Part 1: Finding the car
10 years ago, in April of 2004 a buddy and I decided we both liked the idea of buying an old car and restoring it. We had no idea what we were getting into. Our only criteria was that the car had to be a runner and it had to be cheap. After looking around in the different magazines and so forth I found a car on eBay that met our criteria. The car was up for auction. Here's the description from the eBay listing:
This '66 Polara captures the feel of 1960's car design. Especially the rear tail lights. It has a 318 v8 "poly" (polyspheric, or wide-block). The pistons are at a 120 degree angle, rather than the usual 90. I purchased this car from the Tampa Mopar Club who inherited it from a man who had owned it since 1968 (he also owned a '68 Polara). The car has some rot under hood on right hand side, in the rear quarters and by right rear door. It also has a crack in the dash.
The motor is smooth, but takes several cranks to get it going.
Damaged hood needs to be repaired before you can drive it on the highway. You can see in the pictures that the hood is not properly aligned. It has A/C, but does not work (maybe it needs to be charged).
The glass is in great shape, the interior is in pretty good shape, but the passenger side of the front bench has a tear. There is some replacement cloth in the trunk. The horn does not work. The car looks to have been painted in the recent past. It has some minor dings and scrapes. The mileage reads 41,391. I do not know if this is accurate.
The condition is pretty good for being 38 years old. It has brake drums so it does not stop like a modern car. It also has a slow leak of some fluid near the engine. There is no smoke out of the tailpipe.
Warning, the lugs on the left side are reverse threaded.
Here are the pictures that accompanied the listing.
The curious thing was that back then when you listed an item on eBay your email address would appear in the ad. I noticed that the first initial and last name as it appeared on the seller's email address matched the name of a fraternity brother of mine. The car was in Tallahassee, where my fraternity brother was from. I reached out to the seller via email and sure enough it was my college friend.
We agreed to rig the auction so I'd win it (I'd put in an astronomical price to assure this) and he'd sell me and other buddy the car for $900. The auction ended I won it at $550. That should have been an omen. But I had made a deal for $900 and I was only on the hook for half so that's what we paid.
A point of note is that seller confessed that the reason the hood was so damaged was because after one overheating incident he forgot to fully close and latch it. The result was that when he reached highway speed the hood flew up. The torsion bars were destroyed and there was collateral damage to the hood itself. Luckily the windshield was spared.
Then we had to truck the car down to Miami from Tallahassee. That set us back $400
To be continued...
10 years ago, in April of 2004 a buddy and I decided we both liked the idea of buying an old car and restoring it. We had no idea what we were getting into. Our only criteria was that the car had to be a runner and it had to be cheap. After looking around in the different magazines and so forth I found a car on eBay that met our criteria. The car was up for auction. Here's the description from the eBay listing:
This '66 Polara captures the feel of 1960's car design. Especially the rear tail lights. It has a 318 v8 "poly" (polyspheric, or wide-block). The pistons are at a 120 degree angle, rather than the usual 90. I purchased this car from the Tampa Mopar Club who inherited it from a man who had owned it since 1968 (he also owned a '68 Polara). The car has some rot under hood on right hand side, in the rear quarters and by right rear door. It also has a crack in the dash.
The motor is smooth, but takes several cranks to get it going.
Damaged hood needs to be repaired before you can drive it on the highway. You can see in the pictures that the hood is not properly aligned. It has A/C, but does not work (maybe it needs to be charged).
The glass is in great shape, the interior is in pretty good shape, but the passenger side of the front bench has a tear. There is some replacement cloth in the trunk. The horn does not work. The car looks to have been painted in the recent past. It has some minor dings and scrapes. The mileage reads 41,391. I do not know if this is accurate.
The condition is pretty good for being 38 years old. It has brake drums so it does not stop like a modern car. It also has a slow leak of some fluid near the engine. There is no smoke out of the tailpipe.
Warning, the lugs on the left side are reverse threaded.
Here are the pictures that accompanied the listing.
The curious thing was that back then when you listed an item on eBay your email address would appear in the ad. I noticed that the first initial and last name as it appeared on the seller's email address matched the name of a fraternity brother of mine. The car was in Tallahassee, where my fraternity brother was from. I reached out to the seller via email and sure enough it was my college friend.
We agreed to rig the auction so I'd win it (I'd put in an astronomical price to assure this) and he'd sell me and other buddy the car for $900. The auction ended I won it at $550. That should have been an omen. But I had made a deal for $900 and I was only on the hook for half so that's what we paid.
A point of note is that seller confessed that the reason the hood was so damaged was because after one overheating incident he forgot to fully close and latch it. The result was that when he reached highway speed the hood flew up. The torsion bars were destroyed and there was collateral damage to the hood itself. Luckily the windshield was spared.
Then we had to truck the car down to Miami from Tallahassee. That set us back $400
To be continued...
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