Quote: The other one was the Jeff Phillips customized popular cars magazine car a 440 chromed out with a hemi.
Dave, Is this the same one Joe Gerdelmann owned? He has the chromed out Hemi with the black stripe.He's in Jersey still,right?
Dave is correct. It's not Gerdelmann's car. The Jeff Phillips "bullet hole Daytona" was sold to him by my father in the winter of 1977-78. Dad bought the car in October '77. That was was a real POS, and Phillips did wonders with it. It looks ten times better in the pic I've posted compared to how bad it really was. Give the pic some time to load.
The story how we wound up with it is lengthly but worth it.
Dad gets a call from this guy in Pontiac Michigan (north of Detroit), about a Daytona he wants to sell quick. Asking price is somewhere around $2600. So Dad decides to fly in to buy it and drive it home. By the way, the guy mentions that he absolutely, positively HAS to sell the car. So Dad flys in and the guy pics him up. They go to look at the car and it is just a heap. Tons of bondo, a 383 leaking oil faster than the Exxon Valdez under the hood, back seat covered with black "fun fur". Some kind of vinyl top that's been removed and the rust painted over gloss black. A snow tire on the right front corner. It has the rear bumper delete option, but as a plus, it had a nice nose and came with a complimentary 8-track of Fleetwood Mac Rumours You get the picture. Best of all, is a bullet hole between the two indent scoops on the drivers door. And the guy WILL NOT explain it. So, anyway - dad turns it down. Doesn't want the car. It's too rough. He says, "Take me back to the airport". So they stop at a McDonalds on the way. And the guy makes one final appeal to my dad, "Hey, look. I have got to sell this car now". So dad, figuring the only good thing is the nose assembly, offers him $1100 and the guy takes it.
So now, dad has got to get this pile of crap home. It's late afternoon. Dad gets gas, checks the oil, and the whole dipstick tube comes out with the stick. An omen of things to come.
He gets on the road heading south through Detroit to I-94. and as it gets dark, he hits the lights - they don't pop up. He reaches into the map pockets and finds two rubber door stop wedges. "Guess I know what these are for." So in go the door stops and the lights are on. Now the car is not charging. He makes his way on 94 west heading for Ann Arbor, and the battery is just about done. He coasts into a gas station and they say they'll look at it in the AM, and that there is a Ramada Inn across the street. He's elated.
So he makes his way to the Ramada Inn - and it hits him. That it's the same Ramada Inn we had our national meet at the previous June. Imagine 77 aero cars at a hotel where the A/C doesn't work, the pool is green, and it's 95 degrees. Can you say wash cars with hotel towels? Sure you can. By the way the pool still wasn't working the second time around.
In the morning, the garage has got the car up and running, and dad had a trouble free journey back to Milwaukee.
We never knew the real story on the bullet hole. The car is an original A4 silver Daytona, 440 auto. XX29L9B386539.
