I finally have an update! (LOL)
I went to look at the first car and it was a bust. The guy insisted it was a straight car with no real rust issues... The core support was toast, the rear body mount behind the wheel on one side was GONE. The quarters were full of bondo and had more waves than Lake Michigan. The guy kept insisting that he didn't care if I bought it or not, and "with just a little work this will be a fifty five thousand dollar car". He also didn't believe that quarters and other parts for these cars are not reproduced. I was kinda peeved because I ASKED him about all of this stuff before making the drive to Indiana to see the car. When I called him out on it he got kinda nasty with me and said it was all minor stuff that could be fixed and that it was a "fifty five thousand dollar car all day long". Sigh... I didn't even make an offer. It was funny, I had a friend along as a 2nd set of eyes and he was behind the guy making faces gestures indicating that we should get the heck out of there.
But, when it rains it pours I guess. A 66 Bonneville hardtop came up local to me. It's a barn find out of North Carolina. It has some surface rust, but the quarters are straight and have minimal rust, and what is there I can patch. the frame is solid, the body mounts areas are solid, the core support is decent, etc. It runs, but it needs a master cylinder, wheel cylinders/brake job, a radiator, and the carb needs to be refreshed. It's a 389/4bbl car and from what I can tell so far everything seems to be original. The guy was selling it on Facebook and had a crazy number of people after him, but I was local and had cash and was easy to deal with so he sold it to me. I trailered it home Friday night.
I had been after another 66 Catalina convertible in Ohio. The guy was cool, but it sounded like he didn't really want to sell, and had a ton of people after it so I had sorta given up. He called me Saturday and said he wanted me to come look at it. We took a little road trip on Sunday and I drove it home. This car is really straight too. It needs a paint job because its in primer, but it has a new top, new top hydraulics and pump, the 8 bolt wheels and brakes were refreshed and work great. It's a 2 barrel, the guy said its a 1967 400, but its wearing 092 heads which belong on a 389, I gotta do some digging on this one to see what it really is.
I need to figure out how to post pics...
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