cars parted out
Plenty of them through the 90's. However the one I wish I had kept was a good one.
1970 RA IV Judge, M-21, 3.90 posi, Orbit Orange with a black interior.
Interesting story about this poor car. I saw it when it was painted red with no decals and only a Judge emblem on the glove box. Some kid had it and mentioned he had a factory aluminum intake he would trade me for my Torker. Such a deal. When I got the intake I checked the part number and guess what, it was for a 1970 RA IV. That's when I tried to track the car down. The kid could not keep the motor together (said something about a 455 engine in the car, turns out they had the #614 heads on top of a 455 and were trying to run pump gas). He sold it to another guy who had a local Pontiac "expert" build a motor. Three weeks later it broke a rod. The guy parked the car outside with the windows down and dismantled the entire drive train. By the time I tracked it down it was looking rather sad but still restorable. However at the time I was only after the RA IV heads for a race motor I was putting together. I ended up buying the entire car and hauled it to my friends body shop to see what he thought about putting it back together. He recognized the car from years earlier when he painted it red. He told me some 16 year old kid put it in a ditch and he replaced the fender, door and painted the car but never put the stripes back on (they were still with the car when I bought it).
Here's where it gets even more interesting. My brother-in-law is down for a visit and remembers this kid from his high school (around 1980). At that time I remember seeing an ad in the Auto Trader for a 70 RAIV Judge with a spun main bearing for $1,600. Guess what? It was the same car! The story is a high ranking officer at PAFB bought the car for his son. The kid spun the main bearing in the 400 and they sold the car as is. Now that I discovered all this I am trying to figure out how to restore the car back original. I stored it for a while as I figured up how much it was going to cost. I was already in the middle of a race car project and had just finished a nice resortation on my 69 GTO. I simply could not see how I could afford to restore this car in the near future so I tried to sell the car. I got tons of calls from people wanting to buy parts but not the entire car. I eventually boned it out but some of the parts went on a very nice silver 1970 RA IV Judge owned by a collector in the 80's and early 90's.
But the story does not end here. I sold what was left (just the body and frame) to a guy in my neighborhood who made a drag car out of it and put a cage and BB Chevy in the car. I saw it a couple of times then lost track of it for a couple of years. I moved to another town nearby and one day while driving by a junk used car lot I saw the nose of a red GTO sticking out of the back row. Needless to say I went in to check it out and it was the same car all beat to hell! I thought about trying to get it but the car lot owner had the PHS on the car by then and knew what it was. I still go by that lot but have not seen the car in years. I suspect the VIN tags may have been removed.
Poor car never had a chance. Everyone tried to make it into a hot rod and ended up beating the crap out of it.
And then there was the completely original 67 Catalina 2+2 428 car that I drove home and would have been an easy restoration. How about a 69 Bonneville Brougham 428 HO car that had more factory options than I have ever seen on one vehicle. I drove it home too. When I got done with those cars they both were hauled away on a flat bed (I pulled the tilt wheels and posi rear ends).
Who would have ever thought a Judge would bring well over six figures?
MarkC
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