Hot Rods Does your car have an interesting story to tell?

Share some of the many stories you have, I would love to hear some and I'm sure others would too. BigO

 

WOW that's a great story, it was meant to be yours all along, congrats. BigO

 

That story gave me goosebumps, what a great story for your family to have, its now a family heirloom. BigO

 

What? Other than running me over three times (twice on a highway) and running over Porknbeaner at least once (at the Hamb drags), I’m not sure there is much to tell other than it earned the name Mortis.
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Cool thread @BigO...

The Story I tell anyone interested goes like this...An Aviation Serviceman came back from WWII bought himself an old car and made a Hotrod...jump forward to 1963 and the changes moving forward include changing out the Engine with a Hot Smallblock sourced from a well known Hotrodder in town and adding a 57 Chev rearend among a few other more Period Vintage Details to that time not so long ago...

Now this Hotrod is a 2010 build here on the Hamb so it is truly inspired but the Story is totally plausible and I love telling it...



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My Pops was a restorer rather than hot rodder- His favorite were Pierce Arrows. Way before Al Gore invented the internet (mid ‘70s) he tracked down the back half of a Pierce Touring car- 4 states away. Went and bought it and when he got back home he went to show one of his friends it. Friend was beyond excited— he had bought a Pierce Arrow years before that had been cut off to use as a truck and wanted to buy it. Quickly found out this was The back half to His car. Same jagged cuts matched up like a jigsaw puzzle. Never figured out how it made its journey but he was able to put the car back together.

Sounds unbelievable but Bert was well known and I have somewhere the article with a (staged) picture of him on his knees begging my Dad to sell him the back of it.
Any old timers from the Issaquah area (and further) will absolutely know who I’m talking about.

 

My 57 150 sedan was bought new by my uncle Jerry in Chicago . He had only lived in America for a year or so after emigrating from England as a mechanical engineer. In 1959 he moved to San Diego to work for Convair. In 1977 when the Chevy was 20 yrs old He sold it to me for $1.00 I was 13 yrs old I pulled the 235 and had it rebuilt and drove the car thru High School. Around 1983 some dumb ass cut me off and I wrecked the drivers side front fender , I took the car home and took off the front end and started to build a 327 4spd combo for it. About that time I also bought a 71 Chevelle 350 4spd car...My old man said something had to go so I sold it to my buddy Ray with the understanding I would get the first right of refusal. So 25 yrs later I buy it back but its been pro streeted Long story short I rip out the hacked 1 pc Ca chassis and find another 1 pc Chassis and weld in new trunk floors etc. It now has a blown 355 th 400 + 9" with Cragar SS wheels . Sadly its still in Paint jail..It's the one in my avatar.

 

Back in the early 1980s, I had reached a point where I was pretty tired of the Muscle Car seen and the dirt track racing I was doing was getting expensive. I decided I wanted to build a street rod (then all 30s &40 hot rods were street rods to me). The only problem was I didn't have any money.
One evening I was talking with the guy in the auto sales department at our local J C Penny auto center (I'd worked with him before) about my desire to build a street rod. He just happened to have an old rust pile project he would sell me for $75, and it had a good title!

You probably need a bit of info regarding this "car". The guy bought the 1935 Dodge 2 door sedan project car out of Iowa and started the process for a bonded title. After he had a title in hand, he started working on it. His 1st order of business was to update the front suspension. He located a complete cross torsion bar suspension and sub frame out of a 70s Volari, so he promptly torched off the front springs and axle and tack welded the sub frame onto the Dodge chassis. Then he decided he needed to chop the top 3". He sat the body up on a pair of saw horses (no body braces) and hacked the roof off and remover 3" from each roof post. Then the project slowed down when he couldn't figure out how to put the roof back on and make it fit. While the car was in this condition, he got into a car wreck with his daily that required some healing time. His father and his brother decided to help him get his wrecked car into his garage, but the sedan was in the way. They tried to slide the saw horses over, but the body broke and fell off the saw horses. After his recovery, him, his brother, and his father loaded the 35 onto a trailer and transported it to the stone quarry behind his place, and through it off in a pile, where it had laid for around 7 years before I came along.
When he offered the 35 Dodge 2 door sedan to me for $75, with a good title, I was hooked. He took me to the stone quarry and showed me the pile that was a complete, but cut apart then broken body and a frame with this front suspension tack welded on. Man, I had the vision! I could see it rolling down the street as it laid there in that stone quarry! I was excited, so I took my wife out to the quarry and showed her the pile. I sort of had to stand up the pieces and explain the car I was clearly seeing at the barjen price of just $75, and it has a title! She didn't quite see the same vision as I did, but she said that if that was what I wanted, I should get it. It followed me home the next weekend.

Once home and I started stacking the parts together, it didn't take long to determine the original frame was junk, but I could salvage the sub frame.
I found a few of the roof pillars the Op had cut out, and fortunately, he didn't cut the doors. I figured I could put the roof back at the original height. The frame, however was a problem. At that point I'd done a lot of automotive stuff, but a frame build was beyond my experience. The project stall for a few years.
One summer I was between real jobs, and I has helping an old guy that ran a welding shop out, for some cash. I'd worked pretty steady for him most of the spring and summer and we had built a few trailers. He was originally from Tennessee, and decided he wanted to go home for a visit. He asked me if I would be interested in keeping his shop open while he went back home for a week. The deal was any work I performed I would keep the labor money, but any steel sales would be his. While there I could do anything I wanted to do. I agreed to the deal.
I drug my old 35 Dodge frame in to take measurements off of and built a new 2" x 3" tube frame. I used the subframe for the front suspension and I had a pair of leaf springs for the rear. That 1st week, I managed to make about $150, and I got my new frame to the point of rolling.
The old guy called and ask how things were going and I gave him the full report. He asked if I would mind if he stayed there another week, and of course I agreed. The next week I took my hacked up body into the weld shop and managed to make it one piece, and attached it to my new frame. my 35 was now a roller. I took it home at the end of the week.

Over the course of the next couple years I got a real job, then a better real job, and the 35 progressed slowly. I often would stop by the old guy's welding shop after work and BS with him. His health was deteriorating bad. One day he told me I should just buy his shop so he could retire. I ask him how much, and got out my check book to write a down payment. He hedged a bit and told me he promised the shop to his son, but I should work with him. No thank you, that wasn't going to happen, the two of us didn't get along very well.
After he died, I stopped by the shop a few times, his son only wanted to build dump trucks. The old man made most of his money repairing small stuff. The kid didn't want to be bothered by the little stuff. I ask him if he would mind if I opened a shop to do the little stuff, and he told me he would send everyone over to me to have it done.
A few weeks later, July 5, 1994, I opened my shop, part time. I was working nights, after working a full time day job. I drug the 35 into my new shop so I had something to do if I didn't have any work.
It wasn't long after that I noticed many guys were stopping by to see how the 35 was coming, several were stopping by weekly to check the progress. I figured I needed to make progress on the 35 or it would become a liability. Work on the car progressed as much as I could, because the car was generating a lot of shop work. The car was progressing so well, when I saw an ad for the Back To The Fifties car show 9 months away, I entered the car in it!
Things got real busy, I was scheduling work 3 weeks ahead, I was still working my real job, and it was getting real slow. The shop was so busy, I had to take the 35 home for 3 months! In Jan 1995 I quit my real job and went full time at the shop. It was march before I could bring the 35 back to the shop. Remember, the car was entered in a car show in May, it didn't even have a motor in it yet! Can we say major thrash? There were guys that had been stopping by to check the progress that were now getting involved with the build! One guy was running new brake lines while I was welding on his car, and then he insisted on paying me!
My wife and 9 year old son even got involved. My wife would get off work, cook up something we could eat, and when my son got off the school bus, the two of them would come down to the shop, we would eat, and then she would work on the interior. Someone stopped by one evening, and offer to show my wife how to do some of the car interior stuff and her and my son did that while me and some other volunteer would work on something else.
Our plans were to leave for BTTF on Thursday morning, if we got the car done. On Wed afternoon, about 4:00 the car made its maiden voyage out of the shop, I drove it to my house, about 10 miles away. Then I drove it back to the shop to give it a quick once over. Our local Wendy's had a cruise in that night, so I took the car there. The car had old rusty metal, bright shinny metal, a few spots of primmer, and a little old paint here and there. There was a windshield, and a back glass, but nothing for side windows. After the cruise in, I drove the car home, and packed it for our trip the next morning.Our son stated with friends for the weekend.
Another stop by the shop to fix a power steering issue, and off we went on the 500 mile adventure with a car that had about 40 miles on it.
We had to stop a couple times to add power steering fluid (it was blowing out around the cap, and back on the windshield because there was no hood). We somehow managed to get that under control. I discovered the speedometer was off a bit, when it said we were driving 65, we were actually driving a little over 90. Also, if we were going too fast, we were pushing a little oil out of the breather on the valve cover(of course the oil was hitting the passenger side windshield. I was having trouble staying awake, the long hours had finally caught up with me. At Madison WI we caught the interstate and I handed the keys to my wife. The instructions were to drive it about 50 on the speedo. and I got into the passenger seat and as soon as we were on the interstate and heading the right direction, I passed out.
About 3 hours later I woke up. The passenger side windshield was covered with oil, and we were passing everyone we came up on. I figured we needed to see if there was any oil left in the motor, so I told her we better stop and get some gas. So we stopped, filled with gas, and added 2 quarts of oil. As I pulled away from the pumps, something didn't feel right in the rear end, so I pulled up to the building and checked. All 4 U bolts holding the axle on the rear end were loose, and the axle was away from the springs at least 1/4". I tightened the u bolts, and we hit the road. Other then pushing oil at higher rpm (later I found a plugged breather), the car worked great. We did have one minor issue though, We didn't have any side glass in the car, and one of the days we were up at the BTTF, it rained hard all day. We bought some big black garbage bags to put over top of the door window frames, and one to cover the motor. We had a blast.

We put 66,000 miles on that car in 7 years, and sold it to a guy that wanted all the build pictures. I only have these pictures left. Gene

 

My '59 Ford came from Colorado in 2014, obviously been sitting for a long time, but no rust and fairly clean. I got it from an old Ford parts dealer on eBay and after I had it home I asked the back story on the car. It was part of a divorce settlement, the ex-wife wound up with the car and wanted it gone. The car was missing ALL the trim and interior garnish.. which explains why someone must have a big parts of box around. $2200 later I managed to dig up all the trim and other parts.

 

Yes mine does and will the story did not stop with the original builder.

 

Rescued From A Wrecking Yard In Wendell Idaho January 1966 For $25.75 And Went On To Be A Nice Hot Rod...

 

Great story Stogy, I liked it. BigO

 

Sounds believable to me, thanks sharing. BigO

 

What a great story, thanks, BigO

 

My truck tells stories..............
Mystery stories mostly. And it tells lies, too.

 

Now that makes good memories right there. Thanks ,BigO

 

Had a '65 Fleetwood that was like that, I sold it soon after. thanks , BigO

 

So what's the story? BigO

 

Hot Rodders doing there share of recycling before it was"The thing to do" . Thanks, BigO

 

My problem is that I never seem to be able to get the back stories on my cars. The last few I bought, the owners were not the builders, and couldn't tell me who built it and what was actually done. The previous owner of my T owned it about a year, never put it on the road, and couldn't tell me the builders name. He did tell me that it was "stroked " to 383ci's... yeah right... it's a 283 block! It does have a pretty aggressive cam, and it runs strong. I wish I had some real specs on it.

 

I think my best car story may be when I sold my '64 Impala convertible in 1991 after owning it for 11 years, but first some background...

When I was a 6yo, in '69 my dad came in the house one day and said something to my mom about 'it' being sold. I always had to know what was happening so I was pestering M&D what was sold? They casually said, they had sold the family car - a turquoise blue-green '64 Impala two door HT, bench seat with a manual trans on the floor. I burst into tears and told him to go get it back. I loved that car! My crying was unexpected and they couldn't/wouldn't get it back. I vowed then to get one when I could.

In '79 I got my driver's license and started looking for a '64 Impala. Found many but most people didn't want to sell or car had issues. Finally found a convertible in metallic silver blue with a white top that I enjoyed for many years.

After I moved to Seattle, the weather was taking it's toll on the car (no garage) and I decided I wanted a new, non-covertible car, so I offered it for sale. Guys were coming around that I didn't want to sell the car to because of their future plans for it, which was easy as they wouldn't offer me anything near my asking price (based on an appraisal). A guy named Ron, about ten years older than me, finally showed up and was really interested in the car. He had a green '64 Impala convertible in high school that he and his wife dated in. She wanted them to have another. We agreed on a price, and he asked if he could have two days to get the money. I agreed as my gut was saying he was the right guy to sell the car to. As promised he came back two days later with the money. His wife didn't know he was buying it. In order to get the money to buy the car he had sold his lifelong baseball card collection that he had begun as a kid. Turns out he worked someplace not far from where I lived and I ended up seeing the car 2-3 times after I sold it. Good to his word, he was going through it and made it alot nicer than I ever could have at that time. He was the right guy to get the car.

Gotta56forme/Scott

 

When I got my 27 it had been sitting behind a barn in Pa for 20+ years. It had no drivetrain and was in very poor shape but it came with a good 1957 Pa. title and a copy of a 1953 magazine that the car was in. According to the magazine it was built and owned at that time by a 17 year old kid in New Mexico. I'm embarrassed to say that was back in the early 80s and I left it sit around until a couple of years ago. I had boxed the frame set up the suspension and motor mounts for a small block Chevy not too long after I got it but then it sat. After I retired I finally got going on it. I tried to contact the previous owner but he had passed away several years before and his wife didn't even remember the car.
The title also showed a lien on it for $50 so just for the heck of it I found a phone number for that name in Pa. and called. I got an answering machine and left a message but I figured that would be that. A couple of days later I got a call from a very nice lady who said " I'm sorry I didn't get back to you sooner but Robert passed away on Friday." I couldn't believe that she was calling me . She told me that her husband was in the hospital when I called and she told him about my call. She never knew anything about the car because he had sold it long before they met but she said that he really perked up and told her all about the car. He told her that he bought it from a guy named Mahlon Love in New Mexico and brought it back Pa. I still can't believe that she called me back.
Once I really got into building it I realized that I had a lot of original unique features left and that I should keep them. Some of the details that I still have are the dash, dropped 42 axle behind the spring, 32 steering box, after market shocks, grill shell etc. The frame is a zeed and shortened 32 with a 32 rear spring.
If I had ever thought that I would take over 30 years to do the car I would have put a flathead back in it but somewhere along the line it had been changed to an Olds so Buick so the frame was cut up some anyway and my intension when I got it was just to build a hot rod. It's pretty much built like it would have been If I had come it the same condition it was but in the 60s when I was in high school instead of the early 80s. That would have been a good cheapV8 drivetrain and that's what I did only it's a 1971 350 instead of a 283 or 327 or maybe a Y block.
If it hadn't been for title on the magazine article it might not have been painted red either but I'm glad I did.

 

In a round about way you do have a story to tell. Thanks, BigO

 

I've sold some cars but only to right person and they turned out to "right one", such a great feeling. Did you get another '64 Impala? Thanks, BigO

 

Now that's a heart warming story, thanks for sharing it. BigO

 

Sounds like an old friend I worked with named Ernie Crutcher.....

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No, hasn't been an interest. I guess my '64 Impala itch has been scratched. I do remember asking Ron(Rod?), the guy I sold my car to, that if/when he went to sell it, to give me a call - maybe I would be in a place to buy it back.

Scott/Gotta56forme

 

Mine knows some great dirty jokes...

 

I have covered the history of Taboo pretty well in the cars restoration thread:
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/miss-taboo-56-chevy-custom.1108431

That old 56 has been through quite a bit in its life.