After a lot of searching, we finally found this car, that had been saved from the claws of hurricane Katrina with only 24 hours to spare. After a trip over to Ocala , FL to see her, we decided to have her shipped over.

The car was then transported down to Miami docks and put into a container with all the spare parts I could find while I was over there in Ocala .

Two months later she arrived here in the UK and we took a trip up to Felixstowe to see the container opened. A week after we went up again with a trailer to collect the old girl after all the customs duties had been cleared.

Start of Restoration.

During the winter months of 05/06 I stripped down the body while we were waiting for the new floor and trunk pans to be made and shipped over. Once they arrived the big job of replacing all the rusty metal began. A lot of items that are unavailable had to be fabricated. I managed this with some local metalwork companies.

Once the body was strong enough to be lifted from the chassis, I purchased an old caravan rolling chassis and we put the body onto that. The body shell was then towed down to the paint shop for stripping down to bare metal and then paintwork.

Whilst this was going on, I stripped down the chassis, suspension, brake systems, steering and engine. The chassis was stripped back to bare metal and repainted with primer and hammerite. All suspension and steering components were reassembled with new bushes and bearings.

It was found after stripping down the engine, that there was a previous bad repair on the block, this had to be made good before the engine rebuild could go ahead. After a lot of drilling and tapping (lock n stitch method), the block was then sent for hot tank clean and machine work, also the crank was reground. The engine was then rebuilt with new parts as necessary. The engine and transmission were then put back onto the rebuilt chassis and a home made exhaust system was made up using a couple of Flowmaster silencers.

The big day came and we hooked up a battery and temporary fuel tank (from a boat) and fired up the engine, first time in twenty odd years. It was good to hear the old engine fire into life after all this time.

All the seats, door cards (new ones made up) were taken to the trimmers (Portchester Trimmers) to be retrimmed with a new colour scheme and velour inserts. A very nice job was done on all of these items, they also replaced the padded dash trim as well.

Problems at the Paint Shop

A few problems were starting to manifest themselves at the paint shop around November 2006 time. The guy who doing the paint job (Dave) was getting very behind with the work on the body shell, very little work had been done, just a couple of panels stripped of paint, so I volunteered to go in and help whenever I could. This went on for about three months and we were getting on quite well but then a disaster happened. Dave the painter had a massive stroke and passed away. As he was a one man business, there was no one else to carry on with the work. After considering all my options, I decided to finish the job myself (never painted a car before). So I learnt very quickly how to paint using Cellulose paint and a spray gun. A lot of midnight oil was burnt and finally I had the body and all the other parts (bonnet, doors, boot lid, etc) painted and all just before the old premises was shut down and demolished, phew!!

Finally, got the body and parts home and the big job of putting it all back together began, the body was lifted back onto the chassis and bolted down with new mounting rubbers, the glass was put back in with new seals, a new wiring loom was made and the dash was rewired, everything was cleaned, painted, rechromed and the whole job was completed in about five months.

MOT & Registration Time.

The car was booked in for the MOT and was taken for it’s first and very worrying drive, no need to worry, she went straight through the MOT and drove perfectly. The mot was interesting, I never knew it was mandatory for photos to be taken of a car after it has had it’s test done, you live and learn!!

Registration was fun, after submitting all the paperwork the DVLA announced that the car had to go for VIC inspection but was not allowed to be driven there. Anyway, thanks to a very good friend of mine (Dave Silver), the car was transported to the VIC centre at Botley and inspected. No problems found! A few days later the registration arrived in the post. She is officially on the road now.

We have had a few teething problems, but we are getting there now…..

Many thanks to all my neighbours for putting up with all the grinding and hammering noises and to Becky for all the cups of tea and rock cakes. Also thanks to Graeme, my son, for all the cutting back and polishing of the paintwork.