This is a painful story. Here you see my ’62 Chevy Biscayne near the end of its tenure with my name on the pink. I’d bought the car a few years prior with the full intention of running it in the XO/Production class at El Mirage; the 1962 models were the last for the 235ci Stovebolt inline six that was designed in the ’30s, and as a result, it’s the newest car that qualifies for the XO engine class that allows overhead-valve inliners designed prior to 1959.
The bummer is that as soon as I had the car I fell in love with it and couldn’t cut it up into a race car. Sure, it was a beater like all my junk, but it was right. It’s one of those deals where I don’t love all ’62 Biscaynes, just this one. Ever have one like that? I hate light blue worse than brussels sprouts, but this car was ok with me. It had a rubber floor mat, a wasted bench seat, and a three-on-the-tree. It just sat right, and a friend at So-Cal Speed Shop redid the suspension for me.
I really can’t tell you why I sold it, but I did. The poor sucker who bought it is my pal Todd Ryden at MSD, and I say “poor sucker” because I’ve hammered him to buy the car back for like five years. Now his wife likes it, so I’m screwed. I even offered to trade my ’65, which Todd loves, but no-go.
The way the car looks in this photo, I guess I didn’t deserve to keep it. It had gotten really neglected and sat forever in a parking spot at the apartment building of my then-girlfriend, now wife. (So did my Mustang Bullitt, which you can see a corner of here). Todd snatched it up, Comet-washed all the orange off if it, replaced the decklid, removed my flamethrower, and redid the interior. Perhaps he’ll log in and grace us with a few more recent photos of the car in its new home in El Paso.
Or not. Because then he knows he’d have to listen to me nag him all over again.
