Gear heads, where did you cut your teeth?

[Raton Pass]

For me it was following my Dad’s footsteps.
Stole my first labor flag at four years of age.
One Saturday morning found me with my feet on the frame rails busting the oil pan drain nut loose.
Came out covered in oil with the whole shop laughing.
Only if these old walls could talk.
John Wayne was towed in once doing a ribbon cutting nearby.
It was never boring.

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[Raton Pass]

Bottom pic a Chrysler 300 413 wedge dual carb four barrel.
Jim a Auto trader owner brought it in for lag on the secondary carb opening up.
Dad modded it.
When they came back from the test drive Jim had white knuckles.

Jim lost his Hemi 66 Cuda in the first oil crunch.
For years he looked high & low trying to buy it back.

Then one day proof reading he saw his car advertised in his trader out of Corpus Christi.

He called the guy demanding he sell his car back to him.

The guy was puzzled until he had him check the core support metal tag with Jim’s name on it.
Guessing it never went to publication.

Top pic is not our mill but a bottom end mod dad did to flat heads so they would not puke their guts out.

He did the first mod on his race car long ago... then the 260 V-8 came out the very next year.

As a kid I saw Speed & Sport tossing brand new Fenton & Offy finned heads from second story storage into a scrap iron trailer. Even as a kid I knew better than that.

 

[JohnFinx]

I saw a car drive by my house, and I knew it was the car for me. It looked just like my favorite matchbox car from my childhood. I was 17 at the time, and had just started to drive. My mom was with me as it drove by, and by chance, it was owned by someone at her work...and it was for sale.
It was a 1969 Plymouth Satellite convertible. Only 1137 were made that year, 707 the way this one was optioned. So I bought it for $900 and that's when the troubles began.
It was rusted out, no brakes in the front, interior trashed, trunk floor gone, top speed was 45 mph because the engine had never been taken care of.
I started fixing it up as a hobby, but a falling out with my mom left me needing it as a daily driver.
I drove it for years, slowly fixing it up mechanically, but the body was still shot. I still took it to car shows, and locally it was recognized as "Finx's Car".
Years go by, I finally got a little money ahead, so I bought a Jeep Cherokee to drive and let the Satellite sit so I wasn't making it's condition worse.
More years and two marriages later, my present wife gave me an ultimatum. Fix it or sell it. I didn't think I had the skills/time/equipment to fix it, so it was time for it to go.
I couldn't do it. It had become part of my history, it would be like selling a child. I bucked up, told my misgivings to take a hike, and I dug in. Hard.
I found the secret to fixing up a car that "will be restored one day". Go take off a part. Any part. Clean it up and put it in a bag, and label it. It doesn't matter if its just cleaning an emblem, or rebuilding the alternator. Just one thing at a time. You start seeing progress... and a bunch of fresh, new, and ready parts you want to do SOMETHING with. It becomes enjoyable, and eventually you get somewhere. Recruit some friends, find locals to do stuff you can't handle for cheap.
I got it done. It took six years. I had to make parts from scratch due to the cars rarity. Seven layers of the stickiest paint had to be removed down to bare metal. There were a LOT of holes. I was aiming for a reliable daily driver, but I finished with a car that won 12 trophies the first year.
So how did I start wrenching? Necessity, obsession , and desperation. But it paid off in the end.

Sorry for the long post, it's a long story...

 

[Raton Pass]

I saw a car drive by my house, and I knew it was the car for me. It looked just like my favorite matchbox car from my childhood. I was 17 at the time, and had just started to drive. My mom was with me as it drove by, and by chance, it was owned by someone at her work...and it was for sale.
It was a 1969 Plymouth Satellite convertible. Only 1137 were made that year, 707 the way this one was optioned. So I bought it for $900 and that's when the troubles began.
It was rusted out, no brakes in the front, interior trashed, trunk floor gone, top speed was 45 mph because the engine had never been taken care of.
I started fixing it up as a hobby, but a falling out with my mom left me needing it as a daily driver.
I drove it for years, slowly fixing it up mechanically, but the body was still shot. I still took it to car shows, and locally it was recognized as "Finx's Car".
Years go by, I finally got a little money ahead, so I bought a Jeep Cherokee to drive and let the Satellite sit so I wasn't making it's condition worse.
More years and two marriages later, my present wife gave me an ultimatum. Fix it or sell it. I didn't think I had the skills/time/equipment to fix it, so it was time for it to go.
I couldn't do it. It had become part of my history, it would be like selling a child. I bucked up, told my misgivings to take a hike, and I dug in. Hard.
I found the secret to fixing up a car that "will be restored one day". Go take off a part. Any part. Clean it up and put it in a bag, and label it. It doesn't matter if its just cleaning an emblem, or rebuilding the alternator. Just one thing at a time. You start seeing progress... and a bunch of fresh, new, and ready parts you want to do SOMETHING with. It becomes enjoyable, and eventually you get somewhere. Recruit some friends, find locals to do stuff you can't handle for cheap.
I got it done. It took six years. I had to make parts from scratch due to the cars rarity. Seven layers of the stickiest paint had to be removed down to bare metal. There were a LOT of holes. I was aiming for a reliable daily driver, but I finished with a car that won 12 trophies the first year.
So how did I start wrenching? Necessity, obsession , and desperation. But it paid off in the end.

Sorry for the long post, it's a long story...

Sweet!
BEAUTY!
Labor of love.
I would have put the RR beep beep horn on it for sure.

Bought a northern RR rusty ragtop center console air grabber in in same color around 1988 & restored it before store bought panels were sold.

Gave it to the wife.

4 years of road construction around our shop found me selling it with the wife’s permission.

Just a few years later I heard the wife yelling from another room to run in and see it rolling across the stage at Barret Jackson.

It was many weeks before I got any sugar.

Hindsight is 20/20

Glad you kept your rare ride.
I especially love the last pic.

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