1971 Demon, FC7 Plum Crazy

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tom999w

tom999w

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Important note: This story is not really about a "restoration", the plan is only to get this car bare-bones, minimally road worthy and then drive it locally.

Hi All, I originally had this car for sale, but decided to keep it and work on it. I originally found it advertised on the internet from a junkyard in Bethlehem Pennsylvania about a month ago. The junkyard owner said that he sold the land to a housing company after 30 years of ownership and he was now having a "going out of business sale". He said the Demon was dumped there 25 years ago and was bumping around the junkyard ever since. The only parts taken off of it in that time was the drivers door and the steering column. He said either the Demon must be sold, or else it will be crushed in a month and a half. I couldn't let a cool car like this get crushed, so I bought it and trailered it six hour round trip home to upstate New York. Here are pictures of it in the junkyard in Bethlehem, sitting next to a Citron Yella 1972 318 Demon. It is complete. The nose is from a 1972 Gold Duster. The engine is a 225 slant six with matched auto trans on the column. The engine & trans are correct for the car but are not numbers matching. The engine is seized too.

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To break down the data about this car, it is a very basic car with not too many options. The only options it came with were: High Impact paint, 225 slant 6, 1 bbl carb, matched automatic transmission on the column, rear bumper guards, AM radio, power steering, cigar lighter, and trunk light.

The standard items it originally came with are: manual brakes, 4 drum brakes, 34 amp alt., no rear armrests or ashtrays, 40 amp battery, manual drivers side mirror, no rear defrost, 6.45x14 black sidewall tires on 4.5J wheels painted semi gloss black with plain poverty caps, black rubber floor, 2 speed windshield wipers, foot windshield washer, bench seat.

REAL Plum Crazy Demons are VERY hard to find. Even doing an online search for FC7 Demons turns up almost all clones and not real FC7 cars. My calculations for the breakdown of REAL FC7 Demons is: 9.54% of 66125 1971 Demons were FC7, which equals 6282 Plum Crazy 1971 Demons. Then subtract the Plum Crazy 340 Demons (959), which equals 5323 non-340 Plum Crazy Demons made. Then to cloudy the waters even more, fast forward 53 years after alot of them went to junkyards, and that leaves not many real FC7 Demons left in existence.
 
Engine pictures... The engine/ trans are correct for the car, but the engine is seized and the trans isn't in good condition. They are also not numbers matching (I'm all about correctness and hopefully numbers matching about my cars, if possible), so I sold the engine. Note the second horn that someone added for extra beep power..

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I removed the interior to assess the rust damage... Note the very high quality seat covers on the seats. I've never seen such well made covers. Under them is the original seat material... Also note the Plum Crazy body pieces, before the car was re-painted a poor quality purple color in the 1990's...

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Here's the car after I cleaned everything out of it... The rust-through is everywhere, but the worst of it is what I'm planning to fix (mainly structural parts). From a quick assessment, what needs to be replaced are: one complete rocker, full floor, some patches in the firewall, front frame rails, fender aprons, trans crossmember, various structural braces under the car...

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As of today, in the process of getting rid of the nose because it's not correct for a Demon (hood, front fenders, bumper, grille, grill lower panel, etc.).

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I ended up with the blue 72 Duster that was there. His name is Andy, Nice guy. I know him for many years. It was a whole car but not much left of the car that wasn't rotted. So I took a couple parts and scrapped it

AMD tail light panels are not made correctly. So I was going to buy that Demon for the tail light section but it is shot.

So I looked at that car in person. I would not spend any money fixing that car. The Duster I bought from there broke getting it on the trailer. That Demon is not far behind with rust issues. Keep the numbers and title to put an old race car back on the street.
 
Love those Demons. It's even cooler to find such a low option car. Sounds like steering wheel was option too. No rear arm rests is first time I've seen it.
Good luck with the project.
 
If your willing to do all that work I have all the parts I have everything from a Demon . We bought all glasstek body parts. I also have another body here for good floors and rockers, Also 1 new 71 quarter, Tail panel and some inner parts from AMD. Also 71 340 hood with scoops. nice grilles.
 
Thanks everyone for the comments. So far the plan is to replace the floor, trans crossmember, and the four structural braces under the floor with new repro parts. And then replace the rocker, frame rails, fender aprons and sheet metal nose with used parts. It looks worse than It is; I'm not looking to restore the car, only fixing the structure of it and get it running again.
 
Quick update: Not much new, since it's still winter here in New York. I am stockpiling parts for when the weather gets warmer. So far I have new torsion bars, correct 1971 front fenders, bumper, front valance, fender corners, grille. Soon will be picking up locally a torsion bar crossmember and a passenger front frame rail. I did find a full floor, but it's about 5 hours round trip, so hoping for one closer. Regarding a correct engine, I've seen about 100 engines pop up for sale, but not one of them was a 1971. I know there are not many changes to them through the years, but I'm shooting for correctness. So still to find are: front drivers side frame rail, inner & outer drivers rocker panels, hood, various under floor braces, engine/trans... I may have to buy new sheetmetal if others can't be found.
 
I'm happy for you for taking on such an ambitious project.
It's not for all of us to carry it through like you will.
Interestingly enough, I do love the plain jane stripper cars with unusual (non) options and desirable colors.
My advice is to keep on going with the project, and don't look back!
It will be a cool one of one car when finished...
 
I applaud your dedication! That is an ambitious project and keep us updated!!
 
Thanks everyone. I personally prefer the stripper cars too, because those were usually the first ones into the junkyard. I've never seen a Demon with a slant six at a car show; all the Demons I saw had either factory or transplanted V8's, in addition to all kinds of other customizations, which I feel take away from the originality of a car. In addition, these cars are very basic, which makes it easier to work on.
 
Wow...we have twins. Even down to some knuckle head painting over the purple!

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Good analogy... my Demon has minimal rust. Looks like it led a pretty easy life. Mine is a slant 6, power steering, A/C car.
 
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