Projects A late introduction-Junior Conway coupe build

I'm not too sure about that. I want to lower my 50 at least 3 inches. Not sure how it's lowered at the moment. No blocks under it. I think only the shackles have been altered. Mine rubs the tunnel as it is.
Although mine has a transmission swap, that may have effected it as well.
I have plenty of room before a C-notch is required.

 

I forgot to include, unless you have a "businessman's" coupe without the back seat, you're going to have to modify the seat frame to accept the now higher drive shaft tunnel. So, it took determination to continue to forge ahead and not be overwhelmed with all this Kustom stuff.

You get to have something that I never had, a choice.

 

By the way I had to make my own lowering blocks because I couldn't find 5" blocks. This is along with de-arched springs. It was amazing to see how far "up there" the tires were.

 

This picture has only been available lately. If it had been available "back, then" this argument wouldn't have had any fuel to keep going.

 

It's comments like this that reveal the passion and power that's involved with this custom stuff, no matter which end of it you are on. It's what captured me in my teens, and (thankfully) I've never recovered.

 

OK, the "estate sale" is over. I went over yesterday, and there wasn't anyone there, and the house is locked up. They have my key. I was able to unlock the shop, and everything is still there.

 

A lot of cool in that pic right there. Hope the sale went well and as you expected/hoped Jerry!

 

So good to see this pop up again, it must be a strange feeling moving all those treasures on & onto the next chapter.

 

This literally just scrolled across my FB feed lol

 

Junior told me that he didn't have the money to paint his car at this time with lacquer. This is a picture of the car in old line enamel. You had to be there to understand what a nightmare it was to reshoot the finished "tear drop" coupe in lacquer.

 

Still it's cool that it was a good looking car along the way and not just in the final iteration.

 

I need to mention here that I've never shot (painted) a vehicle in a modern booth. Most of my experience was with Deltron, and I learned to put the first coat of clear on really quick and close to the surface. I would let that first coat get really tacky, and then flood the surface with a heavy clear coat very close to the surface, and moving very quickly, and evenly. After this I would wait even longer and then put a third coat on that second coat, being (now) very careful to not overlap/overload this now semi fragile, super thick accumulation of material just teetering on the cusp of collapsing. This would produce a very shiny and deep flat surface (like glass) that needed no buffing other than the nibbing of the few specks of dirt that might be there.

My paint jobs put me on the map in my area during this time.

 

I have amended this last paint process description. Due to a rethink on that process.

 

Here's George demonstrating what was common in the day for spraying cars, very much like my situation.

 

Being a teenager in the fifties, and being exposed to all the creativity around cars, I was totally distracted by Juniors 50' Ford coupe. It had "that look" that you get when you carefully think through, step by step as you go every new component that is added to what you started with. He mentioned that the main theme he was going for with his (one and only) creation was characterized by one word, modern, it had to be modern. He had the opportunity to put a nice '54 Pontiac grille in it from another custom that would have been "nice", but he caught himself and said "no", that wont do. The end result was the first (or second) straight bar grille.

When I found out that he was just five years older than I was, I was totally gob smacked. So as I've thought about this post, I've come to realize that Junior was probably my first hero in my life, and as I've said many times before, to have had the privilege to recreate his car, with his input all along the way is the kind of experience that molds, shapes, and changes you. So much, that I had to do another car from "the dream factory".

I want to include in this post my favorite picture of Junior. It captures the power that he was exposed to at Barris Kustom, and his reaction to it. He's not the only one that this has happened to but the fact that he had no control over this moment speaks volumes to me.

I present for your consideration, my hero.

 

Dan was responsib le for the body (straightness), and the paint.

 

Came across this in a flea market today. Had to grab it. Sadly nothing inside of the car

 

I actually remember this mag. I didn't think that Motor Trend measured up to the "real" custom car mags like rod&custom, Custom Cars etc. I'm thinking that there were a few more that I'm missing. The fact that Junior's car was on the cover, but wasn't inside kinda got my attention.

 

Yeah I initially passed over it two weeks ago at the same flea market. Grabbed it and a similar mag(forget title) after realizing despite title they were basically rod mags. Two weeks ago I bought two late 50s hrms from the same booth. All of the mags were 57-61