The beauty of the H.A.M.B. So here's the story. <O This car was my 2nd 32 ford , that was a s**** of the yellow deuce in the movie American Graffiti. Pulled from a local junk yard and built in 1978, I named the car "Amarillo Graffiti" in honor of my hometown, Amarillo, Texas. Amarillo is the name for "yellow" in Spanish. The coupe was a real steel, chopped and channeled, five window body with a small block Ford power plant. Really quick, it was a low slung rocket, that was a blast to drive. I had the car pin striped by well known striper "Dirty Dan" of Dallas, Texas. Inserted in the name on the side, Dirty added notes on nostalgia places and events of our youth around Amarillo, Texas. I have come to realize, Amarillo was not to much different than any other American town in the sixties.<O <O I sold the car in 1979, sight unseen to a gentleman from California. He and his copilot flew into Amarillo with nothing more than a small toolbox, and off they went down Route 66 west. I never saw the car again, but often wondered about it's whereabouts'. <O <O Fast forward to 2009. I built numerous cars over the years, keeping most of them, for a collection of hot rods and cl***ics, including two 55's, a 57 Belair, a 1967 SS 396 convertible, a 1962 409 four speed Chevy, and various others. In the summer of 2008, I was able to repurchase my very first hot rod, another 1932 Ford three window coupe that I sold just before this yellow one. (I am restoring it to it's glory days as we speak.) <O <O In March of 2009, I received an email from Tom Branch of Santa Clara, CA asking me about the Amarillo Graffiti car. Tom was a member of the Jalopy Journal internet site, along with 50,000 plus other traditional hot rod enthusiasts. Following my profile on the H.A.M.B. (Hokey *** Message Board) Tom had seen a picture of the car on my picture site www.picturetrail.com/hurdrep . He thought that he recognized the car as one belonging to a friend in Santa Clara, CA. A quick email reply, and I was in contact with the current owner. The car had been in their family's possession for almost twenty years. Minor changes had been made since I sold the car, but the original yellow paint and pin striping had survived all these years. The original The s**** (circa 1979) The striping today (2009) How cool is that? denver dave <O <O
Cool story! Hope you are keeping Nick busy now that he has all that free time! Tell him Dave from HD said "hi".
I remember back in the late 70’s and 80’s you could always tell the street rods from Amarillo because they had a name on the quarter panel.
Update. Special thanks to Tom Branch for having a great memory and recognizing this great old car. I was hoping to find it one day. Casey this one is in CA for a while. I'll try to bring my 3W back to Texas for a visit next year, when it's back together. Correction. The coupe resides in San Gabriel, CA Here's a recent picture with the original paint.
Dave, That's pretty cool. Bet you'd like to have that one back too. BTW, how's the "other" 32 coming along? I didn't get to ask you about it at Rosie's the other night. Later, Aaron
awesome! things like this get me wondering were a couple of my old rides are. i wreacked my first car on the highway. cool that you got your first back.
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