Obviously, one of the most fun parts of his hobby is searching, finding, and retrieving projects to wrench on. Both Chad and I prefer vehicles that are not complete and total wrecks that may need lots of mechanical work but not a complete resurrection on the body side of the equation.
We are sure there are some good stories of wayward cars that have found homes with BangShifters across the nation and the world. When we’ve pulled stuff into the driveway, like a Studebaker wagon that looks as though the Swamp Thing had lived in it for decades, a Javelin that had the outward appearance of an old race car and the inward appearance of a rolling death trap, a humongous C50, a 1968 Chevy wrecker, a Caprice, a tractor, and a few other heaps of glory, it is usually accompanied by a grimace and slow head shake from the wife part of the family unit.
We want to know what the most far gone project car you’ve brought home is and what the familial reaction to said car was!
What’s the most jacked up project car you have ever brought home?
A fine looking project Trabant
I am mechanically DECLINED personally but I did haul home a 35 Chev for a guy. There was a shell and boxes – many many boxes
My 1974 Dodge D100, I drove it from Tucson, AZ. to Point Loma, CA. submarine base with the truck looking like it was Joe Dirt’s.
1992 Acura Integra. There were 4 check engine lights and it was making about 30hp in limp mode. Two weeks after I got the engine lights fixed, a wheel fell off. Lesson learned: ALWAYS check lug nuts when you buy a used car.
That would be a rusted out Dodge Ram 50 that the previous owner gave to me as-is, where-is. Which was on the side of the road with a broken ball joint; he’d literally driven it until the wheels fell off. And the sheriff was going to tow the truck in less than 24 hours if it wasn’t moved. Managed to get the ball joint fixed on the side of the road and drove it away.
34 pontiac, there was kind of half of the body here, sort of the other half there. Some guy gave me $100 for it, and he actually tried to build something with it.
http://selectric.org/oldcars/34pontiac.jpg
1969 Dodge Charger RT/SE.
I found it parked on a side street with a “for sale” sign on the floor of the back seat. There wasn’t a panel on it that wasn’t damaged. Found out the PO had rolled it and landed upside down in a full drainage ditch. Driving home the oil pump quit and I killed the engine on the last mile because I had no other way of getting it home but driving it.
65 Barracuda. Every part the PO had touched was clean, painted real purdy and fully broken… Even the heads were cracked by improper tightening/brutalization. The body shell was about all that was useable even though it was a “complete”, non running car. Ive never seen so many stripped, broken or incorrect fasteners in one place in my life. It had three different types of pistons in it, most with broken rings. We spent a quite a bit of time just pondering how it had been sooo f’dup.
My 70 383 4spd Cuda conv’t. Had to have the car towed hpme since the a-arm was busted off the car. Sent to a welding shop to fix it, ended up using a 15″ and 14″ rim to level the front since I couldn’t afford to align it.
my first was a 57 chevy that had been hit on every corner. one week while my parents were out of town a friend and I set out to find the parts we needed to begin the repair/replace process. to my dismay, the only parts yard that had what I needed,would not part out the 4 different cars we found what we needed.After pleading to let us buy the parts Hank said “give me 125.00 for all 4 and you can have them all as I need some room for other crap and they’ve got to go now I offered him 85.00 and told him you bring them to the house and you get 125. I got them home lined them up in the back yard and lined up help for saturday morning to begin striping them out, Saturday morning at about 6:30 Me in a dead sleep,My dad rolled me up in the sheet,picked my ass up to about 4ft, and slamed me to the floor,yelling “What The Hell Did You Do To My Back yard” It took a while but that was the best time I ever had and got to Know the other side my dad never showed.
Bought a 68 400 firebird, only wanted the hood. The thing had been a garage fire and smelled terrible. I had to keep it in the garage under my house… Wife not happy, Kept the hood and sold the car for more than I paid for it = )
Oh, this is an easy one! My ’69 Mustang GT. It looked good until I completey stripped it down to the shell. The right front frame rail was bent, as was the firewall, trans tunnel and both floor pans. It was painted orange which made sense because I think someone had done some Dukes of Hazzard in the poor thing. I guess the $1,500 price and the Hurst shifter sticking up through the floor cancelled out the fact that this thing was too far gone to even mess with. I ended up selling it as a basket case for $1,200.
Exterior
Interior
This ’64 Falcon wagon, which had been parked in the woods under a pine tree for the better part of a year after the engine dropped a valve.
I paid $1000 for it, put another $1500 into it replacing the engine wit ha used one, rebuilding the cooling & heating system, rebuilding the entire front end, then sold it for $1400 because I desperately needed the garage space.