Re: First Car Stories!
Well here's mine...when I turned 14 my Dad handed me an envelope with a distinct lump in it. Inside the usual birthday card was a pair of very worn GM keys. He led me outside where I found the car you'll see in the attached pics. It was actually one of the rarest Chevelles made in 1970, no not an L-78 or LS-6 convertible, or anything of such high performance pedigree, but rather a lowly Canadian built 1970 Chevelle 300 sport coupe. A thrice repainted, severely neglected, 307 two barrel 3 speed auto on the column. Black bench interior and an option list you could tally on one hand. Didn't bother me a bit though, as I'd always took a liking to the '70 bodystyle and I could see a diamond in the rough. During the next year and a half I spent every weekend and free moment I could spare working on the car with the help of my Dad, older brother and a few friends of the family. The car needed extensive rust repair including quarters, doors, fenders, decklid, hood, floorpan, and even a roof skin from a '72 Malibu parts car I bought for $150 and robbed of all it's valuable parts. I used the bucket seat cores, console, power brake setup, floorpan, doors, roof skin, and numerous other parts from the '72 to bring my '70 back to life. Looking back on it I probably should have saved the '72 and scrapped the '70, but I had my heart set on bringing this first car of mine back to life. It was lots of work and lots of scavenging swap meets and bone yards, but by the time I turned 16 and got my driver's permit the car was complete, at least for the time being. Needless to say as a 14 year old gearhead the original Champagne on black bench seat 300 trim didn't really do it for me, so I took the artistic license to create the SS454 clone you see in the next attachment.
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