29 now and when I was in hs we were always up to no good driving around. I was usually the wheel man. But car cruising has been shut down by everyone. Even just get together a are no more. Cops or restaurants/sonic don't want us there

When I was in high school we used to have so many cars on fri and sat Main street was bumper to bumper. Turn around at wendys and a gas station. One time the gas station manager got a bur up his ass and blocked the turn around for a few weeks. Lost so much business he changed his mind!

Even with people stopped along side the street in various places traffic would be backed up. We had epic water gun and balloon fights all through town. Wasnt any street racing in town, you really couldnt with the layout and traffic.

Towards the end of my time the city and cops started the loitering bs. Basically kids turned hardcore into drugs. It's hard to blame it on the death of cruising, but you could easily make a case it contributed. Plenty of drinking and pot use back in the day, but raging, rehab level drug use was unheard of. Old folks carry on about drug use there, im sure they cant figure out a lack of ANYTHING to do will push people to invent something go do.

I was back in the area 5-6 years ago and people were pleasure driving hot rods on the big main connector road. I was shocked as we never did that much, I joined in the road runner that day. I checked that night and downtown was dead as a door nail.

Yes it was huge in the early 80's in Beckley, WV. Cruising Valley Drive and parking in Hecks Parking lot...talking big to girls from other high schools.

It's officially dead and has been for twenty years, as are cruise ins and car shows around here. The only people with older cars are old guys now who never drive them anyway. I know of tons of nice older cars collecting dust for years due to lack of interest or else they are over-restored. I don't see the hobby coming back as the cars are way too expensive now for most people to afford.

I see gatherings of tuners and 4X4's on the weekends around south eastern MI.
KID

I have some cool pictures from the 1982 Street Machine Nationals at Cal Expo.

Lived in the East Bay at the time and the big cruises were in Walnut Creek and Livermore.

Agreed.

The police gave us little hassle as most were well behaved and took our contests of acceleration out of town. Up on Berlin Turnpike racing light to light was not uncommon.

Now it will get you thrown in the pokey quick.

In my neck of the woods it's more like gathering in the Tim Horton's parking lot cars all parked, no cruisin'.

Yup. Tuners, stock imports with fart cans, rusty diesels and a few Scatpacks that daddy bought them are all you really see up there anymore.
Cruising is what makes my whole Nats experience every year, and I would love to find a place that still partakes.
Bucyrus, Ohio used to be a great cruising spot, and people used to "shoot the loop" in Marion. I would guess that neither is a hotbed of activity anymore, although I know there were still cars out and about in Marion circa 1994. Crap, that was 22 years ago. Never mind.

I still cruise around our town, but most of the time, its just me.

Our town has an organized "Cruise Night" where they actually cruise the streets we used to cruise back in the day! They actually block off the area, and have an established circuit. The Police are there to be sure everything is good. They have made it a big deal, there are food vendors, they have a band playing, an organized burn off contest, a muffler rapping contest, kids bounce houses, and open the streets to cruising between 7 pm and 10 pm. They rent you parking spaces in the lit parking lots ($12 reserved, or $10 day of, and usually fill the 1,000 or so spaces by 5pm). Last year there were over 1,000 cars and probably 10,000 people. Its a great night.
There is a web site www.freeportcruisenight.org and a lot more stuff if you google "Freeport IL cruise Night"

Its not a nightly thing, or even a weekend thing, but its a great 1 night event every summer. Gene

Your link doesn't work.

In here someplace?

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=Fr...p;hsimp=yhs-002

http://www.freeportcruisenight.org/

Try it again, I was editing it while you were trying to check it out. Gene

Yup, it works now. :-)

My Wife is from Pottstown PA, which was once one of the top cruise towns in the Country.
But Cops shut it down, & the city made it 1 lane each way... so now its dead on Friday & Sat nights.

But this is what it looked like back right before the end in the early 90's.


I used to go down and cruise there in the late 70's to mid 80's when it was wall to wall performance cars.
A few of which it seems were still making the cruise when the above video was made in 91...
Like the red Mustang with the wheelie bars near the end & the ZZ Top looking street rod.

I get mine out and cruise around all the time...a few others local to me do too.
Nothing organized you just show up or not...
There is a younger group of ricers with a few diesel trucks that hangout at a local parking lot.
They started a "Street Outlaws" list a couple years ago...they call themselves the 301...
Just a bunch of fart pipe honda's and a couple newer Mustangs. I tried messing with them 1 night with the Dart...pulled in and told them I wanted to see the "Gatekeeper" about getting on the list.
Evidently they never did a lot of racing and developed the list by money spent and who they thought was fast. The guy told me a bunch a guys got butthurt once the list was posted on facebook. Evidently they all wanted "participation trophies"...

"participation trophies"

Go to the local wrecking yard and put up a dozen or 2 bent antennae. Drill a hole in rocks, stick in antennae. Good enough for them.

I remember cruising back in the early seventies growing up in Pittsburgh ( North Hills) but when my family moved to N. J. in 73 I never saw much cruising. The popular thing now is "cruise nights" cars and people hanging out in large parking lots most of the time sanctioned by a local car club. There is one on Friday nights about two miles from my house that some friends attend I go hang out sometimes plus there is a good italian restaurant there for dinner.I used to bring my D150 there but a few years ago they began only allowing 25 years or older cars/trucks as it was getting too crowded with new Vettes, Mustangs etc. and there wasn`t room for the old cars. At least next year I will be allowed to bring my D150 as it will be 25 years old.

Cruise-INS are fun as you can walk around and check out all the cars and talk to the owners, but CRUISES are better, and you can still stop for burgers and talk with friends, then back out into the loop.

Cruise-ins are not even close to the same as kids doing the drag with their buddies. It's not at all the same & if you didn't do it when you were young then you really missed out & you can't replicate it.

Wow! That place was legit!