1966 Caprice

I drove this car daily in the summer for five years after her first cosmetic restoration. My bragging rights to her were that no one could ever find dirt under my hood with a white towel. Often at a meet and greet,people would take me up on my bet and some smack would find a tiny speck of dirt after wiping things for a half hour
Every time I washed this car,I waxed the entire car including under hood and polished every metal part that was either chromium of aluminum. It took about four hours to properly clean the car up,down,inside and out.
My upper radiator tank was brass and highly polished and all the paint inside the hood was highly hand polished.

The car was bought for a mere $235 on the asking price of $300 to be used as a winter beater because it was extremely clean and solid,with the intentions of using during the winter,painting it in the spring and turning a profit.
When I got the car to my shop,I went over it to ready her for a state safety inspection and noticed just how clean it actually was.The front bumper was dinged and a replacement unit was given to me by a buddy. I had two highschool aged kids working for me doing general shop work and cleanup,so I gave Mutt and Jeff the job of removing the old bumper figuring it would keep them busy for a couple of hours. After about 15 minutes,I heard them screwing off in the parking lot and went out to give them hell for screwing off on my time when they should have still been struggling with rust and frozen bolts common on cars from the rust belt. Before I even spoke to them,I saw the bumper laying on the ground and they told me all the bolts came out easy.Oops,stop the prep work,this car needs properly restored and her rehab began that day.
My Caprice was a very clean Sunday driving car,not hot on power and speed,but fun to drive.On a bet,I began dragracing her during that time,starting off with her original 283 with a two barrel Rochester carb,a Powerglide 2 speed auto transmission and 3:30-1 rear gears. She turned a pathetic 18 second 1/4 mile on a wornout camshaft and won my bet it would go faster than a 20 second quarter.Then the performance parts were gathered and buildup began to make her faster.
She went from a nice driving car to a wannabe fat heavy 4100 pound 14 second 327 powered racecar that was miserable to drive. One morning when on a mission to visit a buddy in it,on a 1-2 shift on a bridge while running it wide open,there was a very loud bang in the rear of the car,but it was still moving,so I continued to my destination about 100 yards away.
She got towed back to my shop and inspected for damage that required removing the body from the frame to properly repair it.
Off came the body and a second full restoration began,to be halted again to build a serious racecar out of her with a new bet that it could wheelie over a 12 ounce beer can on initial launch on the street. If you are going to build a car,you might as well build one to a class specification,with NHRA Super Street class being my choice to possibly allow a bootleg inspection on a registration outside of the law. 10.90 seconds in the quarter mile running a 900 horsepower 427 cubic incher should do the trick. She is about 85% finished at this time and down to a mere 3400 lbs...bring on your Fox Body bolt-on Rustangs boys and girls,we are about ready to serve you some humble pie.

Winning my bets sometimes costs me a lot of money