67 Dart GT Racecar Rescue
There's more stories. The car was amazingly lucky too - somebody's family car at first, then likely second owner, maybe given to the kids to drive. By the 80's it was in a salvage yard, a shell stripped for parts.
Poor thing was loaded on a truck and sent to the crusher when my friend the street racer pulled up. He actually stopped the truck and argued the driver into unloading it and selling him the rolling body of this blue Dart just like his.
With the stash of 67 GT parts he had for his driver plus a bunch of racing parts he put together this second car as the heavy backup hitter. That's also why much of the car had been stripped to begin with anyway, like the dash. It was the perfect platform to build a race car.
In restoring this car now, I have to make a choice about what I'm aiming for. The background story is great, and I want to include that in its nature. At the same time I want to enjoy the car in a way I like, which likely means more like the street machine it was at first than the track-only racer it was reformed to be.
So I've got dash parts to go back in, it's reasonable for a street-driven car to have a speedo, and I'd guess if it had originally been there they would have left it. (evidence: the right-hand dash panel with glove box is still there, because it wasn't valuable to the scrap yard. If a racer had stripped out the speedo part of the dash to be more racery they'd certainly have taken the whole thing out.)
I'll replace the super ratty seats, not original to the car, for nicer ones of original color. Not looking to add carpet though, nor headliner. That's restoring it to be too nice.
The B&M shifter is cool, still getting used to it. Seems like a lockup for doing hard shifts without breaking stuff. Any advice on it?
I'm gonna end up with a lot questions about this thing and how to do it right that might be better in the Racers Forum, so let me know if I should take it over there.
There's more stories. The car was amazingly lucky too - somebody's family car at first, then likely second owner, maybe given to the kids to drive. By the 80's it was in a salvage yard, a shell stripped for parts.
Poor thing was loaded on a truck and sent to the crusher when my friend the street racer pulled up. He actually stopped the truck and argued the driver into unloading it and selling him the rolling body of this blue Dart just like his.
With the stash of 67 GT parts he had for his driver plus a bunch of racing parts he put together this second car as the heavy backup hitter. That's also why much of the car had been stripped to begin with anyway, like the dash. It was the perfect platform to build a race car.
In restoring this car now, I have to make a choice about what I'm aiming for. The background story is great, and I want to include that in its nature. At the same time I want to enjoy the car in a way I like, which likely means more like the street machine it was at first than the track-only racer it was reformed to be.
So I've got dash parts to go back in, it's reasonable for a street-driven car to have a speedo, and I'd guess if it had originally been there they would have left it. (evidence: the right-hand dash panel with glove box is still there, because it wasn't valuable to the scrap yard. If a racer had stripped out the speedo part of the dash to be more racery they'd certainly have taken the whole thing out.)
I'll replace the super ratty seats, not original to the car, for nicer ones of original color. Not looking to add carpet though, nor headliner. That's restoring it to be too nice.
The B&M shifter is cool, still getting used to it. Seems like a lockup for doing hard shifts without breaking stuff. Any advice on it?
I'm gonna end up with a lot questions about this thing and how to do it right that might be better in the Racers Forum, so let me know if I should take it over there.