project ferrari stalker

[ramenth]

Took most of the day Sunday to move some cars around. My Dad's '54 Ford and my nephew's '81 Cordoba came to the shop so we can tinker on 'em. But this came to my home garage.

 

[sheetmetaldan]

Cool!

Hey Hey Hey! Not bad is it a 72? Put a little air in the tires and I think youre all set!:icon_thumright:
What`s it got for a motor and tranny? Any buildsheet or fender tags come with it?

 

[burntorange70]

Nice! So whats the deal Robert? Why you keeping us in the dark? LOL We need info and details!!!

 

[AlleyoopMgv]

Cool stuff, ramenth!

 

[ramenth]

Okay, guys, since you asked for more details, here we go.

It's a '74, originally B5 with a B5 interior and white stripes. 318/904 car. The rallyes on it are original. If I remember correctly the car came out of a dealership in Buffalo.

It's a fairly earlier build car. The original owner bought it in February. I know this because I have a notebook the original owner used as a log for everything he bought for the car, the price he paid, and the mileage at which he made the purchase. I am now the fifth owner. The second owner kept up with the log, the third owner bought it to flip and never did anything with it, Pop bought it, now I have it.

Pop paid $300 for it minus the engine and transmission. He was looking for a Challenger at the time, preferably big block, but came across this car. He liked the round tail lights and the grille, and since he was going to build a 440-6 set up and four speed he really didn't care what happened to the 318 and auto.

Teardown showed us the truth about some of the hidden things. The front frame rails were filled in with tin over the holes and roofing tar covered the tin. The pans were eaten through in spots. The torsion bar mount was rotted out. Undeterred, Pop bought a '70 donor car, stripped out shell that was in worse shape, but had the front rails and torsion bar mount. We put the rails, mount, inners, and core support in as a clip and started assembling the car around it.

New: floor pans, quarter skins, trunk, outer wheel houses, valances. Good used: tail light panel, one door, and the aforementioned parts from the shell, plus the shell gave up the four speed hump, the clutch pedal set up, and a twin bulge hood.

Pop got it in paint and it was "good enough for who it's for" before we opened our restoration shop. A lot of folks saw the work we did on the car and wanted to know if we could do the same for them. Pop decided to redo the body work to show quality and got as far as it is now before he fell and busted his shoulder and retired soon after.

It's been outside since. Hence the rust that's showing.

He and Momma retired to TN to be near my oldest sister and her family when I got a call saying they had talked it over and wanted me to have the Barracuda. I was floored.

She still needs some work. I'm not thrilled with way Pop did one of the quarters skins so it's gonna wind up with a new AMD on it. Since the inner fenders weren't available when Pop got the car, I plan on new inners and an upper cowl. A quick turn on the rotisserie to clean her up and she'll be back in paint.

Sorry, Dan, no data plate and we lost the build sheet in a fire. Pop wasn't really interested in numbers, so when we clipped the rails and inners in the original plate went with the original sheetmetal: in the scrap heap.

I plan on staying with Pop's build ideas. Painted it an AMC color: Wild Plum Purple which has more red in it than Plum Crazy, and I plan on doing up the big block, but I'm gonna take it a step further: World Products new RB aluminum block will be nestled between the rails on XV's front suspension. The rear I'm looking into modifying a Viper set up. A T56 will allow me to row my own gears.

It's not gonna be a pro-touring car, per se. I'm wanna take it to Watkins Glen International and run hot laps, but drive it there and drive it home.

 

[AlleyoopMgv]

Cool story ramenth, sounds like it's going to be a really cool car when it's done!

 

[old tired rebel]

Congrats ramenth on a great story and a nice project.

 

[a68postcar]

That is awesome Robert! i can't wait to watch your progress.

 

[burntorange70]

Nice history Robert. Good luck on the build. Can't wait to see her come together for you.

 

[old tired rebel]

Any updates?

 

[ramenth]

None so far, Cliff. Been nailing out the work at the shop and staying late to get my little Colt done for a customer who just bought it. Got a ton of things to do around the house this weekend. I'll probably begin the little bit of teardown that's needed within the next week or so.

 

[a68postcar]

and so, it begins again aye? will it ever end? the shadow knows,bwaaaa haaaa haaaa haaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ramenth]

Okay, guys, I'm gonna start a thread about the Barracuda build and merge the two threads together. It'll be a while before updates are available as I have two projects in the works ahead of this one. I'll keep ya'll informed as best as I can, but it will be slow work with the money that's needed to build this car the way I want it.

Anyone else out there have a wife or girlfriend (in my case, the former) who just wants to get the car on the road, good enough for who it's for, and then expects you to do it all over again later? I keep telling my wife that I plan on building these projects once, to my specs, in a lifetime.

 

[msbaugh]

But every time you do it you'll get better and better lol

 

[DetMatt1]

I don't know how I missed this thread! Kool car Ramenth, can't wait to watch this one unfold. Good luck with it.

 

[old tired rebel]

Look Forward to the build.

 

[a68postcar]

I like the stalker bit too Robert.you should use these threads to fine tune your plan and parts lists. that way we get to learn the way you do it.

 

[ramenth]

I like the stalker bit too Robert.you should use these threads to fine tune your plan and parts lists. that way we get to learn the way you do it.

That's a good idea, considering the motivation behind the build.

I've always liked to go fast on turns. First fell in love with doing it with my little '75 Fiat 124 Spyder. Close ratio gear box, close ratio manual rack. Lot's of hilly curves where I live and being able to straighten 'em out was fun. Maybe it comes from growing up in Watkins Glen, NY, home of the US Gran Prix.


When I get a chance I like to pull safe hot laps around the old road course. It's a thrill coming down the hill to the Stone Bridge and back up the Essess. To date my fastest was 105 in the wife's XG350, a good touring sedan, but not something you can go out and stalk performance cars with (though I did pull the headlights from a 2.7T Audi with it...:icon_mrgreen

As you can imagine Watkins gets its fair share of car clubs coming in, most with SCCA, we have a bunch of self-indulgent Porsche and BMW guys, Vipers, Vettes, etc. The Gran Prix Fest brings out of lot of vintage race cars for show and shine and to make a parade lap around the old road course. But the pinnacle, for me, is when the Ferrari guys come to town (which makes the BMW guys scatter like roaches when the lights come on...hard to brag about your BMW when it's sitting next to a Ferrari..fun to watch).

So, what do I need? I need a car with balance. Something streetable with horsepower. Our big block E-bodies tend to be a little nose heavy and getting a 340 or 360 to that kind of horse wouldn't exactly be street friendly. So when I read about World Products aluminum RB I got excited, especially the weight of 'em. I need a car with suspension. XV's spent a lot of time and money in R&D and had proven track success. Why reinvent the wheel? But...and that's a big but...I've worked on a lot of Mustang's and one of the down falls to the Mustang's balance is lack of an IRS...just ask Shelby, who was screaming for one on the last gen GT500. That's where a Viper suspension out back comes into play. And I'm not fooling myself. I can't afford to rebuild SuperCuda. Never will be able to.

But I can, through a lot of hard work and saving, some wheeling and dealing, like selling my Colt mentioned earlier, get together the scratch to build a car that I'm satisfied will come in on the budget I've allowed myself and give me some bragging rights against guys who've spent four or five times as much.

 

[a68postcar]

I like it!

 

[old tired rebel]

I like it!

X2 But need more info.