Sweet ride
So, in 1995, I quit my job, went to Europe for 3 months, and moved back in with my mom & dad 'til I could get a job in the Boston area. This living-at-home plan began in the summer, and lasted a few months longer than I planned, but it was cool while it lasted. It seems like a lifetime ago.
Late that autumn, my brother finds a classic car he wants to buy. He drives it back from Taunton or wherever it was that night, and it dies at the rest area 20 miles from home. So, I hop into my car, drive a battery to him, he fires it up and gets home and I still get to go out that night. I don't remember where I went, but was f'n freezing that night, that much I remember, and I think this car didn't even have heat.
Two years later (1997ish) he decides he wants to fix it up. Car parts are all over the place at his house. Then it lives at the paint shop for 6 years or so. It needs a panel of some sort, so he spends a couple years trolling ebay, makes a bid last year, and drives to South Carolina with my mom to tow back this piece of rusted-out used-to-be-a-car thing, that just happens to have the one non-piece-of-crap body part that he needed, and the body gets finished. (On a sad note, his friend passed away before completing the job. But his son finished the gorgeous black paint shortly thereafter.)
For the last year or two he does everything else by hand on it, from the bumpers to the wiring to the engine to a new top. Everything. Monumental project. Car parts everywhere again. At one point I see it, and it has milk crates where the seats belong.
He fires it up for the first time in 10 years, a couple months ago. When the battery sparks back to the generator it doesn't blow up or anything. And the car starts. So, overall, it's a very exciting day.
He puts plates on it this week, not even knowing if the car is gonna go forward, backward, stop, steer, or exhibit any other car-like behaviors.
This, a project started when I was between real jobs and making $6.75/hr at the now-defunct Lenox Shops and looking to move to Boston, when Bill Clinton was still president, and before my brother's kids were even born, back in that other lifetime, is finally complete. Congratulations Darryl, it's gorgeous. I like the Red Sox Jimmy Fund plates too. Nice touch.
1967 Plymouth Belvedere Convertible
Late that autumn, my brother finds a classic car he wants to buy. He drives it back from Taunton or wherever it was that night, and it dies at the rest area 20 miles from home. So, I hop into my car, drive a battery to him, he fires it up and gets home and I still get to go out that night. I don't remember where I went, but was f'n freezing that night, that much I remember, and I think this car didn't even have heat.
Two years later (1997ish) he decides he wants to fix it up. Car parts are all over the place at his house. Then it lives at the paint shop for 6 years or so. It needs a panel of some sort, so he spends a couple years trolling ebay, makes a bid last year, and drives to South Carolina with my mom to tow back this piece of rusted-out used-to-be-a-car thing, that just happens to have the one non-piece-of-crap body part that he needed, and the body gets finished. (On a sad note, his friend passed away before completing the job. But his son finished the gorgeous black paint shortly thereafter.)
For the last year or two he does everything else by hand on it, from the bumpers to the wiring to the engine to a new top. Everything. Monumental project. Car parts everywhere again. At one point I see it, and it has milk crates where the seats belong.
He fires it up for the first time in 10 years, a couple months ago. When the battery sparks back to the generator it doesn't blow up or anything. And the car starts. So, overall, it's a very exciting day.
He puts plates on it this week, not even knowing if the car is gonna go forward, backward, stop, steer, or exhibit any other car-like behaviors.
This, a project started when I was between real jobs and making $6.75/hr at the now-defunct Lenox Shops and looking to move to Boston, when Bill Clinton was still president, and before my brother's kids were even born, back in that other lifetime, is finally complete. Congratulations Darryl, it's gorgeous. I like the Red Sox Jimmy Fund plates too. Nice touch.
1967 Plymouth Belvedere Convertible
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