Guys, Thanks for all the welcome messages and appreciation for the Sportsgrain!
It was my mother's Aunts car (they were the 2nd owners) and I purchased it in 2000 from her. Had not been driven for about 10 years. I spent a couple years cleaning up what I could, but some rust started appearing on the rear quarters and such under the woodgrain, so in 2003 I decided to get a restoration done to save this 1 of 175 convertible sportsgrain cars. Before I saw this one I never even knew they made anything like this!
Car was restored within a year at Paradise Motorsports in Lombard IL; they specialized in large cars (Cadillacs, Lincolns). Mine was one of the smaller sportier cars in there! Had the original 383 2bbl rebuilt to the 383 HP specs for 1968.
Car turned out better than I could have hoped. Had a problem sourcing the lighter woodgrain for the side panels though. Even though 3M still made the vinyl, their minimum order quantity at the time was so large that none of the vendors that advertised the product wanted to stock it! It was advertised as having a 2 year shelf life and the minimum order quantity amounted to more than a 5 year supply for the vendor. I was caught in the middle! After a month of searching for a suitable replacement product I stumbled on a product called Cheyenne Teak from Avery Label and fell in love with the tone and pattern. That paired with the dark marine teak that goes on the 1 year only trim really woke the car up!
Have driven the car very little (about 200 miles per year since 2004) so it still is in great shape for a 15 year old restoration. It definitely is a conversation piece at shows and cruise nights!
I'll be at the C-Body show in June at Volo, hope to see a lot of you there!
Mark