I went to high school in the 90s. Most of the old cars in the lot seemed to park in the same 2 rows that faced each other. There weren't many Mopars though. There was a Purple 67 Impala, 68 Mercury Cyclone GT notchback ( I can't even find a picture of one that isn't a fastback.), 66 Dodge D200 Camper Special, mid 70s El Camino, 68 Chevy C10, 71 Pontiac LeMans (driven by a girl), 80s Chevy trucks, late 80s Thunderbird 5.0.

There was kid who got a 67 El Camino and crashed it into a tree out front. After that he drove a 70 nova 4 door and then a Opel GT. He also drove his dad's 71 Chevy C10 w/ a 402.

There were a few vehicles that were never in the parking lot, but were brought into the auto shop to install/remove engines and then parked out back. One was a 69 Firebird and another was a 76 Ramcharger that the body was pulled off to make a off-roading vehicle with a 39 GMC cab. One kid built an engine for his dad's 59 Ford Fairlane w/ a retractable roof. I remember a 69 Nova in there too.

I also remember someone had a Dodge D50 that was lowered and hit a parking lot approach smashing the front end.

There were 2 new trucks in the lot as well, a new 94-95 Dodge Ram and a new Chevy 2500 w/ a plow. The plow truck was said to be purchased by the stripper girlfriend of the owner.

Another thing to remember is that this was also back when these cars were 'just' cars and not someones 401K. Cars and parts could be had easier. I (very) briefly owned a trashed but running and driving slant six powered '70 Barracuda back in '83. Paid all of $400 for it. BUT, unlike now, there was very little (if any) replacement sheet metal (or restoration parts in general) from the after market. And, this was also before MIG welders were readily available to the public. A lot of cars got hacked or junked early because of this (re: my Barracuda).

Yeah, we like to look back with rose colored glasses, but not everything was great.

Those cars were cool! My brother had a low mileage beauty that ended up meeting with a light pole...shame.

Again I agree! The comment about if high school parking lots are now being filled with Hellcats and GT500s was silly. Those are 50k plus cars. Back in the 70s and early 80s muscle cars were easily had for minimal money. I also had a 70 e-body that I paid $500 for. It was a pos at that time but by todays standards I could have retired on what it would bring.

I looked it up and there were only 334 of these ever made.

paid $100 of my own money (1980) and drove it home.Had it about a year. Needed lower 1/4s. Sold it to buy another car, new kid plowed into a pole within a week.

This picture was taken in May of 1970, the year I graduated from High School.
1969 red Swinger 340-4 speed that snot nosed Roger Turners' mother bought brand new for him for making it to Grade 12.
1968 Cougar convertible seen beside it owned by another classmate.
Everybody but Roger drove that car, because he couldn't drive his finger up his nose.
It was brand new but never sold until spring of 1970 as a 'demo with miles on it'.
The Chrysler dealership just down the street from the school was owned by Maurice Peters, a real gearhead.
We would walk down to the dealership at lunch in the fall of 69 or spring of 70 and as long as someone had their drivers licence, he would throw us the keys to that Swinger and say 'take it for a drive and see what you think.'
I bet 40 kids pounded that car....is a wonder it never got wrecked.
We had a 2 mile straight stretch on the Parkway were everyone went.
That car resulted in getting me hooked on Mopars..
Maurice replaced the rear tires twice and at least one clutch before that car was bought sitting on the back lot by Mrs Turner.
We had lots of older hot rodded cars driven to school in those days but nobody had the dough to buy anything new,
and the few parents who had a muscle car would not let their kids drive them to school.
I drove my 51 Ford convertible, flat head, 3 deuces, 3 in the tree. complete with lowering blocks and cruiser skirts to my graduation that year.

Ah, high school; I graduated June 1969, Granada Hills, CA.
By 12th grade, I had a '64 Corvair, a buddy had a '57 Ford and then a '66 Chevelle, another a '63 Impala, another a '64 Dodge 330, yet another a '67 GTO, but I don't recall much other cool stuff in the parking lot...

EXCEPT.

A buddy got a silver Hemi/auto '68 RR coupe, 1st RR I'd seen & very early in production, from his parents. He always drove it carefully, just cruised it around.
Later on he fooled with the cosmetics a bit, adding stripes.
One other kid, whose father was well off, in '68 got a dark green GTX, black VT & interior, and he kept that car immaculate.
Then the next year, he shows up with a '69 Charger, light yellow, black interior, Hemi badges on the doors. Also always immaculate.
Those were the big deal in the lot.
I've always wondered where those 3 cars are now.

The one I will never forget was a 70 340 4-speed Cuda that a jock had. A few friends went out and got drunk going down the "toke path" that was a road following the Wabash river that we all drove and was quite twisty. I believe it was 1976 when they lost control and went off the road at around 100 mph and hit the trees. Three died and one lost his arm at the shoulder! He was always a daredevil after that, he thought he should have died with his friends. I tripped over the broken pistol grip shifter handle in the local junkyard almost exactly a year after the wreck...

I will need to look for pics of my 73-71 duster 340 LOL. I changed the grill HS style. made it fit. it had a tunnel ram, auto W/ stall converter. Keystones. and was the best I could do in HS. but a 6-71 Blower was on my mind. so I was close but it was a few years later that this happened. and it is the Hemi I still have in my HS car 1969 Coronet R/T.

Some very cool pics. I had a '67 D100 stepside poly 318 three-on-the-tree. Not a muscle car, but 4.10 gears and a very cool old truck. It was the 80's and I was an absolute Mopar fanatic. A buddy Gordon W. had an orange '70 Super Bee 383 pistol grip. Charlie B. had a 66 Chebby truck also stepside with a built 327. I remember Barry B's 340 Duster, another friend with a stock '70 Dart swinger 318 but it was cool! Every one of these guys worked on their own cars, and didn't put all their money into a sound system that rattled the chrome, and completely forget performance.

Agree the photo is a bit of BS for high school unless it was a very affluent school, and its unlikely those high schools would have had much in the way of muscle cars. Vettes and sports cars maybe.

I graduated in '83. I had a very clean and nice '68 Road Runner. There were a couple other clapped out and primered mopars at school. There was a group of us that all parked together at the far end of the parking lot to avoid the general population parking idjits. In this bunch was my Road Runner, a '68 SS396 Chevelle, a '70 SCJ Mustang, a very nice V8 Vega, an Olds W machine, a really nice '65 fastback Mustang with a 289 Hi Po along with a gaggle of the most prolific high school vehicles, 65-67 Mustang coupes.

The vast majority of the student body was driving more pedestrian version of the cool cars made from 65-78. We also had a pretty equal amount of imports with Honda and Datsun being the primary brands in that catagory.

Nobody had blowers, although there was a set of Cragar SSTs on one of the Mustangs. One guy was even able to wheel and deal a set of Centerlines because of his swap meet work and employee discount at Super Shops.

I rode the bus to high school until graduating in '77... wasn't old enough for a driver's license and my father would not have paid the insurance rates for a teenage boy anyway!
But a friend of mine had a 396-powered Chevelle that was pretty zippy.

I didn't have a car until my senior year. Even then, I had to beg my dad to let me buy one with all my own money (truly earned by me by mowing lawns and working at a Marina after school and weekends). I paid my insurance too. My dad only let me buy it because I had so many lawns and getting to and from was getting very impractical.

The student bike racks were much more full than student parking. Not that way anymore!!! They have had to expand student parking at my high school several times since I graduated.

My HS had a lot of cool cars . My family had a 69 RR, 73 Cuda, 340 Duster, 71 Charger. Friends had a TA Challenger, 69 Super Bee, Mustang GT 350, Challengers, 69 big block Chevelle's, a few Goats. You have to remember in 78-80 these cars weren't selling for much.. Boy we had a blast and had lots of street races.

The HS I went to was too far out in the sticks for anyone to ride a bicycle to. There wasn't even a place to park bikes.

Motorcycles on the other hand..........there were a couple.

I didn't have a problem with my parents letting me buy my own car, part of that was because the very first car I had, they helped me get, and we got burned kinda bad on it. I guess the thought was to see how I'd do on my own, with no input from them. I ended up buying (for CHEAP) a rusty '73 Satellite Sebring with a bad torque converter (snout was broken, sounded like a rod knock). I had to fix it myself. I couldn't afford a repair shop to do it. Learned a lot because of that car in the short time I owned it. I didn't get burned like the with the first ride, but, there was much more wrong with the car than I realized and being so rusty, it got junked. Had a lot of fun with it too.

In the time I was in HS, I went from a '68 Dart 270 (4dr), to the Satellite, bought but never drove the '70 Barracuda, and ended with a '77 Gran Fury cop car. The cop car cost me the most at $500.

*sigh*

Late 80s I was driving a 73 340 RR. There were a few 60s camaros and mustangs. I got tired of poor gas mileage and reliability and bought a brand new s-10 p/u with my Walmart job. I wish I still had that truck. Amazing what could be done in one of those even with a 5 speed shifter in the way.

As was the case everywhere I guess, there were very few Mopars at my high school. Mostly chebby and phord guys. I was such a Mopar fanatic (still am of course) that people started calling me "Mopar", and it made it to the yearbook. Under my picture and between first and last name is "Mopar" Still don't know who got that done!

Class of 77 here. I had a 67 Camaro SS 4 speed. We had a 70 LS6 Chevelle that often wore slicks to school. Several Camaros, a 73 TransAm 455, a hemi superbee and A12 runner. A 390 GTA Mustang that was a total dog.

One kid brought his old mans 76 Turbo Carrera to school a few times, hands down the coolest car in the lot ever.

There were a few muscle cars in my school parking lot ( graduated 1978 )

Best one was a friends lime green superbird. That car had some deep dish cragers on all 4 corners . 440 six barrel 4 spd. Im still friends with him and he owns a few superbirds ,,,just no longer owns that one

There was a 1966 Charger that had hemi emblems on it but the car had a 440 and 4 spd in it , red with white interior . I was told it was an original hemi car but didnt know how to ck back then
I started my senior year in a white 1966 Pontiac Lemans. ended it with a 1967 Cougar 390 auto ( that car was real hard on rear tires btw ,, no idea why)

There was a kid whose parents owned a GM dealership back then and he always drove some neat stuff. One was a later 70s Chevy Monza 350 auto. I rode in it a few times ad man that car would fly


Guy one year ahead of me drove an orange 1969 Z28 Camaro. his parents bought new. Over the years Ive wondered if the family still owns it

my freshman year there was a green 1969 hemi roadrunner I spotted a few times. ,,,,,That I ended up buying several years after high school ,,less engine.
I found out a few years after school the car had a 383 in it at that time as the Original engine was blown up ( twice ) early on. so they put the 383 in it to keep it driveable.
A few years after I got the car, I got wind the original engine was laying on the floor in a local small town garage but when I went looking for it the shop owner had recently passed and all the shops contents were scrapped .