Showing posts with label Great Cars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Great Cars. Show all posts

Thursday, August 7, 2025

My (One Week) Project Car


In 1969, after blowing reverse gear in the transmission and junking the first car I bought, I was in the same predicament as before. I had a motorcycle for transportation, but when needing a car due to weather, I had to borrow one of my parents' cars. And, I knew winter in Wisconsin was coming pretty quickly. I had a part time job after school at a Clark gas station, so riding the school bus was not going to enable me to get to work on time.
 

Within a month or two a guy at work told me he knew somebody with a car (1953 Dodge) that was free to take away. Well, the words car and free rang in my ears as I perked right up. I asked him if it ran and he said yes, all it needed was the brakes fixed. So we went over to his house to take a look. It was a kind of ugly brown and kind of beat up but the body was in OK shape. I didn’t care what it looked like and I said if it runs, I’ll take it. He said “OK it’s yours for a dollar to make it a legal sale” and asked how I was going to get it home. I replied that I’ll drive it and get it there and he signed off on the title while I gave him a dollar. I also didn’t tell him I was only 16 and underage to legally buy a car.

After getting a ride back to his house, I got the keys and jumped in. It had a straight 6 motor and 3 on the tree manual transmission. It started up and I drove it slowly home and when having to stop would leave it in gear and turn the engine off. The hand parking brake didn’t work or I would have tried using that. It’s funny how hearing the word “free” kind of caused me to neglect looking very carefully at the car. I noticed as I was poking along Silver Spring Dr. at a few miles per hour a blue haze behind me from burning oil coming through the tail pipe. Getting back home I parked it in the driveway and started to look the car over a bit more, finding two tires nearly bald. Opening the hood there was smoke and fumes caused from oil getting on the exhaust manifold. Looking underneath there were some wet spots on the motor from oil leaks already dripping on the asphalt. Not exactly a chick magnet. I had to keep telling myself “it was free”.

Well, then dad gets home from work. “What’s that car sitting out there?", he asked. I told him and said I got it for free, all it needs is the brakes fixed. He asked “How did you get it here with no brakes?” I told him how. My dad could be a man of few words, especially with me. I remember these, “Get that thing out of the driveway!". He was not happy and I went out and parked it on the street in front of the house.

So, there it sat for about a week. I imagine dad went out and looked the car over after I went to work, but he didn’t say anything or tell me. I was still young and knew nothing about fixing cars. Although I was reading every Hot Rod and Car & Driver magazine I could get my hands on, I had no idea of brake systems and how they work. As I started to realize that I may have made a foolish decision, I kept a low profile around the house, made myself scarce and stayed quiet.

The following Saturday, my dad came in and asked “What are you going to do with that car?” I told him I wasn’t quite sure and he said “Don’t you think that the reason the car was free was because it isn’t worth fixing?” I said “Yes, I suppose so.” He then said “Then get the car title and start heading down to the junkyard and I’ll come pick you up". And, that was the second trip for me to Larry’s junkyard in Butler, with many more to come! I wasn't having very good luck buying cars.

A day or two later mom came up to me and said she was going to stop driving for the time being. She was pregnant with her last child, my sister Karin, and was content to just stay home and didn’t have a need to go anywhere. Although, knowing mom, I knew she was sacrificing her freedom for my benefit. So, I took over the 1957 Chrysler New Yorker after that and my car shopping was over for a while. And I was a happy guy! That car had a 392 hemi motor and could easily bury the 120 mph speedometer needle!

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More of my classic car stories:





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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Old Car Stories and Life Lessons

I obtained my driver’s license when I turned 16 years of age near the end of 1968. Being in my junior year of high school, I had a motorcycle for transportation but had to borrow one of the two family cars when needed due to weather. My parents had two cars, one a 1957 Chrysler New Yorker that I ended up with later. I usually had access to one or the other but I longed to have my own vehicle.

Not long after getting a job at a Clark station two weeks before my senior year of high school in 1969, my boss, Chuck Oleson, tipped me off to info from one of his very elderly regular customers. He told him that he had decided to quit driving and sell his car. He lived only a couple blocks north of the station on Hopkins and I asked Chuck for a referral to go see the car. Chuck called him and I went over to his house. There sat in the driveway a “really clean” 1955 Plymouth Savoy 4-door sedan with absolutely no rust on it, spotless interior with plastic covers on the bench seats which were like new! Under the hood was a straight 6 cylinder motor and a three-on-the-tree manual transmission (Interior picture in the post is that of an automatic). I’m not certain, but I think the mileage on the vehicle was not much more than 50,000. I asked what he wanted for it and he said $50 if I promised to take care of it! I had $50 and the deal was made (with my fingers crossed). I didn't even ask my parents before bringing the title home because I was too young to own and register it. I begged my dad to come over there and see it. After driving over there, he agreed it was a good deal, and signing off for it, we took it home.

Well, being stupid young me, I’m glad I never saw him again, having to explain what happened shortly after. I bought the car and only had it for a few days. I drove it to Chuck’s station to display my great deal to the guys. Being 16 years old, I decided to show off and do a burn-out by flooring the gas and popping the clutch. Well, all that straight 6 motor would do was squeak the tires. That wasn’t good enough for me, so I put it in reverse, figuring the weight transfer would lighten the load on the back tires, enabling a smoky backward burn out (Randy style).

I blew reverse gear in the transmission!

With pieces of the shattered gear in the transmission I could still drive it in the forward gears but the chucks of metal getting mixed up in the oil would cause a crazy loud bashing as the car was moving forward. I actually drove the car around for about a month with no reverse and wondering when the thing was going to seize up on me. At that time I was young and had no idea of how to fix cars. It wasn't until the following year that a buddy of mine started showing me how to fix/replace the stuff I blew up on my cars.

I gave my dad some bullshit story about it “just coming apart” when I was backing up. I’m sure he knew what I had done but took mercy on me. He told me it was not worth fixing and followed me to Larry’s junkyard, one of three vehicles that ended up in their final resting place. Later on I got to know Larry, the junkyard guy, pretty well as I had to buy lots of parts from him to fix future cars. But, that's another story.
Life’s lessons!




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Wednesday, April 2, 2025

Crime Story TV Series - Vintage Las Vegas and Cool Cars!


Do you like to see Las Vegas the way it was in the late 1980’s? Or, how about seeing the really cool cars of the late 1950’s and early 60’s?

We ran across this TV series starring Dennis Farina called Crime Story that ran for two seasons starting in 1986. The series setting starts out in Chicago in the early 1960’s. Farina plays a Chicago Lieutenant cop chasing down mob figures and transfers his team to Las Vegas after a few episodes. Before Dennis Farina started his acting career he spent 18 years in the Chicago police department advancing from a patrol officer to detective.


In Las Vegas, a lot of scenes were shot inside the old Bob Stupak’s Vegas World that eventually became the Stratosphere, now named The Strat. About 1989, my wife and I went to Vegas World using one of Stupak’s promotion club deals. They would give you $1200 in slot play tokens, vouchers for table game play with a room and meals for 3 days for $400 per couple. We actually broke even on one trip out there from Wisconsin. Since the series was shot in the late 80’s, it was cool seeing all the original decor, layout and even the same carpeting in the TV show! Lots of action on Old Fremont St. downtown before all the changes and great scenery.


And then, the cars! So many late 50’s and early 60’s pristine classics! Farina had the best set of wheels, a jet black 1957 Chrysler 300C convertible. It had a factory 392 hemi engine with 2 four-barrel carburetors producing 375 hp. In some scenes you can clearly hear the powerful engine as the car accelerates. No wonder Farina wanted to drive that car for both seasons. It's like watching a vintage car show. They didn’t abuse the car too much in chases, as I’m sure the owner would have had a problem with that. Too many cars to list from an early 60’s Corvette to T-birds, Cadillacs, late 50’s Fords and so many others.



With the TV show produced in the 1980's I was unaware until finding it on Amazon Prime a few weeks ago. There’s about 40 episodes over two seasons and we just started the second and final season. The show has enough action to be entertaining. There were quite a few guest stars in the first season including Debbie Harry, Paul Anka, Gary Sinese and Julia Roberts among others. It’s available to stream on Amazon, Tubi, Peacock and others.


And, I just was sent a recent photo of the original car this afternoon (Edit 4/3/2025), after posting to another group. The original car is in Chicago (Pic on the right)! The friend of the owner said he has had it since the 1970's! I asked if the car was for sale and was told the guy will never sell, has two of them, and his two daughters will each get one when he passes. Guess I'll just have to own it in my dreams!

Message received from a car owner, "I owned the 1959 Cadillac used in the filming in 2 seasons in Vegas. At first it was white, and the next season it was painted brown. They paid me $50 per day, and kept it 2 months! When I got it back, it was full of 30 MM spent cartridge rounds. They wanted to blow it up in the final episode, and I refused to sell it, so they had to change the ending of the show."



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Saturday, May 13, 2023

Remembering Sox & Martin at Union Grove

I believe it was the summer of 1967 when my best friend Tom and I were both 15 years old. We didn’t possess driver’s licenses yet, but we were rabid car guys. Tom’s dad had a Ford and my dad a 1957 Chrysler with a 392 hemi in it. Of course, I was a big Mopar fan while my buddy was loyal to Ford. The Sox & Martin race team and Don Garlits were my drag racing heroes.
We lived in Milwaukee, Wi and my dad agreed to take us to The Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wi for the Olympics of Drag Racing contest one Sunday afternoon. Sox & Martin were running Super Stock that year in a 1967 Plymouth Barracuda, I believe.
We had pretty good seats fairly close to the starting line, but everyone was standing, as Ronnie pulled up to stage for his first race. I don’t remember who he was racing against but when the green lit up, Ronnie came off the line pulling a huge wheelie while getting a holeshot on his challenger. He came right by us with the front wheels off the ground and in the lead as I jumped and yelled “holy f**k!” I was between my dad and Tom when he (Tom) elbowed me in the side to shut up. I then realized in horror what I said and was afraid my dad was going to kill me, but he didn’t say anything. I’m sure he heard me and must have decided to let it go, but I was so embarrassed.

I believe they won the Super Stock title that week-end. It was pretty exciting for us two kids dreaming of getting our licenses soon! Ronnie Sox died of cancer at age 67 in 2006, I think Buddy Martin is in his late 80’s now. Great memories!

Update 5/8/2026: I also remember that the same week Sox & Martin were in town for the drag races they held one of their car clinics at a local Milwaukee Plymouth dealer. As Tom and I still didn't have driver's licenses we rode our bicycles down there to see the free show. It was quite exciting standing close to Ronnie and Buddy as they talked about the race car in the showroom and answered questions from the fans. I stood there watching in awe and happily pedaled home after with a bunch of souvenirs. Which turned me into a life-long fan! I believe Buddy Martin is still alive and turned 90 years old last month. The picture on the right is a press photo at one of their car clinics. (Buddy Martin on the left and Ronnie Sox on the right) Wish I could relive those days!





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Sunday, November 28, 2021

Classic Car Stories - My 1962 Chevrolet Impala SS

In early 1970, before graduating high school, I continued to drive a 1957 Chrysler New Yorker for a while which I kind of “inherited” after my dad bought another vehicle. The car had a hemi engine and I was satisfied with it. One night I stopped at the Clark gas station I worked at to visit for a while, staying an hour or two. I walked out to the car to leave, opening the door to a cloud of electrical smoke billowing out! The engine was not running as I had the keys in my hand. I raced to the front, opening the hood to disconnect the battery, which took a few minutes as I had to find a wrench to loosen the bolt on the terminal. It was way too late as a mass of electrical wiring had shorted out under the dash with the plastic coating melted off. Thankfully, a huge blaze and a call to the fire department was averted.

That meant my hemi Chrysler was toast as it would have been way too costly and time consuming to fix with well over 100,000 miles on the odometer. My dad came out, said “forget it” and towed me to Larry’s junkyard in Butler for my last drive in it. That put me in desperate need of a vehicle as it was winter and all I had was a Honda 160cc motorcycle for transportation. A few days later, my buddy, Ross called, telling me he had seen a nice 1962 Chevy Impala SS in a parking lot with a “For Sale” sign on it. I asked how much and he replied “$400”. Exactly how much I had! Well, I wasn’t a Chevy guy, but figured I’d go take a look at it. We went over and it was in great shape, had a 300hp 327 V-8 and factory 4-speed. It even had a factory tach mounted on the steering wheel. I drove it around the block and the guy said he would take $375 for it. I then went home and got my dad to come tell me what he thought about it. He looked it over and said “It’s your money, buy it if you want it”.  


That was the first Chevrolet that I ever owned and have had quite a few of them since! First thing I did was install Cherry Bomb glass pack mufflers and a Hurst shifter. I think I paid about $65 for the Hurst linkage and I think they're priced about $600 now! Then came the biggest wheels and tires I could stuff under the rear of it and got started having a lot of fun “breaking” it. My auto mechanic buddy Rich came over with some tuning tricks up his sleeve. He advanced the timing a couple degrees more than the spec factory setting and there was a very noticeable increase in power that I could feel. Able to get rubber hitting third gear, I was drag racing it out at the strip and on the street. One time, racing a guy in a 383 Roadrunner, he got a half length on me in 1rst and 2nd gear but I pulled up even to him in 3rd until we had to shut it down. That 300hp 327 ran strong all the way up to 5800rpm where I set the red-line on the tach as you could actually hear the weird engine noise as the valves began to float. For all the abuse that engine took, it never let me down.


There was an abandoned Army Disciplinary barracks compound and old Nike missile site near Hopkins and Florist in Milwaukee that still had some concrete paved roads in it. I had an absolute blast going over there at night and racing around those streets treating it like it was my own personal race track. I would be sliding sideways around the corners having a great old time beating on that car. 

The Impalas of that model year had two piece driveshafts between the transmission and differential with what they called a center support bearing in the middle with three total u-joints. I had to replace that center support bearing numerous times which was frustrating. A mechanic speculated that I probably twisted the suspension out of line as the cause of all the failures. I blew the transmission twice, clutch, two rear ends and several u-joints! Lying under that car in the back of the Clark gas station in January was no fun. It was about 5 degrees and I was freezing my butt off putting a differential in it.


All in all though I came of age as a driver in that car. I learned a lot of skills that helped me immensely later in life as a professional driver. Also learning a few hard lessons, I remember driving one night with Rich on the 41 freeway just northwest of Milwaukee in a snowstorm. Joyriding around, the roadway was snow covered and I was drifting the car sideways back and forth at about 65mph and no traffic. I was trying to impress a buddy with my driving skills and lost it, spinning the car around into a snowbank. The driver’s side had some body damage and a flat tire. While changing it out a county sheriff’s deputy drove up and chewed me out big time. He must have seen the see-saw tracks in the snow and figured out what I had done. I didn’t get a ticket but he ordered me off the freeway at the next exit.  


By the time I went to Army boot camp in 1971, there wasn’t much life remaining in that car. Having blown the 4-speed tranny twice, I couldn't afford another, so I replaced it with a junkyard 3-speed with a bad synchro in second gear! That's how I first learned to double clutch. My dad sold it for $20.00 after I left for Fort Polk, La. A lot of great memories in that car, one of my favorites and a great classic car story!


Other of my car story posts:
Classic Car Stories:1970 Pontiac GTO - Dick Hands me the Keys!
Classic Car Stories: My Buddy's 1968 Plymouth GTX
Classic Car Stories: My Hemi Chrysler
Classic Car Stories: My 1965 Buick GS400
Classic Car Stories: Mopar Man to Chevrolet
Classic Car Stories: My Second Corvette
Classic Car Stories: My First Corvette
Classic Car Stories: My 1993 Camaro Z28
Classic car Stories: My Three Camaros - One Good, One Bad and One Great!
Classic Car Stories: Mom's 1961 Plymouth Valiant




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Tuesday, June 30, 2020

My 2nd Florida Car - 1983 Buick Regal Limited

In 1980, my dad, who lived in Sarasota, FL, found me a great deal on a used 1973 Buick Century that I happily drove more than 100,000 miles with no problems. About 1988, he called again, perfect timing as the old '73 Century was starting to wear out. This time, he knew an elderly man who lived about a block away and he decided it was time to sell his car. It was a fully loaded 1983 Buick Regal Limited with 8,000 miles on it! The guy bought it new when he was 90 years old and drove it for 5 years before he got into a fairly minor traffic accident that damaged the front end. A body shop had fixed the damage and it looked and drove like a brand new car. That crash convinced him to give up driving and he wanted to get rid of it. With only 8,000 miles in 5 years he sure didn't use the car much and it was always kept in a garage.

Like I stated, the car was loaded with a V-6 motor, padded vinyl top, fancy wheels and power everything. It felt like a very luxurious car driving it. The factory sticker was still in the glove box, with the MSRP at $13,500. That was not inexpensive for a car in 1983. My dad had driven it, said it was good and I told him to make the deal and I'll find a way to get down there.

That also was a great car right up until early 1993 when I started hearing lifter noise with the engine fully warmed up. I had always religiously maintained that car and was very surprised it let me down. This happened just as I was getting ready to make the move to Salt Lake City in July. Being just about ready to load up a U-Haul truck, I got a trailer to haul my other car and decided to leave the Regal behind. My wife had to stay an extra month to close on the house so she drove it until then, took it to a used car lot in Crivitz and took whatever the owner would give us. The amount he offered was ridiculously low, so I had not one pang of guilt selling the car to him. In fact, I believe he could have replaced the motor and still have made money reselling it.




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Sunday, June 9, 2019

My First Florida Car

The car, after a several years, starting to show some rust.

1973 Buick Century

While living in Wisconsin back in the 1980's, I was able to purchase two Florida cars thanks to my dad. He retired from Chrysler in Milwaukee after working there for 30 years. He was only 52 years old in 1979, sold their house and moved the family to Sarasota, Florida. My three youngest siblings moved with my parents as they were still in school. I was already 27 years old and on my own, remaining in Milwaukee.

One day, it was about 1980, I got a call from my dad. He said he had a neighbor across the street that was getting too old to drive and wanted to sell his car. It was a 1973 Buick Century with V-8 and automatic that only had about 12,000 miles on it. Yellow with a black top, he said it still looked brand new and was willing to sell it for $2,000.00. I said "hell yes" and started calling for a plane ticket and to arrange for a few days off. I flew down a couple days later and we went across the street and made the deal. The guy had a car port with no garage and I asked if I could keep it parked there until I left and he said "sure". It rained overnight and the next morning we were outside and he came out with a towel to give me. I asked what it was for and he said that he always wiped the car down after a rain to keep it looking good. I was young, kind of stupid yet, and was about to say that was not going to happen when I got the car back to Wisconsin. My dad must have sensed this as he took the towel, handed it to me and I got the hint that I'd better do it, LOL.

That was a good car that I had for over 10 years and put well over 100,000 miles on it. With a 350 cu. in. V-8 and a two barrel carburator, it had decent power but a four barrel would have really made it go. I thought about replacing the carb but just never got around to it. With only 12,000 miles on it I'm sure the car had the original bias ply tires on that were by that time seven years old. It handled kind of crappy at speed on the highways when I drove it back to Wisconsin so I put a set of (one size over) Michelin tires on with four heavy duty Monroe shocks. After putting a smaller aftermarket Momo steering wheel on, it drove like a freak'in sports car. I was pretty happy with it.

As I happily found out, after buying a second Florida car thanks to my dad, older retirement areas are prime spots to find deals on used vehicles, including motor-homes. It only makes sense, as a lot of them age out or die off and their vehicles need to be sold. Older people of means tend to maintain and not abuse their stuff. It certainly helps to have family or friends in the area to watch for deals.



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Monday, May 6, 2019

Pleasant Car Buying Experience? What a Surprise!

Back in April of 2017 I ranted and raved over the poor treatment I received from a Nissan dealer in Taylorsville, Utah during the process of buying a 2016 Nissan Altima. 
See the link: https://dbridgerhot.blogspot.com/2017/04/why-i-absolutely-hate-buying-cars-my.html

I thought it only fair to acknowledge an extremely pleasant experience in the purchase of a new Ford Escape last week.

LuAnn's 2009 Escape, purchased new, had over 210,000 miles on it and she decided it was time for a new vehicle. It had been a great car with 4WD that never gave her any trouble so we started researching the 2019 models. Because there is a new redesign coming in the 2020 Escape going on sale this fall, Ford has some large cash incentives probably, I was thinking, to reduce the 2019 inventory.

We stopped over to Witt Ford in Crivitz on Sunday to look over the lot, went back on Tuesday to test drive one and really liked it. It was well equipped and not loaded up with all the extra features and cost she didn’t need or want. Based on previous experience, going in to talk price, I was not looking forward to doing battle with a sales team again.

The same salesman, Robin, was there from whom LuAnn bought her last car and we went in his office. There basically was nothing to haggle over as his first offer had a substantial discount from the MSRP from the dealer and all the available incentives from Ford included. That reduced the sticker price by about 22 percent. LuAnn agreed to the figures and we made an appointment to pick up the car the next day.

Next afternoon, we came back, and it was time to meet Dan, the “finance guy”, to sign the paperwork. That was my “here we go to battle” time that I dreaded, remembering my last experience in Salt Lake City. We went in, sat down, looked over the contract. All the numbers were what was agreed to with no “extras” snuck in. He showed us a sheet describing various extras like extended warranty, finish protection, etc that we could add but there was no hard sell and no objection over declining!

This is one of only a few car buying experiences in my life that were actually pleasant and I have bought quite a few cars over the last 50 years! And, amazingly, the other great one was also here in Crivitz way back in 1993 at Banaszak Chevrolet. 
See the link: https://dbridgerhot.blogspot.com/2012/03/classic-car-stories-my-1993-camaro.html

That dealership changed hands many years ago and is now owned by someone else that I have not had any experience with. For a great many years I was always under the impression I could get a better deal from the “big city” dealers but my opinion has certainly changed!



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Saturday, August 18, 2018

The first Ford Mustang owner kept the car. It's now worth $350,000

usatoday.com
Article thanks to Phoebe Wall Howard and usatoday.com. Links provided:

Aug. 14, 2018  DETROIT -- Tom and Gail Wise disagreed about whether a broken-down car should be stored in a family garage for 27 years or sold for junk. He insisted they keep it because, he promised, one day he would find the time to fix the vehicle himself.

It was her skylight blue convertible Ford Mustang, purchased at age 22 in 1964, that their family of six drove for 15 years.

One day, it just stopped running. And there it sat until Tom retired. When he started hunting for car parts on the internet, he discovered a story about someone with a similar car who claimed to be the very first Mustang owner, with a purchase date of April 16, 1964.

“Tom came to me and said, ‘I think you bought the car a day earlier,’ ” Gail Wise recalled. “And, sure enough, he went down to the basement and found the receipt and the owner’s manual. Sure enough, I had purchased the car on April 15.”

They called Hagerty Classic Insurance, experts on collector cars, and learned a paper trail was essential.

“We had everything,” Gail Wise said. “We didn’t know it was anything special. But we kept the new car invoice, the registered owners manual. Tom’s a saver.”

So now, as Ford celebrates production of the 10-millionth Mustang, Gail Wise is back in the spotlight. She was at company headquarters last week and, from Thursday through Saturday this week, her Mustang will be on public display in Royal Oak, Mich.

“It’s like being a movie star at 76,” she said with a tiny laugh. “I felt like a movie star at 22 when I bought the car. I mean, that was 54 years ago and we’re still talking about it.”

Her story, she notes, is filled with luck and mystery.

'That convertible was for me'


The new third-grade teacher was living at home with her parents on the northwest side of Chicago and sharing her father’s red and black 1957 Ford. But she had accepted a job in the suburbs. So Helen and Cleadis Brown agreed to lend their daughter money for a new car and they headed over to Johnson Ford on Cicero Avenue.

“I told the salesman I wanted a convertible and he said, ‘I have none on the floor. Come into the back room, I have something special to show you,’ ” Gail said. “There were two Mustangs, one was a hard top. And he didn’t even bother to show me that one. He lifted the tarp and I knew that convertible was for me.”

Back then, new cars always came out at the end of September and Ford wanted to shock the world with an April reveal. The company had distributed Mustangs to dealerships around the country so salespeople would have something to show when Lee Iacocca unveiled the car at the World’s Fair in New York on April 17, 1964.

“This was two days before, and it was all top secret,” Wise said. “But he sold it to me. I drove out of that showroom with everyone waving at me and asking me to slow down. TV ran a lot of advertisements for Mustang but they never showed the car. They just showed the logo and said, ‘It’s coming.’ For this to be out in April was a really, really big thing. People were so happy, giving me thumbs up, even the police. I don't remember having the top down, so it must've been cold. I wanted to keep driving, but I only had to go about 3 miles to get home.”

She married two years later, bought a home and used the Mustang as a family car with four kids.

“You just didn’t go out and buy new cars,” Wise said. “Tom was using it for work. We could fit three kids in the back seat and I’d hold the youngest on my lap. We would go to McDonald’s and eat in the car. And then one day, he pushes it into the garage. I wanted to get rid of it because we needed space for children’s stuff. He kept saying, ‘It’s my retirement project.’ "

He built an addition onto their two-car garage for the Mustang.

Today, the car has just 68,000 miles.

“When I was young and single, I enjoyed driving that car,” she said. “The highways were brand new. We had no traffic and you could fly. The first time I saw that Mustang, I thought it was so sporty, with bucket seats and a transmission on the floor. Usually sports cars were expensive, and I could afford this car.”

Now the fully restored (but not altered or modified) classic pony car that cost $3,447.50 is worth $350,000 to $450,000, according to Jonathan Klinger, spokesman for Hagerty in Traverse City.

'Bookends of models'


“It can be difficult to place a specific value on such a unique car and story. A car with significant provenance like this — being the original owner of the first-ever sold Ford Mustang — would likely have a premium of around 10 times the current market price,” he said. “Enthusiasts are drawn to the bookends of models. It is stunning that the first-ever sold Mustang is still owned by its original owner.”

Gail Wise said she only wishes her mom and dad could be here.

“I’d like to ask them questions," she said. "We went out on Wednesday, April 15, 1964, to buy me a car. Right in the middle of the week.They worked such long hours."

Her father worked as a cook and her mother worked as a waitress in their family-owned restaurant near Armitage and Grand avenues.

Stories about Mustangs leave even industry analysts a little stunned.

Global sensation


“When Mustang hit in 1964, it created a global sensation,” said John McElroy, a longtime auto industry observer and "Autoline" host. “It created a frenzy. It was a car designed and developed by young people, hotshots. Ford blew through production estimates, selling like 600,000 the first year.”

The insane love for Mustang reflects nostalgia for a time when the muscle car war was just getting going and America had a can-do attitude before Vietnam and Watergate.

“I remember when I was a little kid, Dad worked for Ford and brought it home on a Friday night and I remember getting up on Saturday morning and going and sitting in the car for hours," McElroy said. "I was, like, 11 years old. We lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was the only Mustang in the country, and when we drove, it was like the day the Earth stood still. Everybody was paralyzed looking at this car.”

So it’s no surprise to anyone that Gail Brown stopped traffic in Chicago.

“When you look back at the history of the Mustang, the very first car was purchased by a young professional that totally represented that era. Is there a more perfect person?” said Ted Ryan, Ford historian, whose father had a 1965 yellow Mustang. “America had a sense of optimism. Baby boomers were coming of age. Mustang was this beautiful combination of time and place.”

Invited to Dearborn


Ford invited Tom and Gail Wise to come to Detroit this month to celebrate the Mustang milestone, and the Dearborn, Michigan, automaker shipped the Mustang out from Illinois.

“It’s just amazing that this Mustang has been built continuously all these years,” said Tom Wise, 76, an electrical engineer who served in the U.S. Navy as a submariner in the Atlantic. “Ford builds a reliable car.”

Their garage these days houses a 2013 Ford Escape and a 2015 Ford Edge. They can’t believe that, for so many years, the family stacked lawns chairs on the Mustang.

“Anything you didn’t want on the garage floor, it was piled high on the car,” Gail Wise said. “Tom drives us now. I saw how hard he worked to put this car together. I don’t want to be the one to put a dent in it.”



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Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Chrysler Altered Wheelbase Drag Cars

streetmusclemag.com
Article thanks to Bradley Iger and streetmusclemag.com. Links provided:

 Musclecars You Should Know: Chrysler Altered Wheelbase Drag Cars
May 5, 2017  By the mid-1960s the musclecar era was starting to hit its stride, and drag strip bragging rights had developed into a proven marketing tactic. The NHRA’s Super Stock and A/Factory Experimental (A/FX) classes were among the most hotly contested battlegrounds in drag racing at the time, giving the factory teams high visibility to amateur racers and potential garden-variety buyers alike while also showcasing the latest hardware that the companies had in development.
The 1964 race season had been good to Chrysler. The new 426 Hemi motor had taken the motorsport world by storm, setting records in NASCAR and finding success in both of the aforementioned NHRA classes, breaking national records at the drag strip as well. But the other factory teams weren’t going to take this Mopar dominance lying down.
When word got out that Ford was planning to equip its smaller Mustang and Comet bodies with a potent single overhead cam, 427-cube motor for use in the Factory Experimental class for the 1965 season, the engineers at Chrysler knew they were going to have to take drastic measures if wanted to keep the larger Mopars ahead of those Fords.
Jim Thornton, a Chrysler chassis engineer, was well aware that weight distribution was the key to getting the Hemi’s power to the ground out of the hole, especially when contending with the primitive tire technology that was available at the time. But the new power plant was simply a massive, heavy motor that added a significant amount of weight to the nose of the car in comparison to the engine it had supplanted for Chrysler’s racing program, hindering those weight transfer efforts.
To address this, Chrysler expanded its use of lightweight aluminum and fiberglass for body panels, replaced the door window glass with Plexiglass and the windshield with Lexan, while the engine team took some mass out of the 426 with a new set of aluminum cylinder heads and a magnesium cross-ram intake manifold. But the Coronet and Belvedere racers were still considered too nose heavy, so Thornton decided to go several steps further to distribute more of the car’s weight over the rear wheels.
The Original “Funny Cars”
While the Super Stock class rules yielded drag cars that shared the majority of their hardware with models and equipment that were available to the public, the A/FX class was significantly less restricted, allowing teams to develop packages that those companies never had any intention of offering through their dealerships.
Late in 1964, Thornton and the other engineers in Chrysler’s Race Group decided that the most effective way to distribute the car’s mass to the rear was to move the wheelbase as far forward as possible.
To do so they brought the front wheels up by 10 inches and moved the rear axle forward by 15 inches while shortening the overall wheelbase length by 5.5 percent. The end result was a 110-inch wheelbase drag car that put 56% of the mass over the rear tires, weight distribution that was unheard of at the time.
Five Dodge Coronets and five Plymouth Belvederes were allocated for the conversion, having their steel bodies acid dipped and then sent out to Amblewagon in Detroit for their altered wheelbase conversion before being delivered to factory team racers like Dick Landy, Ronnie Sox, and Al Eckstrand.
While there was no question that the altered wheelbase cars were significantly faster than their standard model counterparts, the Chrysler team hit a serious roadblock once NHRA got their first look at the new cars. Officials quickly drafted a new rule for 1965 that restricted wheelbase alterations to two percent versus stock for the A/FX class, effectively banning the altered wheelbase Mopars from the class they were designed to compete in.
But the cars’ wild appearance and impressive performance garnered massive publicity from the enthusiast press, and the cars quickly became a massive hit running match races in the popular and lucrative AHRA Factory Experimentals class around the country, where capacity crowds would turn up to see drivers like Roger Lindamood, Dave Strickler, and Bud Faubel pilot these “funny cars” to low ten second passes at nearly 140 mph. The cars got even faster once the teams switched over to Hilborn fuel injection systems mid-season in 1965.
Legacy
Though the term would eventually be adopted by fiberglass bodied, tube-chassis dragsters in the years following, the altered wheelbase Mopars of the mid-1960s serve as the origin of the Funny Car term and remain some of the wildest factory-modified production cars built to date.
With the popularity of Chrysler’s factory-built altered wheelbase Coronets and Belvederes, private teams quickly began building funny cars of their own, and the altered wheelbase craze quickly spread not only to other Mopar models but other makes as well.
Today, altered wheelbase cars continue to flourish in nostalgia classes across the country. But with less than a dozen of the factory-build cars in existence, and each with a notable racing history, the value of the original Chrysler altered wheelbase cars has only risen over the decades since their debut, with examples like Lee Smith’s Haulin’ Hemi II Plymouth Belvedere commanding sums well over half a million dollars at recent auctions.
While the performance of the AWB cars would be eclipsed not long after their debut as more advanced technologies found their way into drag racing, their unusual design strategy and wild appearance remains iconic for a specific time and place in drag racing history, and the fact that they immediately ran afoul of NHRA guidelines immediately upon their debut feels strangely similar to a situation that a recently-unveiled Mopar now finds itself in. The more things change…
http://www.streetmusclemag.com/features/car-features/muscle-cars-you-should-know-chrysler-altered-wheelbase-drag-cars

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