Bought my Tbird 12 or 13 years ago when I was looking to get an "old" car to get me back into the hobby. Tbirds are one of the few two doors from the '60s that are still affordable and most of them haven't been abused too badly. It's in nice shape, a cool cruiser that's still a work in progress, got CJ heads, a cam, and some other goodies waiting to go in it.
Very nice! I restored a 66 with my dad right after I graduated HS. It was Wimbledon White with blue interior, 390. It was a very nice car when we finished it, and drove like a dream. Tough car to work on... so many vacuum lines! We had it 100% when he parted with it.
I had a 66 landau (3 window) coupe just like the OP's car, same colors inside and out. I installed factory AC. What a job! Before the internet, I did my research at Marv Tonkin Ford in Portland, upstairs in their research books copying vacuum diagrams. I ended up painting it maroon (shocking) and black interior, Enkie wheels and TA's. Cool old Bird. Thanks for the memories.
I have two ‘66 birds here. One project and one parts car. Was going to build it for my wife but she just bought a ‘62 bullet bird instead.
12 or 15 years ago I had a guy call my welding shop and wanted me to repair the rusty floors on his unibody T bird (this or the previous body style). He told me he even had a parts car I could get the parts I need off of. I told him I had to look at the cars, but since it was 40 miles away, I was going to have to charge him to come and give him an estimate., pretty much just an hour's shop time. He agreed to that. When I got there, we had to pull the carpet out of his car. The entire floor support structure on the convertible T bird was rotted away. The entire bottom 6" of the car was crusty metal you could break apart with your fingers. When we pulled the carpet from his non-convertible parts donor, the floor support was exactly the same. Had the same crusty rust in the exact same places. To say he was unhappy with the condition of his parts car would have been an understatement. He really didn't like my open ended price quote, and then he didn't want to pay me for the agreed price I was going to charge him to look at his cars. I had spent nearly 2 hours pulling the carpets from both cars. I finally ended up taking about 1/2 of that agreed price to look at his cars. Then he called me about 2 times a week for the next 3 weeks trying to make a deal fixing his car! Lets say I didn't do that job. Every time I see one of this style T bird, I think of that guy and his cars.
The Jalopy Journal
