment. They used one ton trucks with a utility body on them and this is the amazing part (well at least I think it is amazing). Dad would take a 2x12 and lay it down in the hole diagonally with one end at ground level, he would go back to the truck, pull the base (look above for the dimensions of the base - solid concrete) off of the truck and stand it up against the truck. He would put is back to the base, grab it with a hand on each side lean it on his back and walk over to the grave site with this 7 feet long of concrete (I have no idea how much it weighed), but he would always tell me to stay out of his way when he was carrying it. He would get it over to hole, slide it down the board, and then pull the board out. The dome portion of the vault was on a 4 wheeled buggie that he would again put boards against the truck and he would pull the buggie to the boards and then bring it down the board ramps using two other boards, one between two of the wheels and the other one he would use as a wedge to put pressure on the first board and that was the brakes on the buggie coming off the truck. That's how the "Greatest Generation" worked every day, just get out of their way and they would get the job done.

I really didn't have to tell you folks all this information about Dad, but he was the BEST.

The reason I told the story is that Dad use to travel all over northeastern Ohio and he met a lot of people (living ones), and he dealt with a lot of funeral directors. Ok, now to the tow vehicle story (that didn't happen), Dad got the idea that a used hearse would make a really good tow vehicle (basically a Cadillac station wagon). He told me, think about it, it has a big V8, a full frame so we could put a nice hitch on it, tons of space to haul spare parts and tools, not to mention it would have air conditioning. I said OK, so he started looking and found a couple of nice ones (low mileage - LOL). He was getting ready to pull the trigger and I made the mistake of bringing it up at the dinner table one night. In my last post about my Mom I mentioned that she was only 4'10", but I gotta say she ruled the roost and what she said was the way it was. She looked at Dad and flat out said, "NO Hearse is going to be parked in MY driveway." Well, that's how I ended up with a DUSTER for a tow vehicle!!

GM

[Xplantdad]

Love the continuing stories, Gary!

[Nasblu]

Originally Posted by GM_427_Racer

Now that's funny!! I am surprised he allowed you to stay. I never saw him cut anyone any slack.

I will give you a "Marty" story. For those of you that didn't know Marty, he was a rather "rotund and not too tall gentleman". When I took my new "Super Stock" car to Indy, I think it was 1977, (not the Yenko), I had borrowed a friend of mine's Dodge D5500 car hauler with an Olenyik enclosed body on the truck to make the trip. The floor of truck where the car was located was probably close to four feet off the ground and when you opened the side door, you had to climb up a couple steps on the side of the body to get in. These really weren't steps, just cut outs in the side of body where your feet went and it wasn't all that easy to make it in. For technical inspection, I should also mention that they had us parked on the circle track and the truck was parked on an angle pointing downward, which made it even harder to get in the truck box. Anyway, I was standing there with my tech card in hand with the side door open when Marty walked up and I got this sick feeling in my stomach. I was thinking, "Oh crap, he's going to throw me out again before I get to even unload the car." Marty took the card out of my hand, looked at me, looked at the car from the ground, looked back at me and without even attempting to get in the truck, stamped the card that I passed tech and told me to have a "Nice Day and Good Luck". I was stunned, I thanked him and got the hell out of there before he changed his mind. Good Times for sure!!!

GM

Speaking of the Barratt family from Indy. Marty Barratt brother Rick ran a gold 69 yenko camaro in NHRA Division 3 SS/D class. Do you remember his camaro? It competed at the US Nationals in 1970 with the car.

[GM_427_Racer]

Originally Posted by Nasblu

Speaking of the Barratt family from Indy. Marty Barratt brother Rick ran a gold 69 yenko camaro in NHRA Division 3 SS/D class. Do you remember his camaro? It competed at the US Nationals in 1970 with the car.

The first time I went to Indy was in 1974 as a crew guy. I remember the name Rick Barratt but I think that was from seeing him race the Pinto in a gas class I believe. In fact I never realized that he and Marty were related. I don’t remember the gold 69 Camaro, but then again I didn’t really start running NHRA divisional races until 1977.

[SMS]

Probably everyone has seen this thread, but for the record I'll add the link here where Rick's Gold car is being discussed.


https://www.yenko.net/forum/showthread.php?t=157880

[GM_427_Racer]

A little smoker from back in the day..

[GM_427_Racer]

An original picture from back in the day.

[SMS]

Originally Posted by GM_427_Racer

An original picture from back in the day.

That shot is awesome. Thanks for sharing!

[markinnaples]

Good grief that was a great looking Camaro.