Projects A late introduction-Junior Conway coupe build

I've asked Ryan about it. I'm waitng for a reply. However if you type in Junior Conway (on this web site) you'll get to it.

 

Andreas i have to reply to your post. You are so right about the looking/thinking/doing part. When I told Jr that i was retired he got excited because he knew that I would be able to have the time. When I asked him how many times this car had been started he said "about three or four times". The problems are always the same. Time and $. My estimate of 25K to do this is all shot to hell. And almost all the labor is free. This car may have been waiting for the internet regarding finding parts, and being finished.

By the way, i still need that genny rear end and drive shaft. I have found the shifting rods.

 

There are five colors on the car. Two under the hood, three on the exterior. This is gold/bronze powder. A candy base color without the candy overlay. Remember, Juniors goal was to brighten up the under hood area. I need to add that Junior once told me that he came from school to work and found that George had put these cool little scoops in his hood. This was during the time in this cars life when the many things that made it the icon that it became were done. It got caught up in the frantic effort to make Barris Kustom look good with new cars (4) in an upcoming show.

 

Here are a couple pics. of the car in the alley in Vandergrift. The kid laying on the trunk is my buddy I had sold it to. The kid in the drivers seat would buy it from him. You can see the tail-lites were still intact then and the bumpers were still in great shape. Forgot the top of the side trim had been removed. In the other pic. you can see the headlights your working on now. I had put a Pontiac motor in it before selling it, you can just see the breather on the valve cover. Wish I had more pics. but back then we didn't all have camera's like today. Now I really feel bad !!

 

A total mind blow!!!!!!!

 

Larry, glad you posted those. There's been a couple threads here in the past where Juniors car was discussed, and I did post the story of what happened to it as you relayed it to me, but I didn't want to "expose" you. Each time I posted, it seemed to be dismissed as bull shit (there is a lot of that that goes on here.), so you've kinda vindicated me. Thanks, and FUCKIN' GREAT PICTURES!

PS
Uhhh, not to make matters worse for ya, but I just remembered. You gonna tell them what happened to the doors and some other parts? This is all so depressing.

 

Larry, you're ok, we're ok. This is important historical stuff. Hey, you could be just some guy sittin on the sideline wonderin whats goin on.

 

Thought I'd share a couple stories about the car with you. As close as I can remember I got the car when I was 17, would have been 1964. I was a senior in high school, one day I took a buddy with me in the car to school and "showing off" pulling in the battery fell over shutting the car off. The car had solenoid operated doors, hood, trunk, and power windows. We couldn't get out and no-one could get in, by now we had a crowd around the car including a couple of the non gear head teachers ! One of the car guys somehow got the hood open, don't remember how, hooked the battery back up and we parked the car. Went to class with our red faces !! The doors were always trouble, years of abuse probably. I think if you look close at the pic. of the car you can see John had actually replaced the complete doors with regular doors with outside handles and roll-up windows. He was a good body man for 18 years old, he had rounded the corners to match the car. The original doors hung in his dad's garage for probably 20 years, when I found out I went to see about them-the garage was gone.

 

Larry, I have to ask you about some of this info. Junior didn't have any inside door handles. He removed the handle mech's from the doors. He made some small ss plates to cover the holes. The garnish mldgs just had holes where the door lock knobs had been. You got out by pushing one of two buttons that were to the right or left of the radio (under the dash). The purpose for all this was, as Junior says it, the girls could get in but they couldn't get out. All the interior pics show the window cranks with the tear drop knobs. Are you sure about the ele. windows? Was the battery in the stock location on the l apron (up front)?

 

Now the old wheels are turning, I can't remember exactly where the door buttons were, hell to get old ! I remember when the battery fell over we talked to our buddies out of the wing window openings. The dash still had the teardrop knobs, I do remember that. I remember to open the doors from the outside there was the small key part of a lock in the chrome strip on the door. I'm sure it had power windows by the time I got it cause we couldn't get out. I hate to admit it but I think the battery was on the pass. side by the firewall but just know it was under the hood. You mentioned about getting shift linkage, when I had it , it had a straight handle floor shift. Most all the chrome was still good on the garnish moldings and dash also. It still had all the rolled and pleated panels, trunk too, even on the floor. They were really beat up but there. The white paint job was really bad and the good part was all the of the doors and trunk edges still had the original color on them. One crazy thing I remember is for some reason I took the grill out, it damn near broke my arm, it must have weighed 75 pounds !!

 

+1000000000

I'm sure if the topic was named the right way, it would have 50 pages now ! You're cloning one of the most beautifull mild kustom... or semi custom as they were called back then ! I can stop looking at pics of the original, always wandering what happened to it, or why nobody is going to clone such a beauty ! thanks for for doing it ! can't wait to see it done !

I'm subscribing your topic and giving it five star !

 

I can't wait for ya'll to get done! It looks very accurate, you have done your homework, I'm happy for you. I will be watching this thread!

 

welcome good luck with the project nice car

 

All I have to say is it takes alot of dedication to pull off a project like that.

 

Thanks for the reply Larry. You're a good man. The grille weighs 40 pounds. It's got to be one of the secrets about that thing being so low. I'll explain those outside door locks/buttons when we get there.

 

You've sure had your share of problems with power windows! (inside joke guys)

 

As hard as it is to accept now there was a time when all these wonderful creations were worthless. Actually less than worthless. You would rather have a good running stocker than one of those unreliable,undriveable, chopped up junkers. Most of these cars were lost in this window of time. The stories are heartbreaking. If we could've had a warehouse to store these cars in and just swooped down and scooped em up for next to nothing! The Hirohata Merc was bought for $500.00 off of a used car lot and put away in a two-car garage in L.A.! But alas, isn't this the human story? These are some of the reasons that its such a privilege to be able to do this car and collaborate with Jr.

 

Excellent story! Keep going, its giving me something to read thats actually worth while instead of this bullshit at work!!!

 

I really wish my dad would do that... But he instead took advantage of my less than chipper mental state after a breakdown and got me to sell my old beast, '73 Aussie XA Falcon.

 

Awesome I love Jr.'s shoebox one of my all time favorite.. How did I not see this?

 

Most of the stainless trim off ebay.

 

I think I've got the rear end and drive shaft you need, Jer. Send me a PM. If they'll work for you I'd be pleased to donate them to the cause.

I've always loved Junior's car. I'm old enough to remember it from when it was newly built and featured in Custom Cars Magazine as well as many others. Too bad what happened to the real one, though...

 

Eric how can I refuse an offer like that? Thank you. The car is a roller now. This will let me get the brakes hooked up, and bled. It will finish off the underside of the car. A big deal.Thanks again.

 

To Jerry and sons.....Great reading and even better watching!! Saw your first post months ago and knew you'd have a great time doing this but had no idea what your build would be.....This is fantastic...even down to the correct license# ! I had the priviledge of recreating Watsons Grapevine with my son Tony back in 1996-98...Tony died in a house fire in 2002.....I had told Larry that my plan for the car was to repaint it in the purple version when the scallop job wore out (reverse of how watson had done it) but after Tony passed (he laid the scallops out for me) there is no way I'll ever do that...gonna wear the paint off and it's got over 85,000 miles on it now. I must say you fellers have gone to extremes to make things correct and that is very inspirational!! I'm sure JR's proud to have you guys recreating his beauty.... Job well done and will watch the progress for sure. Randy

 

Randy, sorry about your loss (see my pm). Larry has a story about going "head to head" with jr. at a car show. I think they ended up sharing (?) a first place trophy.

 

Oh, this is just great! Here we are slaveing away trying to get the front of the car done and in struts the dash. All decked out with the correct mirror and teardrop knobs demanding to be installed. "YOU HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE WIRING!" It's great being involved in this creative process. But, putting up with a tyrant like a clone, sometimes, not so much.

 

These are the 53 Merc bumper bullets. The shorty (the most cut down) will go on the back. The one on the right will go on the front. I bought a set (2) that I put on the front. I bought 2 separate ones for the back. When I had them both cut down and fitted to the rear bumper I proceeded to start to make brackets for them. I kept having trouble making brackets for them both until I realized that one was smaller than the other. Huh? How/when/why did Merc make two different size f bumpers for the same car? One of lifes mysterys. And how did I end up with it? Well, uh, thats a little easier to figure out. So if any body can explain this I sure would appreciate it. Fortunately I found a set on eBay on the first look.

 

God bless e-bay !

Dash looks great!

 

If i remember right, the side trim was done with two rear part of 55 ford side trim, but i can't remember what was the upper part ... olds ?

 

How did the lady of the house react to the beautiful dash in the living room?