Projects A late introduction-Junior Conway coupe build

This is the last pic of this type.

 

We're back into some stuff that Junior let me take home. These two pics show two "movie stars" of the day, in and around his "tear drop" Kustom. The male is Richard Beymer who had a leading role in "west side story". I can't ID the chick, although she looks very familiar.

 

This is a fuzzy p ic of Juniors car and his brother Herbs '54 Merc.

 

Fantastic stuff! Amazing amount of detective work on your part, what a labor of love! Thanks for adding.

 

Since you used the long skirt did he give you any insight into the construction of the 51 Merc skirt(?) with the spears?

 

I did ask him about those Merc skirts, he said they were too tall so he had to "chop" them and remake the flange on that top section. The spears were '54 Merc (on the 1/4 panels). It was him needing some welding on them that got him to Barris's shop. They liked how he had gone about doing them and asked him if he was interested in a job after school, he was, and the rest is history.

 

This pic was also in that drawer, I call it "the last days". It shows the car with the Pontiac engine in it. You can see the chromed radiator, and the windshield that made it unable to pass state inspection (pa.) If anything deviated from "factory", you were not going to get it licensed, or the title transferred.

 

Thanks for posting this. It was nice to see.
I know he was really happy to see his car recreated to such detail.

 

This is a letter sent to me by John Soko, I think he was the last owner that actually drove the car. He describes the condition the car was in. This is the point (to me), where the car "slips" out of the hands of the one person who might have "saved" it, however it would have been unrecognizable. The original doors were swapped out for ones that had actual door handles etc, and hung on the walls of a garage for over 20 years. When John remembered them, and went to check on them, the garage was gone.

I do think that as tragic and tortured as the car would have been in the state John describes, it still would have been worth the effort to bring it back.

I do think that I have captured the look, feel, smell, and sound of the original car. After having the car and driving it awhile in the Texas sun, I called and asked Junior if he really appreciated how stunning the car was. He replied that he did. SORRY FOR ALL THE DUPLICATES

 

When Junior came over on Saturday night at the GNRS in 2011, as we were winding down our visit which was good and long, I knew he would appreciate what the under hood area locked like. He was still sitting in the car when I asked him to open the hood. I watched as he reached down and made the pull on the cable to which the the latch was attached. It didn't pop open, which meant the cable had pulled through that fastener that wasn't as tight as it needed to be. I told him we would take care of it later.

To bad, I'm sure he would have been thrilled to see everything.

 

A couple of comments about these last posts, #1629 is Junior's son in law. Junior was careful at first about not showing any hint of being excited about his car actually being done, because I asked him fairly early on how many times his car had been started, and he said three or four times. So, there are some uncompleted projects out there that haven't been found, or were sold off, and turned into something else.

Wolfie, (the son-in law), and I started posting back and forth a bit as the GNRS was approaching (on this thread). He lives in Utah with his wife (Junior's daughter), and grandson. He told me that they were not coming, but that Junior's son was. He did tell me that in the last few months when they would talk on the phone, the first question Junior would open with was "have you seen the car (online)?"

It was gratifying to know that he was "pumped" about his car being done. I did ask him days before that weekend arrived if the seventeen-year-old Jr was still in there, he chuckled, and I followed up by saying that this upcoming weekend belonged to that teenager.

With this car haunting me (starting in the eighties), you will have to imagine what that interchange with Jr meant to me, because I can't find the words, what a ride.

 

Jer, in that letter that was signed John, there is a mention of the car being owned by a person named Larry. Do you know who this Larry is ? The reason I ask, and he might have already posted something in this thread, but my good friend Larry Ellenberger from north of Pittsburgh, ended up with this car around 1963. I just remember bits and pieces of our conversation about the car, but he traded his '40 Ford sedan (which I later owned) to a fellow from Tarentum, PA, David Sloane, for the Conway car. It was white at the time and had Alaska plates on it when Larry got it. Now this is where it gets really vague, I THINK the flathead had a cracked block and Larry started to install a Pontiac, but never got it running. The car either went to a junkyard around the Apollo, PA area, but ended up being bought by someone from eastern PA. Larry passed away this past June so trying to place things in order is now gone.

 

Andamo, I do remember the Larry situation. He did reply and added to the story, much to everyone's delight. That means he revealed his site here on the hamb. I've gone back and tried to find it without sucess, it should still be there. One problem that I now have is macular degeneration (eyes), so things don't work as good as they once did.

 

I do need to add here that both Junior and Jesse are illiterate regarding the internet. I had to send them each page of their stories (in color) through the us mail. So, it would be a treat for them when someone would sit down with them and show them what the stories looked like in "real time".

The only reason that I have the marginal skills that I have is my business forced me to learn how to navigate the vast, intimidating landscape. I would always put off a change to a new system as long as possible because I was so intimidated. My staff did have some mercy, and would eventually have to tell me, that at the end of the month what you are using and have become comfortable with will be gone.

Very tough, so I do understand, and occasionally plead my case to an illiterate friend to gut it out until you get comfortable. So far, I don't recall any success stories.

 

Is this Larry you were looking for?

hot rod crazy here:

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ction-junior-conway-coupe-build.406588/page-4

post #112

"Almost hate to reply to this thread. I traded a 40 Ford sedan for Jrs. car in the mid 60's, this was in Natrona Heights, Pa. It had Alaska plates on it, was painted all white. Still had the all chrome flat motor in it but the block had an external crack, was driveable but leaked pretty good. Still had the electric doors, hood, etc. The frame had been notched alot with a torch to lower it and was cracked everywhere. It had a chrome dash with paint on part of it and stripping. Still had the custom bumpers and tube grill. Long story (SAD) is I sold it to a buddy and he took the Buick taillites/custom back-up lites out in favor of plexiglass with little bullets, the style then. He lost interest and sold it, it then sat in a field for years and went bad. It got junked at a small junk yard just outside of Vandergrift, Pa. called Benny's. I still have some photos of the car from here in that period but not as many as I wish I'd have taken. I wish I had it back and still think it was the best shoebox ever !! Good luck on yours."

 

THIS IS THE CORRECT LARRY! Thanks for the assist LB.

 

Loud Bang and Jer, thank you so much for the work finding Larry's original thread about the coupe. It looks like I correctly remembered what I had previously posted and some...not so much. I thought sure that the car ended up being salvaged from the yard and going east. That yard that Larry mentioned, Benny's, had cars from the 20's up to maybe the 70's and mostly older cars. I remember being around that area one day when the yard was being cleared out and seeing 2 flatbed trucks with compacted cars on them and seeing all the wooden wheels. Again, thanks guys for your work.

 

Just checkin in with a MERRY CHRISTMAS to everybody, I'm doin good, just takin a break.

 

One of my favorite custom cars. I had somehow missed this thread and I am going to have to give it a deep dig.

 

It makes me happy to see this thread show up from "the deep".

 

When I first started reading this I thought the original looked super familiar. Then when I saw the "t bird gang" reference I realized why lol

 

Of course as I'd only seen the movie in black and white I had no idea on the color

 

When this popped up out of the abyss, I spent some time in it refreshing my memory about what it felt like back then actually responding to this thing that had been applying pressure on me over the years. Did all this actually happen??? It must have because I've seen all "the guys" responding to my efforts along the way. I've also noticed a sad phenomenon. A lot (to many) have not been seen for many years. I want to say thank you to them, and you for being part of this adventure with me.

 

Any updates on that fine machine? If you're going to clone a vintage custom one like this that was far too high quality for the movie it was in would definitely be one to do it to

 

I just watched that T bird gang movie it was great to see the car, but it was shot in the dark in black-and-white and didn’t do the car justice. Was it in any other movies? I think my 49 coupe will arrive this weekend. Don’t tell anybody I have yet to make the official announcement. I will certainly gain a few bits of inspiration from this one.

 

I was thinking about that comment about the car is actually a 1950 rather than a 49. In this early photo taken from Kustomtama, it’s easy to see. 1950 was the first year for the thumb-pressed doorhandles; 49 was the last year for the older twist-type.

 

I’m curious about the driveshaft tunnel mod. How low requires this? I would think you need C-notches before the driveshaft is going to hit.

 

I have a lift and a four" X six" X five' beam in my shop. I use that beam for all kinds of things. Juniors' car specs were pretty simple, it was as low as he could get it and still be able to drive on L.A. streets. He told me that he did "take" the pan off of the car once while driving it. This was probably the way he realized it needed to come up a bit. He also said that if a car came into his "neighborhood" that was lower than his he felt that there had to be an immediate response to it.

So, it's pretty simple, if you have to replicate Juniors car you are "on the ground." If you actually want to go places you put your car on that lift, remove the bolts that keep that rear end secured to the springs, remove the bolts that secure the shocks, stand that beam up under the rear axle housing and carefully/slowly bring that lift down which raises the axle assembly to where you want it to be. Do you need to notch that frame? do you need to raise that floor to keep the drive shaft from making contact? How much height do the lowering blocks need to have? This exercise will reveal what it will take to make everything work.

I need to add that this is by far the easiest, and fastest way to determine just what you're getting yourself into before you start cuttin stuff up.

 

Junior told me that he was raised in a Christian home (mother), and some of those values stuck with him throughout his life. He was a non-smoker and when he redid his interior he removed the ash trays in the back seat area.

There were a lot of things I found interesting in the T-BIRD GANG movie, we saw the car being driven, we saw them operate those cool door poppers, and we saw the "gang" smoke in the car. I always wondered what he thought of that particular part of the movie. I could never remember to ask him.