How My Son's Malibu Came To Be

[O. D. Showtime]

I think it was just about 13 years or so ago now....

I had bought this 81 Landau from a couple in the neighborhood, her father bought it new in 81..

Barely owned it 24 hours and a guy came through a red light and did this...

I had been after it for awhile, loaded up pretty nicely.... and after this I was pretty bummed out....tore the frame out of it and broke the diff. But I had heard about another in very nice shape so decided to look into it.

Enter the beige 81 Landau...

So I bought it and decided to surrender the white one to SGI (Sask. Goverenmet Insurance) and happily drove the beige one for about 6 months or so. One day I got a call from SGI. (They paid me out pretty well for the white one and had tried to sell it to recoop some of their payout). Well they couldn't get what they wanted so for some reason they called me and asked if I wanted to buy it back for a reduced price. I offered them less than half of what they wanted and they took it. Home to the garage it came....now what? Well I was driving by one of the local wreckers here when in a paving companys storage compound across form the wrecker I spy this...

(this is already at the out of town shop just after the motor went in) I had bought it with no motor/trans...it was a little rough around the edges but I had a plan..

Well the body work began after the motor/trans install...

My son helped me a ton on it...not only with the body work but putting it all back together and tearing down the crashed one. Here he is hard at work...

Home from paint and reassembled with alot of the parts from the crashed one...this is what we had....

(I see by then I had updated the front of the house/garage)

Powered by the awesome 267 V8...

I drove it for a bit but still had the beige Malibu so I figured I might as well sell this one and try and get back some of my build money. Well that didn't go so well as most wanted it for nothing and I wasn't going to give it away....or so I thought. Parked it for the winter....Feb rolls around and the cars still here...I get talking to the wife...it's our sons 16th birthday Feb 16th..I've got a great idea...let's give him the car for his birthday. He helped so much and was so "into" it how couldn't I have. Well he was tickled to death when he opened the little box/present which had the keys in it. We found that it bottomed out too much with what turned out to be V6 springs in it, so swapped in new coils and shocks all around and he started driving it. Now it wasn't that long when he came to me and said "Dad the Malibu doesn't have enough power" OH Boy here we go. I see I don't have pics on this computer of the new motor but he had a 375 horse 355 built...I gave him a good TH350 with a shift kit and he put in a 2500 stall convertor in it..along with a 4:10 geared rebuilt 7.5 with Auburn posi unit. "Well now it's got some power Dad" No kidding pretty much breaks the tires loose any time you want. Here's how she looked before we sold it this last summer.

Thanks for looking. Hope you somewhat enjoy my little story of how I liked to say "I" got my son into "domestic" performance cars.

 

[Kwik_Cutty88]

That's really cool. I had a similar experience with how I got my Cutlass. My dad, uncle and I worked on the car for a whole year, just as my uncles "project car." And on my 15th birthday the car was my gift. I had no idea and I loved it. It makes you have a greater appreciation and respect for it when you do a lot of the work yourself. I've had the car for 4 years now, daily drove it all though high school. I'm sure he had one of the coolest cars in the high school parking lot, that nobody else had.

 

[Ribbedroof]

Nice cars and story, Kevin.

No sons here....but youngest daughter has an interest....she's still mad that I sold the old blue 83 wagon to a friend in OKC. Lucky for me she doesn't really remember the white coupe all that well, I still get grief over that one from her older sister.

 

[O. D. Showtime]

That's really cool. I had a similar experience with how I got my Cutlass. My dad, uncle and I worked on the car for a whole year, just as my uncles "project car." And on my 15th birthday the car was my gift. I had no idea and I loved it. It makes you have a greater appreciation and respect for it when you do a lot of the work yourself. I've had the car for 4 years now, daily drove it all though high school. I'm sure he had one of the coolest cars in the high school parking lot, that nobody else had.

Thanks...you've got a cool story there as well! Yeah there wasn't many kids with that kind/older car at his school.

Nice cars and story, Kevin.

No sons here....but youngest daughter has an interest....she's still mad that I sold the old blue 83 wagon to a friend in OKC. Lucky for me she doesn't really remember the white coupe all that well, I still get grief over that one from her older sister.

Thanks Brian! Good to hear your daughter has an interest...it makes it alot of fun to spend that time with them...I sure am glad I did.

 

[oldtinsmith]

Very cool story, Kevin!

Doug

 

[O. D. Showtime]

Very cool story, Kevin!

Doug

Thanks Doug!

You getting any work in on the Camino?

 

[HAFROD]

I hate that you sold it. He will always remember his first car. I wish I had my first car = 79 two door Regal Limited

 

[O. D. Showtime]

I hate that you sold it. He will always remember his first car. I wish I had my first car = 79 two door Regal Limited

Robert...we talked at great length for a few months on selling it...he was starting to look for a house and the decision came when he decided to buy a townhouse and needed the extra money. A fellow came 4 hours to look at it and fell in love with it as soon as he got out of his truck. My son took him for a ride and it was a done deal. He's heavy into crossfit and body building and spends most of his time in the gym...he has just finished some interviews on a job as a personal trainer. At first he did have regrets about selling but has commented lately that it was best to let it go as it would have sat more than it would have been used.

 

[autonaut]

Great story. Thanks for sharing it.

 

[Mrockatansky]

Sounds like the car went to a great home. Thank you for the story and the pictures. Great looking car. Love the color.