by 'fish Thu Dec 11, 2014 11:10 am
375.00 Are they insane???
I have a good story about those exact type of racks I think I might have paid maybe 40.00 for a new pair in the mid seventies and that was a lot of money to me then, I had a Ford LTD that was the neighborhood surf vehicle at that time I lived in costa Mesa CA and we all piled in and went to Newport or Huntington in it pretty much daily. Back then people used to steal those racks all the time, so I being the master mechanic I am (lol not back then I was a twenty year old with a pr of vise grips) I tightened down the nits as tight as possible then made them round, a few blobs of epoxy glues and they were theft proof. This car was huge easily holding six or seven of us for the few blocks to the back daily, over the years of sitting at the beach the salt spray etc. it got small holes pretty much through out the front top and over the body but it always ran so we didn't care, one day some time in 85 I think we decided to head down to Trestles back then to use that was a big surf trip, four of us strapped down our favorite board and headed on down the 5 to "the secret break" (you had to sneak past the SS guards that watched Nixon property) anyway after a fantastic day of surfing we all headed back exhausted, piled the boards on the rack and charged onto the freeway, there was a big argument weather to stop at Tommys or La Tiendita, then we hear it, this huge scraping, tearing, screeching sound, we all look at each other then out the rear to see all the boards getting about 20 feet of air stalling and hitting the freeway at about 50mph, we pull over and go back to collect the chips that used to be our custom boards, the supports had rusted through over the years of being permanently attached to the surf machine, it was a very very quiet ride home the rest of the way.
We later used a torch to cut the roof off the car and make it a convertible, the boards were then put in the trunk and hung out the back...
Most of us use ladder racks as the "surfboard racks" have gotten way too expensive, but for the vintage look those racks are it almost exactly like the they were in the 70s I think they offered a green or black vinyl coating.
Unless were going into Mexico we always leave the boards on top of the car, never had a person even look at them funny, Im not too worried about them getting stolen.
