Graveyard Carz show
- Thread starter SoFloG
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On of my dad's friends, "Fat Frank", has the "100% as delivered, stock" Mental disorder. Of course he owns a Mopar ('62 max wedge polara)
Fat Frank is building a CLONE 1967 L79 4 spd Nova (from a 6 cylinder auto) (for a guy who has said out loud he just wants a car he can get in and get on), and he made the poor lady at Champion auto order 13 single reservoir, manual drum brake master cylinders and went thru the boxes until they found the one with the correct date code range for this FAKE car.
If you are faking an L79, why not put disk brakes on it?
He spent hours making a US Steel "made in Canada" stamp to stamp the top of the gas tank. He spend hours marking the TOPS of the inner fenders with the correct grease pencil markings, though it will never be seen again once the fenders are bolted on. He sent a under dash panel that goes on top of the heater box (not visible even if you crawl under the dash) out to the powder coater rather just Krylon semi flat black spray painting it, because it was closer to the factory finish.
The restoration is going to cost $60K, the best they can hope for a Clone L79 is $40K and the owner is retired on a fixed income.
This is a sickness. This isn't rational. These people need professional help.
Fat Frank is building a CLONE 1967 L79 4 spd Nova (from a 6 cylinder auto) (for a guy who has said out loud he just wants a car he can get in and get on), and he made the poor lady at Champion auto order 13 single reservoir, manual drum brake master cylinders and went thru the boxes until they found the one with the correct date code range for this FAKE car.
If you are faking an L79, why not put disk brakes on it?
He spent hours making a US Steel "made in Canada" stamp to stamp the top of the gas tank. He spend hours marking the TOPS of the inner fenders with the correct grease pencil markings, though it will never be seen again once the fenders are bolted on. He sent a under dash panel that goes on top of the heater box (not visible even if you crawl under the dash) out to the powder coater rather just Krylon semi flat black spray painting it, because it was closer to the factory finish.
The restoration is going to cost $60K, the best they can hope for a Clone L79 is $40K and the owner is retired on a fixed income.
This is a sickness. This isn't rational. These people need professional help.
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I think the whole fascination with restoring stuff to 100% factory correct..ness is that "young people" who weren't around and/or not of driving age in the muscle car era want to experience these cars as they were brand new, no matter how crappy and undrivable. I know I'm in that market. I'd much rather have a bone stock 245hp GN than a 1000hp monster. why? Because I wasn't there in 1987 with 30,000 bucks to buy one and drive it brand new. same with any other older muscle car. hell, I wouldn't mind having a mint condition W body if only for the fact that it was in mint condition.
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You could have bought a Brand new GN in 1987 for about $16K and a Turbo T for about $14K. My '86 Mustang GT convert with every option was about $15K.
I'm all for "stock appearing" cars. My T-type runs mid 11's and still has the factory airbox, intercooler and 100% factory appearing turbo. "Bone Stock" they run Mid 14's. Which one would you rather have?
The obsession with factory date codes is a disease, however. Nobody cares. And if you do care about what the one guy who may care about it thinks (and you are not straight up, clinically diagnosed, OCD), you have unresolved "seeking approval from your peers" issues and should get professional help.
$60K would buy the guy who wants to "get in it and get on it" a badass LS1 '67 Nova with modern brakes and suspension and not a drum brake throwback clone that purist will sneer at behind his back and everyone else will ask "why?"
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What's your hangup about everything having drum brakes? Show me on the model where the mopar touched you.
I think it's the complete disregard for safety that anyone who goes out of their way with drum brakes has.
Have you ever driven a car with 4 wheel drum brakes? Try it on the interstate some time @ 75 mph in congestion. If you don't crash into the car in front of you after the 2nd or third brake application it will be a miracle.
4 wheel drum brakes have zero place on a car driven in 2017, and yet people (I'll call them idiots) still put them on cars, because that is what the tag says the car came with.
Yes, I've driven one. 72 6cyl nova 4 door. And a couple older motorcycles with drums. Even that is terrifying. So, basically every car made from the early 1960s on back shouldn't be driven and should just be confined to people's barns? Yes, they aren't safe. No one buys and drives a car to be safe. Hell, look at our own cars. At anymore than 45mph you'll be lucky to be alive. I can understand why they do it, they want to preserve the car as it was. Yes there are some nuts that go to the level of that weirdo you mentioned, but without those types of guys there wouldn't be any of the older cars left in an untouched, or restored state. It's cool being able to go to a show and seeing what a '70 Challenger or a 72 F100 or a 75 Suzuki GT185 looked like brand new. And if you look around, how many classic cars are on the road? NEXT. TO. NONE. They're all sitting in someone's garage or a museum or warehouse waiting for that 1 day a year they're cranked to life and rolled into an enclosed trailer. Hell, semi's are more dangerous than older cars if only because they're everywhere. If one gets squirrelly it'll take out all 4+ lanes.
most of the tractor trailers out there still use drum brakes even on the front axles....
I think his point is that only a purist would care about the minutia of markings and period correct parts. That crowd is fine provided they do not plan that car to be anything more than a trailer queen or museum piece. All the better for them and us that we can see that kind of quality and attention to detail. The other 99% of car enthusiasts (myself included) have no issue and actual prefer(demand) some basic safety upgrades. Like Power assisted brakes, multi reservoir, with a bare minimum of front disc, Seat belts, etc. Things that can be done well and even "hidden/camouflaged" so as not to distract from the aesthetics of the vehicle. Single reservoir 4 wheel drums are monumentally unequipped to handle driving in today's world.
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