History Weird circumstances attached to purchase of your cool ride

I've bought many cool cars, but always lusted for the elusive '55 F100. Ever since '53, trucks were new and I was 13.
My cousin came over with his new F100, it was Fire Engine Red, had cab stacks (all the rage then) WWWs, full Moon caps, lowered in front...Flathead engine was chrome galore, Offy heads, 2 judder, Hellings bonnets, red wire, chrome looms, dual ignition...and dual Appleton spots!
Saved his Navy pay for 4 years, my Dad (former Navy chief) didn't like hot rods, but loved Bruce's truck!

Fast forward to Santa Cruz, 1972. A police officer had an old green '55 F100 in the alley he wanted to sell. Very complete truck, 272, 3 on the tree. Very deeply dented front fender, pass. side. Flattened with the inner well, just missed the tire. $100, owner threw in the factory Truck Service manual, and Parts manual as well. I had an F100!!!
Had my bud Jimmy at Autosport Towing pull it home for me, for a case of Bud.

Went to work cleaning it up, removed the fender and inner housing, after work. I fiddled with it foe a few days, not really 'hyped', as it had been painted with some old water based house stuff. GREEN!

Same week, the owner of Autosport Towing comes by with his BIG Jeep wrecker, all wheel drive dually, with a Sea Worthy winch on front. Bumper extended 3 feet forward for the winch!
John said nobody in town could put a clutch in the rig, and it was nearly gone...I stepped up.
"Get a clutch kit, and bring it over to the BMW store...after work."
Took 3 hours to change clutch/pres. plate, T.O. Flywheel was O.K., touched it up with #120.
John was so happy he wanted to tip me. $200 was enough.

Maybe 5 days later, I drove past John's Autosport Towing, saw a '55 F100 sitting alongside the office, no wheels, windows smashed, hood in the bed. Metallic blue paint, cherry body! Chrome grille, bumpers, Custom Cab...
I turned in, found John, and asked: "Where...What...Is this for sale???" He said, "It's a recovery, insurance already paid it off, papers not turned in yet. Want it for a parts truck, right?" I said yeah.
John said, "I already owe you a great big favor for the clutch job, so...I'll take what I had to pay in wages to get this thing off the side of the mountain. How 'bout $60?
Truck had been stripped, vandalized, and pushed off Empire Grade! John's guys burned the clutch out of the big Jeep using the PTO on the sky beams. Finally winched the F100 up with the front winch!
I gave him $60, he said call Jimmy and see if he'll pull it to your place...which I did.
Jimmy had to dolly it, but said to have a case of Bud when he got there. My other 'bud', Joe, managed the liquor store by the shop...I got 3 cases out the back door, 'flat rate'. Joe helped load them in my raked, Porscherized VW.
Jimmy was astounded to get ALL this beer! (??? Lotta work for beer...dollyed rear, then he places it in front of the garage on my stands!)

The green one gave up everything for my new blue one...a customer gave me a '69 350 out of his 'Vette when I installed his new crate engine. He paid the core fee, (Chev. parts mgr. was collecting 350 4 bolt blocks)
Mine had 65K miles, I bought a new alum intake, my Pop gave me a repaired 30/30 cam and new lifters. Went thru with J.C. Whitney GRANT rings, Clevite brgs., did a nice 3 angle, etc.
Had a new Thermo Quad carb. Great combo. P/G gifted me by one of my fellow BMW techs, stock Chev Monte Carlo driveshaft.
I had found the registration card in the glove box...a man in San Jose. Called information, then called him. Nice young guy, said yes, insurance paid it off. If I liked, he'd send me the pink slip, signed. I liked.
Ex wife was gone then, so foxy girlfriend Carol went down to DMV, flashed her eyes and ----, got the fees excused, (5 months delinquent plus the change of ownership) and came by the shop, waving my new commercial plates! Whew!
When I got the truck running, I called the 'seller' to ask if I could drop by. He said "Sure!" Anthony was actually tearful when he saw his ex-truck again...I had him drive it about 5 miles, he said he felt 'blessed'. I really did, and thanked him again.

Well...if that isn't a long story, go ahead. Please add some, I love to hear how some of these dreams come true!
Wifey gets home in 2 hrs., her genius may be able to post a pic or 2! Thanks for listening, guys. (Never have been able to post pics, hope she can fix that!)

 

The only thing I found awkward about buying my F-100 was the guy I bought from was a retired Washington State patrolman. Sargent no less.


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The fella I bought this Studebaker from was in the prison when I first saw it. I had to wait 3-5 years with good behavior before I could get my hands on it.



-Abone.

 

I was on the way home from work, on the phone with the wife and an old school bus was going the other direction on a rollback
told the wife what just went by, she said I should chase it down, I told her no cause I got more crap than I can fix allready
she insisted I turn around, so I did, bought it just after it rolled across the scales
luckily our local scrap yard sells stuff. big vehicles like that get destroyed as soon as they get them. good thing I listened to the wife

 

This is it done, by the way.



-Abone.

 

After my daughter was born I decided we needed a collector car with a big back seat.
My wife always liked woody wagons and I’m a ford guy so I started looking for a country squire.
I soon found my ‘54 online in Pennsylvania, about 3 hours from home. I told the wife I’d like to sell my mustang and buy this wagon if I could get it for the right money.

Called the seller on a Thursday and talked about the car for an hour and made arrangements to go see it on Saturday.

After work Friday Me and the family drove down to PA and checked in to a hotel, I didn’t sleep a wink all night.
In the morning we went to see the car and it was exactly the project i wanted. Running and driving car, y block fordomatic, all body work and paint done, new wood grain, new interior in boxes, rebel wiring harness, all parts just needed assembly.

I made the guy my best offer, he said he’d talk t over with his wife and let me know so me and the family went for lunch a little ways away.
Turns out there was another potential buyer and he wouldn’t match my offer and wanted to put an LS engine in it so I won.

The seller offered to meet me in town so I could pay him a deposit. We met at this sketchy carpool parking lot. I made the wife sit in the drivers seat of our car while I went to pay the seller a deposit incase she had to give chase. He was a real stand up guy and had the car all ready to load when I came back Monday with my trailer.

I had to clean out 4 branches of my bank to get enough US cash to pay for the car, turns out small town bank branches don’t carry much foreign currency.

That was almost 4 years ago, and I still haven’t got around to selling the mustang yet


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Not a F-100 and a bit OT, but I had Jonesed for an early El Camino for a looooong time.
Recycler newspaper,,,, 1967 El Camino, no motor/trans $700.00 For some reason I had almost that.
When over for a look, mostly good shape to my eyes, cut a deal and on Saturday had a friend with a two dolly and we went and retrieved it and dropped in in our driveway, neighbors loved us.
But now no money for a motor/trans so it sat,,
Then a friend's mother who lived in a trailer park for the aged, same age as me now, had a story of one of the tennents drove her car into the clubhouse and smashed up the front end and the motor was making a bunch of noise and wanted to sell it. Was it an amazing small block chevy, no, but it was a 71 Pontiac with a branded 350 and 350 trans.
Friends said 'We can get it to fit". So another two dolly (no one could afford a trailer) trip, and brought it home to the filling up driveway. The noisy motor was the fan hitting the plastic shroud, easy fix.
We stabbed the motor and trans into the frame with the Pontiac mounts on the motor, lowered it down and marked the frame for new holes, drilled new mount holes. So in one weekend I had a running El Camino for less than a $1,000.00. It was great,,, but no one told me about the inline fuse the Pontiac ignition had that loved to blow.

 

Oh, man...
Saw this on a previous post, just LOVE it! (my other lusted-after prize...)
My bud, Teddy DeMello had a '53 Studee Commander Coupe, dropped 2" in back, 3" in front, Moon discs, big & littles, WWWs. Cobalt blue, looked like this one's twin!
Car was a definite eyeball-getter. Thanks.

 

Bought an OT car from the Sheriff's Office once. They had chased a guy that was poaching deer. Caught him when he put the car in a muddy ditch just past his house. He tried to run on foot but they got him. He went to the pen. Seemed to have a bunch of drugs as well as the illegal deer. Car sat there for years. I moved to the area and managed a road department and called the sheriff to get the car towed since it was still sitting alongside this little road in the ditch after all these years. Nobody wanted to drive 15 miles on gravel to tow it with no chance of getting paid. I volunteered to tow it if I could have it. They provided the paper work and notified the guy's wife somebody was coming to get the car if they didn't move it by the weekend. I went after it that weekend. Just on a whim, I stopped at the house and talked to the guy's wife. She wanted it gone, too and was glad to see it go. I asked if she had the title and she got it, signed it and handed it to me. Got a free 1968 AMC Javelin. I already owned one and wanted some parts off of it. Perfect. The guy got out a few years later and came looking for his car. It was pretty rusty and I had stripped what was decent and hauled it to the junk yard. He shrugged his shoulders and walked off. Could have gotten ugly.
SPark

 

I always wanted a OT 2 door hardtop Galaxie, well, since 1965. Life goes on.. I get to thinking to buy one before I croak.. Look all over the place, on various list on the internet for years. Either too high or not good enough, if I can afford it. Well out of desperation I buy a Station wagon version of my dream car, really like it, drive it, entered it in shows, it does well. Life is good, six months after I buy the wagon, 200 miles from home, my wife’s brother calls, he’s on a job 12 miles north of our hometown. Says he thinks he’s looking at that car I want. I drive up and see the car , new paint, new interior,XL version, new exhaust, suspension , new Cragar wheels, new tires, but still needs some work. The guy says he’s tired of it, $4000 obo, I take it home for $3500, that the car in my avatar. Bones

 

After going to yet another friends' funeral I couldn't help but wonder if he ever got to the top of his "bucket list" before he died...made me decide to get to the top of mine....a 33-34 ford coupe.
I got started right away...traded my best [had 4 of 'em] 53 stude coupe for a 33 ford rolling chassis with a home made woody body on it.
A few weeks later my buddy, Jimmy comes by the house in his shortbox chevy with a 4 piece 34 ford coupe body in the back...with the tailgate up! It was an old stock car body that had been cut into 4 pieces so the last owner could fit it up in his rafters...fer Christsakes. I told Jimmy I wanted it and he said he wanted my chassis.
Long story short, I won. Got the decrepid body for $1500 and he said he'd do the body work..not free!
8 years later it came home from Jimmy's shop with me. Been working on the mechanicals ever since. Hope to drive it to the HAMB drags in August this year.[ATTA[/ATTACH] [ATTACH/ATTACH]

 

I had fixed my 48 up to drive it from McGregor TX to the 73 Street Rod Nationals in Tulsa. Painted, nice seat and Z28 Rally wheels. Drove it for a year and a half or so and decided that I wanted a 55/57 Chevy big window so I sold it and ended up buying a 57 Panel with a real hot 327 in it. The truck was a beast but also ate gas like crazy. I was going to college in Waco and driving it to school when I wasn't drivng my T bucket and had a for sale sign on it. Drove though the lot one day and a guy standing beside my old 48 hollered that he would trade me the 48. Swapped straight across and got the 48 back with an M21 Muncie in it behind the six. A few days later I went out to a burger joint on the "circle" in Waco and was sitting in the truck having my burger when a little hottie runs up, pops the passenger door open and jumps inside and is a but surprised to see me behind the wheel. Found out later she was one of the gals the guy had romanced in the truck during the time he had it and every time some gal's dad or boyfriend would start gunning for him he would pull it in his brother's body shop and spray it a different color in what ever left over paint his brother had that day. Most of that paint came off at the car wash one night.

 

When I bought my 2 1963 oldsmobiles f85's for the price of one, the owner of them was a retired Police man. He told me he got them form a women who's Husband commited suicide. I guess he worked the case. One of them had the interior gutted.
I never liked that, but I sold them anyway.

 

Ok, here is my story. 1977, I am hunting parts for a OT Chevelle that I had and went to visit a guy I knew 30 miles away that had a collection of cars and parts in his mothers back yard. As we are walking around and collecting the pieces I needed, I spot a 62 Chevy but its unlike any I have ever seen. I asked about it and he told me that it was a 62 Bel Air hardtop and fairly rare. I enquired if it was for sale, and he said yes. 300 dollars would buy it . He said he couldn't even get a offer on it because everyone was looking for Camaros, Chevelles and Novas.

I was deep into that Chevelle project and didn't need another, but there was something about that car that really appealed to me. However, life goes on, I finished the Chevelle, got married and moved 700 miles away.

Four years later, I move back and decide its time for another project. Went back to his place and everything is gone. His mother had passed and the house had to be sold, so he loaded up every thing and moved. The problem was nobody knew where.

It took me another six months to track him down. I was finally able to contact him and asked if he still had the Bel Air and was it for sale yet. Yes to both. The next question, how much? His EXACT words were, You Dumb S.O.B., I told you 300 dollars. Needless to say, I bought it.

Within a couple of years these cars started to escalate in value and every time I see him he accuses me, of screwing him out of the car. I have to remind him that I gave him every chance to adjust his price, but he doesn't want to hear that.

 

I had a 63 1/2 Ford Galaxie in high school in 67, black/black interior, 289 3 speed. Really liked the car, but I was trading/selling cars left and right back then. In 2013, after I sold my OT cycle, I started looking for another 63 1/2 Galaxie. Found a nice black w/red interior near Chicago, 390/auto. Bought it, and started driving it home with wife following. Never made it. Oil light came on. Stopped and checked the sending unit wiring. It's good. Engine wasn't rattling, so I drove it slowly to Morris and parked in a Walmart parking lot. Had it towed on a flatbed to home and got to checking it out. Found the distributor had "rounded out" where the drive rod went in. New oil pump and distributor and its got all its oil pressure again.

 

Neighbor kids were wanting to buy a shoebox convertible, that had been sitting; couldn't get it started and wondered if I would go over there, also mentioned there was an old yellow Buick in the garage too. Never did get the 348 in the 'vert running that day. The Buick turned out to be a '33 Ford Tudor that had Buick Skylark wires, US Royal masters, and a 425-409 with a T-10. Couldn't pass it up at $350. Didn't want the 409 (I know) sold it for $100 and it ended up in the shoebox and went racing. The 348 from the shoebox ended up in guy at my work's '65 pick-up and the end carbs from the 3x2s ended up on another friends T coupe. Sold the T-10 for another hundred, ended up in an OT '67 Impala. The tires went for $50 for use on a another guy's Caddy and the wires and some other stuff for another $150 or so. The "free" '33 ended up with an OT 396-375 and TH-400.
A guy at work gave me my '35, finally got it together last summer.

 

I met the new boyfriend of my sister-in-law, turns out he does emergency storm damage jobs on houses before they are properly repaired, so he gets into sheds, backyards, etc. Perfect for having a snoop for any cars,etc. I just said if he finds anything neat to let me know. Well, a few days later, he shows me some photos on his phone- a 1960 Holden sedan- kinda like a baby 57 chevy. Was in a shed which had been un-roofed by a storm, and had been in there for many years. So he told me they were thinking of selling it, I made a deal and got it home. Last time on the road, 1978, been in covered dry storage for most of that time. Should be back on the road soon. That was the one and only "decent" car he has come up with so far, but I said he will get another bottle of Jack's if he hits paydirt again!

 

pictures, pictures, pictures.......was on the hunt for a 40 ford 2dr sedan, found this on ebay, I was high bidder but didnt meet reserve so I called owner to see if we could make a deal...still $1000 apart...finally said I should sell my 69 ElCamino before buying anything else. seller's 1st car was a 68 Elky & loved it...made the deal with him taking my elky on trade....wouldnt have happened if I hadnt mentioned the elky....seller's in So Carolina, I'm in Nebraska, plan on trailering the elky to meet in St Louis on a Saturday to make the trade...my brothers NEW Suburban breaks down 50 mi west of St Louis, trans wont shift past 2nd gear so we make the trade there. drive my new 40 back to Omaha the next day (Sunday) while my brother takes his truck to a chevy dealer 1st thing monday, cant get parts til thursday so he's stuck there...pics are my traded El Camino, my new 40 as it arrived home, the 40 after a total rebuild 4 yrs later.

 

Let’s see a picture of the car, please. Bones

 

The last car I bought was eerily followed by a strange week long silence from my wife. Stranger still, she said the next purchase may lead to me being single again. Strange times indeed.

 

Not a car but wheels,
This was in the mid 90’s before the internet took off, had a buddy with an O/T chevelle and he just bought a set of convo-pro wheels for it.
Looking through the local buy and sell found a guy selling a bunch of sbc stuff. When to his place and my buddy and myself bought a bunch of stuff ( headers, carbs, traction bars, intake etc etc )
All the while the sellers buddy is looking over my friends chevelle..... don’t think much of it , as we go to leave he shouts “ thanks for keeping my wheels clean”

Sure as shit the cops are at my friends place claiming he’s in possetion if stolen property, they have him remove a wheel off his car and on the back was scribed in the original owners name or drivers license number or some kind of identifying feature!!

My buddy had bought the wheels a few weeks prior at a flea market type place and got busted for posetion if stolen property and had to do community service as he had no proof of who he got them from.

And me? I had to give him back his Ralley rims with bfg’s that he gave me a few weeks prior as “ If you don’t take em im throwing them out, I don’t need junk in my garage !!!!”

 

Back in September, 2010, I was about one month out of radiation for throat cancer and went to a cruise night. A guy I knew by sight had a '36 Ford 3W coupe that he'd taken out of barn and got running. I looked it over and told him to let me know if he ever wanted to sell it. He told me he didn't want to sell it, but he'd trade me even for my '55 Buick. Three days later it was in my driveway and registered in my name. My avatar car.

 

Two slightly OT cars that I bought under interesting circumstances...
Back when I was buying and selling a LOT of cars and trucks (about 1997 I'd guess), I saw an ad in the Tidewater Trading Post for "Two Rust Free 1971 Plymouth Barracuda doors. $50 each". I called the guy and just happened to ask "What else do you have from the car?" He told me that he ran a towing service and that they had gotten in the whole car after it went off the road and into a ditch and hit a telephone pole and the owner never came to pay the recovery & storage fees. He thought that the rest of the car "was nothing but a junk Mopar" and he'd be glad to get rid of the whole thing, so I agreed to buy "the doors" sight unseen and that I'd be there the next day to pick them up. When I got there, it turned out that it was also a (318 powered) "Gran Coupe" with lots of other cool optional pieces. The grille (really hard to find a good used one) was nearly perfect, and there were a lot of other rare parts left on the car. He mentioned that he'd take $100 for the WHOLE CAR since that was all that he wanted for the doors anyway... Load 'er up!
(In about 2001 or so) I was replacing a leaky valve cover gasket on my wife's daily driver. As I was tightening one of the last of the bolts on the valve cover/cam cover, I heard a distinct "CLICK" and realized that I had broken off one of the corners of the cast aluminum valve cover... "Sh!!!t!!!" I got pissed and hastily went to the closest salvage yard to my house and pulled another valve cover off of a car that was in the "crush row". As I walked to the front of the line of cars waiting to be crushed I gasped and saw a mint condition 63 Plymouth 4 door sedan (Leaning Tower of Power - Slant 6 Powered car) that had been whacked really hard in the left front fender. Other than the fender and headlight bezel being crushed the car appeared to be a little grandma car in fantastic condition. Since the salvage yard technically couldn't sell me the whole car, I talked the guy into writing an invoice for "63 Plymouth body parts" and since I don't carry that much cash on a regular basis, I actually paid for it using my credit card to make sure that it didn't get away before I could get back there with my truck and trailer that afternoon. I sold that one to Jim Kramer in PA as a parts car for the Max Wedge restorers.
PS - My wife laughed about my inability to go outside to play without buying even more cars in the process.

 

I always liked the styling of 35 and 6 Fords!Goes back to the Redline Howheels I had as a kid.It even had an opening rumbleseat!

 

Hello,

Back in 1960 when I started driving, I had the use of the 58 Impala. It was such a ready to go cruiser/hot rod, that there was almost nothing to do except for making it shine, putting in gas and go somewhere. It was fun to cruise and also it was ready to race at a moments notice. It was a daily driver to high school and fun, local places. (Ken’s, Grissinger’s, Hof’s Hut, Belmont Shore, etc.)

One place it stood out like a sore thumb was at the surf spots in “The OC.” A black 58 Impala with two longboards sticking out of the rear in the parking lot of the “Cliffs” or the Huntington Beach Pier. As cool as that Impala was, it just said, “Here are a couple of guys from [kooksville] that don’t know anything and are pretending to be surfers.” (well, we were just starting to learn the finer points of surfing) So, for the fragile teenage ego, that situation could not keep working. We had to get a car/wagon that fit the image of cool surfers.

Sitting in the local drive-in hangout,Grissinger's back row, hot rod spot, in comes this orange 40 Ford Sedan Delivery with black rims, blackwalls and a mean sound. There were a couple of guys we knew from school and of course the bantering started. That 40 Sedan Delivery looked cool and certainly sounded awesome. When they made the requisite drive through the parking lot, revving up, that drew everyone’s attention.

When they came back down the adjoining rear alley sounding like a race car at Lions, everyone turned their heads. (the rear alley amplified any sound of hot rods, up several decibels.) This time, they snagged a premium parking spot in the rear row. After some idling of the motor and raising the hood, the sound brought out the oohhs and aahhs.

It was a just completed 40 Sedan Delivery with its bright orange (what looked like orange under the night time parking lot lights) paint job and extremely powerful 348 Chevy motor. We knew the owner as he lived near us on the Westside and went to junior and senior high school at the same time.

Questions flew like hotcakes at an Early Times pancake breakfast. Wow, stepping back, I admired the look of the sedan delivery and of course the motor set up, sealed the deal. It was a pure hot rod and could be used to go to the beach for our surfing adventures.

Jnaki

After several minutes of the initial "pizazz" from this sedan delivery, the owner and I talked about the build. He mentioned that even though it was his newest build, the Sedan Delivery was for sale. What???? He mentioned that he was getting into drag racing and needed money to continue that expensive hobby. He was going to build a front engine dragster and race in the top classes at Lions Dragstrip, located nearby.

So, when he mentioned the price, I fell over backwards. Again, what??? (my bank account could not match that offer) Finally several weeks later we talked again and he said that he would sell the 40 Sedan Delivery to me…yea! But, he wanted to take the built up, 348 motor out of the Sedan Delivery and put in a stock Flathead he had in his garage. (The original motor with a 3 speed floor shift transmission.) That sounded OK to me, but rumors were swirling about the color of the Sedan Delivery in the daylight. Strange, but he would lower the price just for me...

In the later years of the 60s, he became part of a top echelon, drag racing team competing in the top fuel classes with an FED, but, not with the 348 motor. Of course, the lowered price fit my budget and I was the owner of a very cool, but under powered, 40 Ford Sedan Delivery. It was going to be a daily driver to high school, local cruising grounds, surf movies and of course, to the surf spots all along the So Cal coastline. It was my own surf vehicle, but now, my savings account was zero.

 

Did you keep it for long?

 

Who are you asking?

 

Bought a 49 Ford coupe once about 10 years ago. Read an add on Craiglist "1949 Ford coupe parts" and I called asking about dash knobs and door/window handles. Guy replied "let me go look and see what's on the car". I said "Oh I didn't realize you had a whole car you were parting out". He responded he was stripping the car and then scrapping it. I asked if I could come look at it. About 20 minutes later I am there, and it's a pretty nice car. No engine, trans or interior, but a nice strait and fairly rust free coupe. Asked what he wanted for the whole car, he said "60.00. I could get more from scrap but I'd have to rent a trailer". So it followed me home

 

Bought two 34 Ford pickups a few years back. They were in Long View, WA...about 350 miles form here. Add on Craigslist read "Best offer by Sunday buys them". They looked pretty decent in the pics, one looked like it had a pair of really nice rear fenders on it. I needed a pair of fenders for my 33, and figured I could sell or part the rest out. So I emailed my offer of 6,000.00 for the pair. I was trying to be fair but be sure I had enough meat on the bone. I figured even if both trucks were rough they were probably 3-5K each. This was Thursday night. The next morning (Friday) I get a call. It's the son of the lady selling them. He said "are you being serious with your offer?". I replied yes. He said "we have been getting 500 and 800 offers all week. If you want em for 6 grand you better be here tomorrow morning". I said "I thought the offer thing was going until Sunday?". He said they would sell them for 6 grand right now. But I had to be there the next morning. Now normally common sense would kick in, but instead I left work early, called a buddy with a car trailer, and he, my dad and myself drove the 6 hours there with two trucks and trailers, and sure enough...I became the owner of two 1934 Ford pickups for 6 grand. One was 100% complete but pretty pretty rusty, the other (with the nicest rear fenders I had ever seen) was very nice but missing the engine, trans and rear end. Son's Dad bought em in the 50's and was going to make one truck of the two. He died a few years back and Mom wanted them gone. We loaded them up, guy said "don't forget the extra grill" and came out with a 32 passenger car grill! Got em home, sold the rusty complete one for 6K, sold the nice one to my brother who fell in love with it, but minus fenders. Then my brother starts cleaning the primer off of the truck to reveal old candy red paint. I knew the fenders couldn't come off the truck...nor did he. He ponied up a bit more cash and my search for fenders continued.

 

My 46 Olds sedanette was imported into Australia circa 1990 and seems to have just sat around for extended periods of time before it was eventually sold to someone who had a desire to rebuild it. Fast forward he quickly lost interest after some dodgy rust repairs to cowl, selling it to a friend of a friend. Surprise surprise, it sat around again until circa 2005 with minimal progress apart from a trunk floor plan being fabricated and fitted.
I happened to mention to a restorer friend that I was in the market for another project so he mentions a restorer friend of his with an unfinished project due to his other projects. Before too long we meet and I drove over to his mountain hideaway where I look at the car, stating that I'm interested and would like to rebuild it. He agreed after he'd heard some of my proposed plans.
A deal was soon done after the seller mentions that he'd already been approached by another prospective buyer (Hotrodder). Neither I or my restorer friend at any stage mentioned that I was a hotrodder so I beleive that nondisclosure may have sealed the deal. The seller didn't like the other prospective buyer's plans after he'd seen what he'd done to his 46 Caddy sedanette. The Caddy was shaved, lowered and painted with a suede finish which it still has today. Apart from that and the Mexican blanket seat cover, it still had the OEM V8 flathead Caddy mill with Hydramatic transmission and full 50s Caddy cover wheel trims
After I had the car home it was stripped down with work commencing. Every now and again I'd bump into the seller at car events where we'd discuss the car and progress to date. I'd show him photos of all new chrome, woodgraining, OEM trim, pearl steering wheel and all the NOS items I'd purchased over time. I also showed him the 1930s nickel I'd found under the front seat when pulling it down that I still have today!
Anyway, one day he happened to spot me and my 35 Chebby phaeton at another car event. He believed it was a restored car as I'd previously stated that I'd rebuilt it, nothing else. Well my jaw hit the ground when he saw the Chebby however we ended up in another deep and meaningful conversation and much to my amazement, he said that if it turned out anything like the Chebby he'd be happy as well as he'd made the right decision as it'd gone to a good home. I was relieved. Since then we've maintained contact and he's still interested on updates and still wants me to drop over with it when finished. I've kept it true to plan so it appears stock however the modern underpinning won't take anything away from it being as original looking as possible. Of course it will go harder and drive better.