Your Car Story

[old80cs]

I wish you the best, in getting it back together, but this is exactly how I have bought several cars for less than $500.

I’ll get it together at some point, have a lot of time vested into it, and it’s part of the family. Way back when I replaced the floor and backseat sheet metal, all the body mount pads on the frame, body mounts under the trunk, rebuilt and Olds 350 and made a TH700R4 fit it before it became easy like today. Installed 3:73 gears into a 7.5” posi rear end. I had it running last summer and it ran well, just as I remember. I have a nice bucket seat interior for it and a nicely painted set of Olds wheels. The body needs a complete strip and refinish.

 

[ck80]

Mine was purchased new by a man about 100 from where I lived all my life. How it stayed in West Virginia all of it's life and still had zero rust is a testimonial to only 53,000 miles and how he treated it. It has a near perfect stock interior. He went into a nursing home and they sold all of his stuff. I paid $5,000 for it, drove it home, and jerked the drivetrain out of it. He'd either love it or hate me...………………………...either way I like it.

End of the day he had an attachment and a love for the car. Long as he felt you have a similar love for the car I don't think he'd care about the drivetrain. 53k meant he enjoyed it in his way, not intended it as a 0 mile time capsule.

 

[Clone TIE Pilot]

My Regal has had three owners over its life. It was bought new by my Aunt in 87 but sadly died from cancera couple of years later. Her sister, my grandmother inherited it and my grandparents drove it until 01. At that point my grandmother could not handle the heavy barn doors anymore. I was 16 at the time so she gave it to me, especially since the trade in value for if was only $200.

 

[5spdCab]

I wanted a G-Wagon to use as a driver, parts runner and all around utility vehicle. I saw mine for sale on Craigslist but it was more than I wanted to spend. So I printed off the seller's info and kept on looking.

Three months later, I still hadn't found anything else so I called the guy. He still had it and changed his mind about selling it. He wanted to get it running better and then take it to the body shop for a complete re-do. We chatted a bit and he confessed that it was at a shop nearby me having some work done and if I was interested in checking it out in person I could at my convenience.

The day I called him to go and see it, he was actually driving it back home and was going to keep it. I told him to keep my number in case he ever changed his mind again. Another month or so later he called and decided that he was going to get rid of it. He was tired of putting money into it, it was still running terribly, and his son (who the car was for) dropped out of college and wasn't in too big of a hurry to find a job. I wasn't able to go see it for another week due to a business trip.

When I went to see it I could tell that he had cut a bunch of corners slapping it together. We made a deal and I dragged it home on a two-wheel dolly. I didn't need to drive it right away since I had my then current beater still going.

I spent from Thanksgiving through March of that year going through EVERYTHING. 90% of what he did or had done, was redone again, correctly, by me. Then once I started driving it, I found other things that needed to be addressed. This guy was a HACK in every sense of the word. I really only used whatever parts I had laying around to get it back together and reliable.

That was three years ago. I've since put 25,000 miles on it driving it pretty much everyday, year round. I'll share some before and afters.

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Good looking wagon.

 

[5spdCab]

So when I 10 went to dirt track races one night with mom and dad the track had a big banner hanging up about a new 4 cyl racing class soy dad looked at me asked said you wanna try this ? Needles to say I said yes lol had to be 13 to race so my dad's buddy gave us a grand am from his junkyard 2 years later car was done raced it 3 years got spun out into the wall rolled it down the track thankfully me and my dad had the new car in the process of being complete . A guy my dad worked with gave us a 1984 Cutlass all stock V6 great body very clean frame needed a door do to rust on bottom . So my dad and me gutted the car bare frame removed all inner panels l, fire wall, trunk everything . We spent alot of time welding and fabbing . Learned alot from him and this car ,has alot of time on it ,alot of great night's alot of bad nights too it happens , wouldn't be able to do my own roll cages and ford 9"s and build motors without my dad . Lil fast forward to 2 years ago was coming out of turn 1-2 RR tire started going low it went sideways another car hit me and I rolled down the back straight away , after getting back to the pits I ripped parts of the body off put 3 tires on it went back out for the feature race got 2nd place , that was the original body from 1986 most cars on the dirt don't last that long 2009-2017 ,so we took the car completely apart checked every weld for cracks ,bent bars, anything harmful , new paint, new decals, was ready for the following season ........ Can't wait for 2020 season!!!!!!!View attachment 137640View attachment 137641View attachment 137642View attachment 137643

Is there a way that I can give you two "likes" for your story?

 

[DRIVEN]

Grandparents bought it new. Never got ****ed up so I never had anything to fix.