Hey guys I'm new to the forum and fairly new (about 3 years) to the hot rod culture but I feel I'm fitting in pretty well so far. I figured while I'm at it I'd share my story with you all:
Well, back when I was about 12 years old, I was mowing grass for a lady I knew and she asked me to take the weed whacker out back and cut down some crap back in the woods. There I found a mini junkyard; a couple Broncos, some lifted trucks, an old Celica, and a '72 Dodge Challenger. The hot rod bug bit me right then and there. I went home, talked to my dad, and he went over with me to check it out. Well, it was too ate up to even bother with (even though the owner, the lady's son, only wanted $1100 for the car which had a good 340 in it as well as a 440 with a 727 tranny) but decided to look for an oldie to mess around with until I could drive. After countless eBay hours, I found this little pearl. It was listed as a '61 2 door sedan with 41k miles, and 170 c.i.d inline 6, which I later figured out was a 144.The guy selling it had just bought it at a police auction. The story is that a lady bought it new in '61, drove it daily until she got old, then drove it a couple times a week, probably to the grocery and church. Then when she died, her grandson inherited it and racked up a couple thousand dollars in parking tickets in San Fran. Which is how it got to the police auction. But the rest is history, paid $1600 for it and got it hauled from Cali to Ohio which is where it sits now.
When I got it, it had the original upholstery (completely dry-rotted in spots from the Cali sun) and some cheap Wal-Mart carpet. First thing I did was order up some new black loop carpet from Dearborn Classics and put that in. Then I got some black upholstery for the original bench seats, also from Dearborn. Then after the engine swap I put in a B&M Unimatic Shifter. There is also a Sony headunit hidden in the glove box and 2 Polk Audio coaxial speakers on a custom hardboard package tray.
New engine is a Ford 3.3L 200 cube Inline-6 from a '78 Fairmont. Picked it up for $320 with a C-4 tranny attached. Since then it has been bored .060, head recieved a 3 angle valve job, all new internals, etc. I'm also running an Offenhauser Tri-Power manifold with 3 Weber 1 barrel carbs.
Right now the body completely original. It's had a few paint jobs over the years apparently, none of which involved stripping any of the old paint jobs. I'm currently looking into getting some bigger wheels/tires and eventually I'd like to have it a nice yellow color. But thats a while off...
Hope I can find my little niche on this forum as I have on a couple others :)
