How it all began

The new Worldkustom editor Anders Hjelm from Lindesberg tells the story of how it all began for him.  

It all began in the middle of the seventies.

How the interest for American cars rise differs from person to person. Some are born and raised, others have a big brother who introduces American cars and then we have the ones with a friend who has one. For my part, it started in the middle of the seventies. By Anders Hjelm. Translation Ellen Kay Krantz.

I was ten years old and working on my bicycle. 

A green one with that comfortable old timey-saddle. Wasn’t really working on it as much as stickering it with some new decal’s I mooched of the local gas stations and fantasizing about a higher handlebar when a muffled grumble made me look up.

A big red car without roof came rolling up the hill towards the neighbors’ house and parked. I curiously peeked through the bicycle wheel.

The big red was wide between the head lights and didn’t at all look like daddy’s catty-eyed Taunus parked next to my bike.

-“A cruise mobile” I thought. “What’s it doing at Nydén? He’s just a Plummer.”
The driver had long hair and beard and didn’t look one bit like the cruiser dudes in this town. He went into the house and I slowly moved closer to get a better look at the big red.

GTO, it said on the rear fender and the roof was tucked in behind the back seat.

Seats and door insides had at one point been white and the floor was scattered with beer bottles. IIB the etiquette said. That meant medium strong I had recently learnt, they gave a return of a dime if they had been emptied.

I had collected empty bottles earlier and was, apart from my weekly allowance my main income. Fudge from the BP-station and Galanite cars in plastic plus small cartons of Lego represented my big spending.

 -“How do you like the car?”
My thoughts was interrupted by the long haired that exited with the neighbors’ daughter sauntering behind.
 -“Eh.. yea.. cool” I exhaled.
-“It’s a Pontiac” he said, with emphasis on “jack”.

Probably he saw my eagerness towards the beer bottles.
-“Would you like the empty bottles?”
All I could do was nod.
-“There’ll be more at Kalvhagen later tonight” he said and filled a plastic bag.

Kalvhagen (calf paddock)
A big parking lot was located at the centre of Lindesberg that earlier was occupied by kettle in connection to a dairy factory. That’s the background to the name were the local cruisers hung out Friday and Saturday night during the 60’s and 70’s.

On Kalvhagen the cruisers had full overview of ongoing traffic and got to pretty much run the place with no distractions.

That’s where I sneaked a peek, armed with plastic bags right after the televised air time was over around eleven.

Well on sight I chose a spot in the corner and just watched. Around eight, ten cruise mobiles and three times more people that drank, talked and listened to music from one of the cars. Big red was there. After i while I walked pass and picked up some cans from a trash can nearby.

 -“Hey! Kiddo” One of the voices said. It was the long haired. -“Come on down.”
He pointed with his thumb to the GTO. There were more in the back of it. I picked them up with haste and then sat for a while behind the wheel listening to the rock’n’roll beaming from the speakers. It sounded good.

 -“You can have mine too”  A still pretty sober guy with sideburns. More and more came up to me and wanted their cars cleaned of cans. Ran out of the bags i brought but there were more in the cars. When I had emptied out the can storages I tried to get back home. Staring perplexed at tonight’s earnings I wasn’t sure how to get it all home.

Placed half behind a container in one corner of the lot. It smelled strongly of urine. I understood that this is where the beer ended up. The walk back home was begun.

Half an hour later I returned to collect the rest. The cruisers were gone but some new cans were neatly lined up behind the container next to my hidden bags.

The summer night was warm, it smelled of beer and urine but I walked strolled home with a smile on my face. I was filthy wealthy. At home I had at least 6-7 dollars in cans and best of all; I got to sit in a real cruiser.

Following summer I went with my parents to visit grandma in Solleftea. The trip up state, around 370 miles, was in a Fiat 128 and lasted two days with a layover somewhere in Halsingland.

When we finally got to the high-rise complex where grandma live I circled the block, looking for something to do. In front of a garage on Storgatan guys in my age was hanging out. I hung out with them and found that they also to were into cruiser cars.

We spent the days hanging around and commenting cars as they drove by. I was fascinated by their chose of words as they were from Angermanland and their slang differed. The coolest word was at the time “bad”.

Never got the hang of it really, couldn’t figure out if it was something positive but I think so, because one of the cars passing by was an early seventies Mopar.

It was purple and the guys said it was bad. Later I got to know it was a Dodge Challenger painted in Plum Crazy, one of the strong colors that marked the muscle cars from Chrysler Corporation during many years.

( Ha, ha I’m from that area and “bad” was definitely not a positive thing, other way around. We weren’t aware of all the amazing vehicles that got here with the oil crises-damaged USA. The today widely appreciated color Plum Crazy could surely have been considered ugly-purple in a time when black with mirra flakes was, as we said, “way cool”/ Krantz ) 

On of the natives had an older brother who was one of the cruisers. At least said exciting. He rolled around town in a Chevrolet El Camino. A red from 1960. I remember being heavily fascinated by the hugeness. Had just one like it, but it was a plastic replica made by Norwegian Tomte.

One day the younger brother and I were asked to get into the Camino, we were supposed to help out with something and I wasn’t hard to persuade into sliding onto the seat. The low murmur when the key turned the ignition was like music to my ears.

Turned in to double music when he pushed the cassette in, dad only got a radio in his sour Fiat, and my ears flapped like crazy as lovely harmonies filled the coupe.

– “I’m gonna wake you up early, ’cause I’m gonna take a ride with you”
It was The Hondells singing Little Honda. The fact that the song was about a bike passed me by at the moment but it felt so right with that kind of music.

We rode to the brewery with the windows down and unloaded some empty soda trays and filled it up with new bottles.

Each one of us kids got one soda pop for the trouble, I chose Trocadero and my friend took a Sydapelsin.

After drinking half we switched and everything felt pretty good. Half an hour passed and the first ride in a cruise mobile was over.

Didn’t get another chance to ride an American car that summer and daddy’s Fiat felt pretty small and skimpy when we headed south a week later. The feeling of a real cruise mobile stuck with me for years.

In the fall I went to the movies in the public house in Lindesberg and saw American Graffiti.

What amazing experience! Super cool cars and fantastic music. I wanted to be a cruiser. On my way out of the cinema I saw the long haired from Kalvhagen again.

He nodded recognizing and jumped into a light grey PV.

Many years later I got my first car. A black four door Dodge Coronet from 1966. With a tape recorder and cassettes with rock’n’roll.

I too got to hang out at Kalvhagen, before they during the late 80’s built a four story building on the lot.

Anders Hjelm for