| Charley Lillard |
05-03-2018 01:04 AM |
Grant just emailed me what he remembers.....
Some history on the car as I know it...
It was sold new at Fanning Chevrolet in Gresham Oregon. The original owners moved to Sacramento (it still had Oregon plates as I recall) and they sold the car to my friend Dave around 1982. The car had around 70K orig miles and was all original except for the wheels, it had some "fancy" wire wheels on it when Dave bought it. The car was always garaged and very well cared for. The only paperwork included was the original "shippers copy" showing the options as delivered. To spruce it up a bit, Dave installed brand new GM wheel well trim and set of restored original SS wheels with all new GM trim that are currently on the car now.
About 1984, Dave had a minor fender-bender one afternoon while driving to work and he was so disgusted that he put the car into storage for a couple of years before I bought the car from him in 1986. I went and bought new GM parts to repair it which included the left fender, header panel and grille assembly. I also had the left front edge of the hood professionally repaired where the header panel had pushed into it. I took the original left fender to a paint supplier to have an exact match mixed in original lacquer. I stripped & repainted the original hood and lower valance panels along with painting the new GM parts. Dave & I then masked and painted the new white stripes onto the new fender. After that, I carefully wet sanded and buffed the entire car so the paint texture would match. The original front bumper was just slightly scratched on the top left edge so I just left it alone. The only thing that I changed on the car was adding an original AM-FM mono radio to replace the original AM unit. I sold the car back to Dave about a year later and ended up buying it back again a short time after that. I last sold the car in 1989-90 to my friend Bob Hughes here locally. Bob had the new repro Goodyear tires installed on the car shortly after. Bob then sold the car to my (now good friend) Rich Dobbins in Long Island. Rich was the one that installed the NOS front spoiler and replaced the driver's seat bottom cover with a mint original one. Rich sold it some time later it and it changed hands a couple more times before the current owner bought it. I remember seeing the car advertised online several years ago when it sold through a dealer claiming it was a 10K original mile car... the correct mileage is 110K as shown currently. This was a fantastic driving car, I drove it all over CA and had a lot of fun putting some miles on it. Some old photos attached... you can just see part the original master cylinder in the last engine compartment photo.
Grant
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