100,000 miles!
Today was a milestone day for the coupe - it turned 100,000 original miles on the odometer. I bought it in 1965 with 68,750 miles on it and certainly have done a lot to it over the past 41 years, particularly the last 23 years. Here's what it looked like in 1967 when it was still completely original.
Notice the broken LH tail lamp. My college roommate and I were working on a woodcock banding project at Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge in Calais, ME that summer, living in the house in the background. One Saturday night I did what I never did before: let someone else drive the car. Roommate's date had to get home to St. Stephan New Brunswick; mind didn't. On the way home, a hit and run driver hit him a (fortunately) glancing blow. He missed the front bumper, but got the front fender, running board, rear fender, tail lamp and rear bumper, missing the body itself. The crash also broke the RH kingpin. I drove it the rest of the summer, and back to NJ that September.
Someone told me about Hemmings Motor News and I found the parts I needed in a NH junkyard. I kept it in storage until 1971, then towed it back to Maine and had the fenders mounted a year or two later (I didn't think I knew enough about body work to do it myself back then). By that time, it was overheating due to a bad heat distribution tube, something I also didn't know about, so it stayed in storage until 1981 when I started digging into it. I took an adult education body work course, which turned into a two year painting, mechanical fix-up and new upholstery & chrome plating project. I've been running it every since, though it is much nicer since its 2003 professional paint job and a rebuilt motor. Here it is now, from roughly the same angle:
Looks a lot better now, eh?
Notice the broken LH tail lamp. My college roommate and I were working on a woodcock banding project at Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge in Calais, ME that summer, living in the house in the background. One Saturday night I did what I never did before: let someone else drive the car. Roommate's date had to get home to St. Stephan New Brunswick; mind didn't. On the way home, a hit and run driver hit him a (fortunately) glancing blow. He missed the front bumper, but got the front fender, running board, rear fender, tail lamp and rear bumper, missing the body itself. The crash also broke the RH kingpin. I drove it the rest of the summer, and back to NJ that September.
Someone told me about Hemmings Motor News and I found the parts I needed in a NH junkyard. I kept it in storage until 1971, then towed it back to Maine and had the fenders mounted a year or two later (I didn't think I knew enough about body work to do it myself back then). By that time, it was overheating due to a bad heat distribution tube, something I also didn't know about, so it stayed in storage until 1981 when I started digging into it. I took an adult education body work course, which turned into a two year painting, mechanical fix-up and new upholstery & chrome plating project. I've been running it every since, though it is much nicer since its 2003 professional paint job and a rebuilt motor. Here it is now, from roughly the same angle:
Looks a lot better now, eh?
posted by Bob Shafto at 9:07 PM
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