Dead Men Walking
Went to see the cars this morning. Arrived at 10:30 because seller said he is open from 10-6 (confirmed by sign on the door). Door locked. Lights off. But all his cars were sitting in a field in front of the building, so Steve O'Neil and I wandered over to the recipient car of the intended swap. Faded granantrot, no roof. The "rust free" one. First three photos below show the best of the body panels. Engine bay was the stuff of nightmares. Interior pretty much cooked, eaten or dissolved. Opened the glove box to be greeted with a 2" layer of rust flakes. Yikes.
Having said that, there were a number of salvageable parts. Kidney grille and both side grilles were good. Center section of front bumper was fine. Chrome hood grilles were badly pitted but they were the original metal versions. Glass seemed okay all around. Tool kit had only one small piece of one tab missing. (Tools were minimal and totally rusted.)The elephant skin over the rear wheel wells was low-level driver quality, but we've all seen worse. Inside there was one good visor, the AC grille was fine and the console side pieces were okay. Original brown rugs seemed surprisingly intact, but much was hidden by the debris that was once the seats and the headliner.
We found the Chamonix & rust donor car around back. Covered by a cheap tarp held down by cinderblocks on the hood, roof and trunk, similar to the way we all store our beloved coupes. We were afraid to move the tarp for fear that it was holding the rust together as shown in the two photos on the right. Note it had the Fred Flintstone propulsion option, as the driver's side floor board was totally gone. We did see a peek of what looked like a surprisingly intact red leather interior.
Our inspection took us at least 45 minutes, Seller never came to open up the store, so we were never able to talk to him or get a real look at the white donor car. But I'm pretty sure you could not make one usable car from the two hulks we saw. We're talking parts here...