Paul Garside, in the UK, asks for some USA jargon help, after listening to
rock & roll songs >
> 1) A flat-top Ford ?
Might be a certain Ford saloon configuration from the 20s or early 30s.
I don't remember hearing "flat-top".
This might be "flathead Ford". This is the famous flathead Ford V8 engine.
This is what I think you in the UK would call a "side-valve" engine.
The Eagles, in Jackson Browne's song "Take it easy", talk about a "flatbed
Ford" which is pickup truck with the pressed-steel cargo box removed and a
flat platform fitted above the rear tires. Browne may have had in mind a
1956 Ford F-100 thus fitted, as they are very popular as hot rods. Of
course, these trucks came with flathead V8 engines.
> 2) A souped-up (sounds like) Chidney or Jidney (ref "Teenage Wedding" and
> "You can't catch me")?
Perhaps it is "jitney". This is a term used for several types of vehicles,
including shuttle busses, some of which on military basses in the WWII era
were cut-up passenger cars. My parents, Navy people in those days, would
probably call a Mini-Moke a "jitney" in the unlikely event they would ever
see one. I imagine a hot-rodded earlier car might be described by 40s-50s
oriented folks as a jitney. I think the highly-decorated war-surplus
Jeeps that sprang up in the Phillipines after WWII are called jitneys, but
I am not sure.
More common in those days for either hot-rodded or delapitated (or both!)
older cars would be "jalopy".
> 3) Altitude 505/ Flight number 505 (no doubt some sexual imagery my mom
> warned me about)?
Over my head. The most common number for sexual imagery is 69.
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