If you only visit the Los Angeles area, and SoCal in general, you really can’t understand the history and cool that is all around you. Seriously, there are so many cool spots that are either historical to us car folks, the movies, tv, or California history. So much food, and culture and all kinds of other stuff too, but that would take many seasons of a tv show to cover. Instead, hang out with Freiburger in this video where he is visiting and sharing historically cool street racing spots, speed shops, Hot Rod Magazine and Car Junkie TV locations and more. Check it out and let us know what you think!
Video Description:
In this video I’ll take you to 1980s Los Angeles street racing spots and former speed shops! You’ll also see the old cruise locations on Van Nuys Blvd., the site of the abandoned San Fernando Drag Strip, and my former workplaces at Hot Rod Magazine, Burbank Dodge, and Car Junkie TV. There’s also some info on the Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale, California, and I’m hitting all of this in my 1971 Plymouth known as The Red Duster. And there are many great then-and-now photos I love so much!
I really dig this video; it has so much history. If you like it, please share it!
Thanks to Goodguys for the old cruising photos from Van Nuys.—D/F
I don’t much sit through videos but I enjoyed the Huell Howser tour here and if Freiburger does more I’ll watch them. That lighting-bolt van in front of Super Shops at 18:20 had a 6-71 blown 440, I saw it at run at Peoria where it did a line-lock burnout with those dualies then carried the front wheels off the line for some distance, a crazy thing to be racing down the little two-lane but it was as fast as anything out there. I didn’t know him but I believe that owner accrued a considerable stack of infraction and misdemeanor violations with it. A guy like me couldn’t deal with the Glendale Speed “in-crowd”, my first set of wheels came from the old location but cross-town rival Western Performance in the dirtier industrial area with its Friday-night meetups would become the place and Grand Central a few streets over saw many quick in-and-out sessions. There had also been the Daisy Farms Market on Fridays earlier, the ’67 Camaro I still have was a buddy’s from those days. I can attest to the greatness of the whole scene in the Valley in the late-70s/mid-80s.