Replaces that is, boot as in shifting boot. (Were you thinking…since I just got back from the Barrett Jackson Auction.. I was considering getting rid of the Stang ? Nope..but I tell you there were a couple of cars I’d even swap for…that’s for sure!!)
When the 4 speed trans got installed we used the old rubber boot and it did tear. So I replaced it with a nice leather replacement from Scott Drake.
The chrome plate (well not really chrome) was originally held in place by the last fold of rubber on the boot. This isn’t possible with the leather replacement so I had to improvise.
So the boot and trim are in stalled, but of course you leave those ugly bolts sticking out. I originally thought that I would get some chrome bolts to replace, but they aren’t inexpensive as I found out when I replace my 1984 Corvette’s valve cover bolts with chrome…hey..they keep the chrome locked up at the local Ace Hardware!!! <<>> So since I still have to replace the carpeting (I could change my mind later about the bolts) I opted for some plastic chrome-like covers – they are actually cover for license plate screws. Here are a couple of pics:
One cap on and one off.
Both caps on, held in place with a touch of easily removed household rubber silicon glue
Back in 1973-75, when I was 16 to 18 years of age, I worked in the maintenance department of Ray County Memorial Hospital in Richmond, Missouri. I mopped, swept, and vacuumed floors, cut the grass and trimmed hedges, hauled trash (that you don’t want to know about) to the local dump, and sometimes cleaned out ambulances after particularly “messy” runs. I earned $1.65 an hour to perform these duties.
During the 2 ½ years I worked for the hospital, I owned four different cars. These cars, my first four, were all Chevrolets: two ‘65 Impala Super Sports, a ’68 Impala Custom, and a ‘67 Malibu. No one handed me these vehicles: I bought them, insured them, and maintained them from the money I earned working nights, weekends, and summers at the hospital. Yes, I’m sure that seems like a lot of cars in a short period of time for a high school kid to buy and keep up with, but cars were cheap in the ‘70s, and I was good with money . . . then.
Now I dearly loved my first four cars, but there was one car I really, really had my eye on during the time I worked at Ray County Memorial . . . but, unfortuately, the car was way out of my league at the time. The assistant administrator for the hospital (a yuppie before there was such a thing) owned that car. I used to salivate every time I went past it on the hospital’s tractor as I mowed the grounds.
What the administrator had was a 2-door fastback 1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass S (not a Cutlass Supreme or a 442, but a Cutlass “S”). The car was burnt orange with a matching interior (I would later learn that the color’s actual name was, Bittersweet). It had a white vinyl top, white pin-striping on the front fenders, and a new set of Firestone 500 tires. It also featured cool-looking hood louvers that gave it a bit of an edge. Not only was the car sporty-looking, it screamed sophistication at the same time. It was one damn fine looking car—I swore then that I’d have one just like it someday!
I graduated high school, moved on from my hospital employment, and went to work in a women’s clothing warehouse/distribution center in Kansas City. There I earned the princely sum of $3.52 an hour! About a 1 ½ years into my employment there, I was driving home from work one day and what in the world did I see at a local car lot, but the same ’71 Olds that I used to covet! As soon as I could get my butt to the bank to get a loan, that puppy was mine!
Although I can remember exactly what I paid for nearly all of my cars, for the life of me I can’t recall what this one cost me. It seems to me that it was in the neighborhood of $2,300. But money was no longer an impediment: I was making $3.52 an hour and working lots of overtime, so the car was within my reach; no longer was it something I could only dream of owning.
Now that I had the car of my dreams, I gave my ’67 Malibu—my former love—to my little brother, Steve (look for a future posts on both). I then got to work on building a relationship with my Olds.
I chose not to personalize the car. Rather than slapping decals on it, jacking it up in the back with air-shocks, running loud dual-exhaust, and sticking wide tires on it—as was customary at the time—I decided to leave it stock. It didn’t need all that junk: it looked perfect just the way it was!
I was constantly cleaning this car—believe me: I made the local car wash owners rich! After hitting the car wash, I would use Blue Coral, Blue Poly wax on the body, and Lemon Pledge on the vinyl interior—and the tires. I can’t adequately describe how slick this car looked when cleaned up! (It also felt slick: due to the Lemon Pledge us on the interior, one tended to slide across the seat when going around a curve.) The car was beautiful, and to use a tired old expression, it had class! In my opinion, the ’68 to ’72 Cutlasses had some of the best body-lines and interiors that General Motors ever produced!
I was the proud owner of this car for a little over a year and I enjoyed every second of my time with it! It was a pleasure to drive and cheap to operate. Other than the cost of routine maintenance, I remember spending a grand total of $33 in repairs on it during the entire time I owned it—not bad at all! But although I absolutely loved the car and appreciated the fact that it was a really well-made vehicle, I ended up trading it in on a ’74 Cutlass.
. . . So why would I get rid of a car that I had dreamed of owning for years you ask? A couple of reasons: The impatience of youth for one. Like many kids, I constantly wanted newer and cooler toys to play with. The other reason was the fact that the car reminded me too much of a long-term girlfriend I had broken up with, I figured I needed to let the car go in order to be able to move on.
Ironically, this particular girlfriend—who at the time said she cared for me—never cared for this car much. She found it a bit old-mannish: nice, safe, but a bit boring. She eventually got around to feeling the same way about me and sent me down the road.
My ’71 Olds was Bittersweet in color; the memory of it made bittersweet by the young lady’s rejection of me.
______________________________________
A few months after trading in the car, I was told by the owner of the car lot I had purchased it from that he had seen it show up at a car action in Kansas City. The car lot owner told me that the car looked as good as ever, but someone had rolled the mileage back about 50,000 miles. He went on to say that the car ended up being sold for more money than I had paid for it. Honestly, even with the mileage fraud, somebody ended up buying a great car! I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did!
The big Scottsdaleauction week is finally here, now with six companies set to to drop the hammer on literally thousands of collector cars in a mere handful of days. In typical fashion, Barrett-Jackson was the first to usher cars through the stage lights, and it’s here where we’ve been alerted to the probable sale of this 1948 Tucker (chassis #1043) currently owned by none other than noted Barrett-Jackson attendee and enthusiastic car collector Ron Pratte.
Specific details about the Tucker are lacking, other than mention of its restoration, on Barrett-Jackson’s auction description. And we use the phrase “probable sale” simply because unlike most of the lots at B-J, the Tucker is listed as having an undisclosed reserve. That said, Mike Schutta of the Tucker Historical Foundation, provided more insight.
This car is very nice and most Tucker fans are keeping a close eye on this auction to see if it will set a new record price for a Tucker. The current record is $1,127,500 paid for Tucker #1045 about 18 months ago. This Tucker is in much better condition.
An interesting tidbit is that Tucker #1043 was used as part of an advertising scheme for a golf driving range in a western suburb of Chicago back in the ’50s. It was painted Tropical Rose and Snowshoe White to match the driving range buildings.
While surfing through the Barrett-Jackson website for more information on the Tucker, we stumbled upon four other Ron Pratte-owned vehicles that will also be offered at Westworld during the weekend, beginning with the car pictured above: the 1947 Bentley Mark VI with coachwork by Franay. The Bentley was last offered for sale by Barrett-Jackson – at no reserve – at their 2006 Palm Beach auction, where the hammer fell at $1,728,000 (including buyer’s premium). At that sale, details of the Bentley were as follows:
4.5 Liter Inline 6 with a four-speed. Coachbuilt by Franay. Magnificent restoration to Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance winning standards. This is the first major winning Concours d’Elegance car after WWII. Winning the first two major Concours in 1948, back-to-back, on the 12th of June at Enghien and the 17th of June at Bois de Boulogne. Mr. Gudol, the original owner and visionary of the Franay, was an industrialist whose sole purpose was to prove to the world that France was not only back from the rigors of war, but ready to reassert its dominance of haute couture and automotive design elegance. The awards the Franay has won over the decades is proof of his timeless vision. Mr. Gudol, in his wisdom, continued to enhance and advance the performance capacity and design elements of the Franay to push the envelope of an ever improving competitive edge in Concours d’Elegance competition. Mr. Gary Wales, who has shepherded the Franay through over 50 major awards and honors since 1990, has scaled back the number of public appearances so that the car is currently eligible for any and all Concours d’Elegance events.
Like the Tucker, the Franay Bentley touts an undisclosed reserve.
Then there’s Pratte’s 1957 De Soto Adventurer convertible, again with an undisclosed reserve. Oft-repeated generic De Soto history aside, specific details provided by Barrett-Jackson state:
Powered by the famous 345/345hp Hemi V-8 with dual quads, an automatic transmission, push-button shifter on dash, and independent torsion bar front suspension. With the division’s top Hemi V-8 under the hood, the Adventurer was an early muscle car with a set of the most aesthetically pleasing tail fins ever seen on virtually any car.
The only two cars listed by Pratte without a reserve are this pair of 2007 Shelby GT500s, which are to be sold as a pair. Details per the auction site are identical for both Shelbys:
In January 2006 Ron Pratte bought the Ford Motor Company’s newest car, a 2007 Ford Shelby GT500 VIN 00001 that benefited Carroll Shelby’s Children’s Foundation. In the past, Ford reserved the first fifty cars produced for Ford family members and senior executives or by other people on a selective list. Ford was so grateful to Ron for his generosity, they offered him the opportunity to buy two more, VIN 00002 and VIN 00005. While Ron is keeping VIN 00001, he is selling the orange Coupe and matching convertible as a pair. The successful bidder will get both cars for one price. These cars are special in other ways as well, as part of the purchase of VIN 00001 was a trip to the Flat Rock assembly plant where these legendary cars are manufactured. At the end of the tour of the assembly plant, Ron was presented with the keys to VIN 00001, VIN 00002 and VIN 00005 by Carroll Shelby and Carroll autographed all three cars for Ron. Along with his cars were three other 2007 Shelby GT 5000′s, for Carroll Shelby, Steve Davis and Gary Bennett. Ron then threw Ford a curve and said he didn’t want any of these cars shipped by rail to the owners, he wanted them trucked, enclosed, to his facility in Chandler, Arizona, bypassing the traditional dealer delivery and inspections. All of the cars, including Carroll’s personal GT 500, were delivered to the respective owner this way. This is a unique opportunity to own two pieces of Shelby and Ford history.
Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale auction started Sunday and will run through this weekend. For more information, visit Barrett-Jackson.com.
It’s been a while since I’ve provided an update on the restoration of the 1975 fuel injectedVW bug that I’m project managing for a former workmate. So I thought I’d post of some details andsome pics.
The car is called a “Standard” – that doesn’t mean a manual shift (although it is a manual 3 speed), that means the most stripped down, no optioned, VW you could purchase. I’m talking interior door panels with a thin covering of fake leather over (almost as thin) cardboard. Rubber floor coverings (I wouldn’t even call them mats!!!), a headliner, cloth seats were the total of trim in side. There was no upholstery covering the rest of the interior – just painted metal. It did have an AM radio – which was replaced it a JVC.
Not much to the door panel.
Headliner and sun visors are about the only other upholstery, the rest is painted red like you see here.
In fact importation of these striped down models was halted shortly after about 100 here shipped to the US in 1975. This is one of the 100 allowed in. Pretty cool story.
This particular car belongs to June Yang and she purchased the car, brand new, while attending college in Iowa. The car lived in Iowa it’s entire life (until now) and it show’s signs of every winter too. The car had been stored for years and suffers from a severe case of rust and by all accounts shouldn’t able to sit up-right on four tires.
But like many folks, who love their V-dubs, June has a lot of memories tied to the rusted fenders, college, and other life milestones. So when she moved to Tucson, Az she thought of bring the Bug with her. She was advised that the car was not safe to drive down the driveway much less the block and certainly not 1/2 way across country!!! And that was an
understatement!!!!!
I met June when she came to work at the same establishment where I labored. I’m not a closet car guy and a visit to my office at that time it was pretty clear. Eventually she asked about having the car fixed and her desire to have it join her in Az was discussed and although I had no idea the exact condition. I helped arrange transportation to Tucson.
The goal was to get it here to some place that could get the car running (it wouldn’t start and brakes hadn’t been serviced in some time). In run condition, the thought was we could then running it around (save a few $$) to the various places I had planned to do the work. Unfortunately even running it wasn’t going to be safe enough to drive. See here<<<<>>>>
The transport had one bump when the driver’s truck died en route. The company immediately arranged for a local company to pick it up and finish the trip. I believe June called them every hour for updates. Eventually, the car showed up at my favorite auto repair shop and Tim Sisk gave me a call to come look the car over.
These pictures don’t nearly capture the condition this car, frankly I was taken back as well and I grew up driving a 1930-ish Ford stripped down pick-up that served as an alternate tractor on my grandfather farm, in upstate New York – no floor boards and the like. This VW was nearly eaten alive by oxidation.
Rust 1
Rust 2
And here's a little side view.
See the highlighted area? It's not attached. It should be. It holds the body to the frame!!
So are you saying WHAAAATTT???? Pretty much the standard response… but don’t fret….there’s a plan!!!
So I’m read a few articles online and a few have touched on Fiat and all the issues they are apparently having with bring the brand back to the US. There are some individual that say the 500 won’t be back and that they tried too
soon or that they didn’t have any dealerships lined up to handle the turn. But I don’t really care much, I’ll never buy a Fiat, unless is an older classic, and then maybe….ummm…naaahh…not even then.
But I did notice that they are now offering a race ready version of the 500 Abarth. That’s right 160 hps of rubber melting power, not too bad when you are starting out with 101 hp. Drop a turbocharger and you’ll get 160. They
tuned the suspension for the track and its light curb weight might make it a bit fun to drive..might.
160HP..enough said...HEY..who snickered???!!!
But the cool part is that included in the price is a ‘Track Day‘. Supposedly you will get (I think car will be available in the spring) a day at one of the Richard Petty Driving Experience events. What would be really cool is if you could return it right after that!!!
Anyway, I got to thinking if any other auto makers offer a track day. We all know that the Big Three are making track ready cars’ some for track only and some for street and track. Here is what I found out.
Fiat got the idea from Chrysler. They are offering a track day with the purchase of some of their SRT models (300 SRT8 and the Challenger SRT8).
GM via Cadillac offers their own at various tracks across the country.
Purchasing a Corvette ZR1 will get you a trip to Ron Fellows Performance Driving School or Bob Bundurant School of High Performance Driving, in Chandler, AZ. (OK….even you can’t afford the ZR1, sell the spouse’s daily driver, rent out your man cave (gal cave) and go to the Bundurant school.) They have a lot of classes at all levels and some fair prices. I did the Formula 1 event at Phoenix International Raceway (PIR) and it was outstanding. Here is a link: http://www.bondurant.com/?gclid=CJD93Luc2K0CFQduhwodNyU1mQ
2012 ZR1 Vette
Not to be out done Ford as a similar deal with the 2012 Boss Mustang. This is at the Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah. I chatted with one of the Miller Motorsports reps at the 2011 Barrett-Jackson Classic Car Auction in Scottsdale and he showed off some video of their facility and it is extremely nice. I’d make that trip.
2012 Boss 302
If you got to have an “import” (and the Fiat ain’t doing it for ya) Mercedes-Benz will be offering a track day at course across the US if you purchase their top of the line models. (Although I didn’t find mention of which ones.)
So if you are going to spring for a new car, you’ve got some options if a Track Day is part of the deal. Of course the Fiat will run you about $22K and the ZR1 about $108K, tough choice?
Ford released three pictures of the 2013 California Edition Mustang, which has traditionally been an appearance only package. They have not released an exact part list yet but the pictures speak wonders for what you will get, including the popular glass roof.
You can check out more 2013 Mustang pictures over in our photo gallery.
C6 performance convertible and its 60th Anniversary Package will be unveiled at Barrett-Jackson, where the first public version will be auctioned off for charity.
Some features:
The 427-cubic-inch (7.0L) LS7 engine is from the Corvette Z06. Rated at 505 horsepower and 470 lb.-ft. of torque. The 427 Convertible is only available with a six-speed manual transmission.
The LS7 was co-developed with the Corvette Le Mans-winning GT1 engine with:
– lightweight titanium connecting rods and intake valves
– racing-inspired high-flow cylinder heads
– a dry-sump oiling system
Suspension/Brakes/Wheels
– the same driveline and rear axle system as the Corvette Z06
– Magnetic Selective Ride Control
– 19-inch front and 20-inch rear lightweight machine-face Cup wheels
– PDE performance packages – come standard and include unique gray-painted pockets.
– a rear-mounted battery
The 427 Convertible Body has:
– Carbon fiber raised hood (introduced on the 2011 Z06 Carbon Edition)
– Carbon fiber Z06-style fenders
– Carbon fiber floor panels
– The “CFZ” carbon fiber front splitter and rocker panels
Weight:
427 Convertible’s curb weight to 3,355 pounds.
Other specs:
– 505-horsepower LS7 engine, it gives the 427 Convertible a power-to-weight ratio of 6.64 – or one horsepower for every 6.64 pounds of vehicle mass
– one of the fastest convertibles in the world, delivering estimated 0-60 performance of 3.8 seconds, quarter-mile performance of 11.8 seconds, lateral acceleration of 1.04 g and a top speed of more than 190mph.
Some of the folks that sell cars have some great sales pitches or reasons for sell. Many blame their wives….”the wife says I have to make room”.
Here are a couple:
1973 Dodge Dart- Fast Back 318 Mopar motor,automatic trans, body fair no dents. Was going to use as hobby rebuild but obama & congress making me sell in order to servive. e-mail or call
Some are folks have a sense of humor when selling their car.
1958 Edsel Pacer 4 dr hardtop. This car would be a very good restoration project, but not for me, since I am out of space. I bought this in 2007 or 2008. It had been stored inside for years, not restored, but kept running. During my ownership, I have replaced the carburetor with a 1963 4 barrel Autolite. The original Holley is in the trunk if you want to return it to stock. It runs and drives, but I would expect to go through the suspension and brakes to be sure it’s safe for a trip. There’s also a loose connection between the tele-touch controls and the transmission. Occasionally, it will not start, but wiggling wires under the hood and calling it names, seems to correct that.
