Introducing........RAT’S NEST

[R68GTO]

Originally Posted by R68GTO

In the late 1960's, the 2nd owner campaigned an L79 Nova post car. Here's a scan of one of the scrapbook pages with some photos. The top photo shows him in the far lane at the US Nationals going up against Grumpy's Toy. According to his racing partner, his buddy had the jump on Jenkins but broke a valve spring during the run and ultimately got beat as this photo shows.
The smaller photo in the upper left shows my car's 2nd owner checking out his new race car....if you look closely you can see the signature chrome dual opposed snorkel L79 air cleaner.

Visited Rick Wilkin this week. Rick is the guy that painted Rat's Nest back in 1970. I brought him a 1968 Bell helmet I bought off Ebay. Rick is going to paint it up just like the helmet he painted in 1970 for his buddy Doug using the original helmet as a pattern. He told me the story of this L79...Rick was working at Mattson Chevrolet in Hillsboro in the mid-60's. Rick ordered this car (lower RH in photo) for his friend Doug Davis (2nd owner of my car) strictly for racing. Marina blue, L79 4 speed, 3.73:1 rear, rubber floor mats and no options - didn't think it even came with a radio. Told his boss to not figure on prepping the car as it was going straight to the strip. Got a heads up on the delivery date so he drove his 1959 1 ton Chevy flatbed to work that day. The L79 was backed off the transporter truck and drove up on his flatbed using 2x12 wood ramps in the dealer parking lot.
I was born 15 years too late.......just love these stories!

[R68GTO]

Back to topic.....Rick and I spent some time talking about the paint he used on Rat's Nest BITD. He was not able to locate any leftover paint in his shop like I discussed in an earlier post about the tail panel color. He did go to an old file cabinet and pull out this color card booklet by MetalFlake Corporation. He opened it up and showed me the exact paint colors used on the car. He said he painted the whole car with the white base, then did the entire car in silver mist pearl, taped off and sprayed the Iced Blue pearl, taped off and sprayed the Fire Red candy apple. All in lacquer, then topped with several coats of clear. We talked quite a bit about how all the photos show the silver as very "white". He said that Doug did not like how some of the white pearl paints had that goldish/tan cast to them so they went with the silver over a white base.
The Rat's Nest name was hand-applied by Tom Blackstone "Stoney" (deceased). The letters were gold leaf with a white outline.

[ZLP955]

That is awesome to be able to gather all the paint info direct from the original painter, and even more credit to him for having such a great memory!

[markinnaples]

Those metal flake paints are the same ones they used on my car, pretty cool to see the swatches, thanks.

[R68GTO]

cleaned up my original cage nuts that mount to the inner fenders. Interesting that 3 of the 12 were a slightly different style with a part number stamped on them. Went to work on my door latches - before/after pics that show original LB paint residue.

[Kurt S]

Interesting, those are not the J-clips that I normally expect. Most of the time, 69 NOR used square nuts, not hex nuts.

[enio45]

by the way - a short stent in evaporust helps with the orig finish come thru beautifully

[R68GTO]

Originally Posted by Kurt S

Interesting, those are not the J-clips that I normally expect. Most of the time, 69 NOR used square nuts, not hex nuts.

I obviously can't guarantee they're original to the car.....I wonder if it's a late model year thing? Maybe some other owners of "last 3 month" cars will chime in.

[cook_dw]

These are the ones in Nuge’s 69 copo. 09E if I’m not mistaken.

[R68GTO]

Thanks Darrell, yes Nuge's COPO is 09E. It may not make a difference but the j nuts I posted were attached to the inner fender where it bolts to the wheel opening of the fender.