Quote: Shannon....what can I say to such a statement?!? You have been one of the better surprises (and friends) that resulted from this years Nationals. It would be my pleasure to help with your project (as well as ANYONE else following this thread) regarding documentation or the procedures that we discover. I am an advocate of sharing all the data that might be used to help the efforts of others. This thread started out a little rocky but I sincerely hope that down deep, some of the skeptics will realize that our focus is on the progression of the hobby and its participants! This will be a long (hopefully fun) journey and if one other person can benefit from the work involved, I will consider the outcome a successful one. I do promise that the car will be better than the Challenger in all areas. Each project is a learning experience. You take the aspects previously discovered in the last restoration, bring them to the next project and improve from there!
Dave, it was great to meet you and strike up a friendship at the Nats this year and I look forward to seeing this A-Body complete. The Promise that it will be better than the Challenger is a strong promise to keep, but I am sure that you and your team will accomplish it. The information that you acquire and share will certainly help my project and others, I am happy to see someone taking a similar track to what I have been planning with my car. I struggled back and forth for years on the decision to either restore my car or let it remain a survivor and live with the few items that need attention and the accumulated dust and dirt. Like I said, about a year ago, while finishing the Road Runner and restoring the Black car I had made the decision to clean up what is necessary on my Plymouth and leave my car as original and as close to Survivor status as possible. In the long run, it will be more time consuming and tedious, but it will be worth it since this car has been with me since I was 16 and it's the only car in the fleet that I will not sale unless I am in dire straights and absolutely have to. While it is "only a C-Body" (as some would say), it is still a pretty unique car. Similar to your car, I have the original tires that probably still have the original air in them since the owner put a set of Keystones on it almost immediately and put the tires, hubcaps and fender skirts in dry storage and they will probably stay there after I complete the car. It looks better with the Keystones on it, so if I display the car I will have the original tires and hubcaps on display next to it while running the current set-up. This car is still driven limited miles every year and will probably be driven after I am done with it, still on a limited basis.
Anyway enough about that, good luck on your A-Body and enjoy the process. Every restoration offers a unique opportunity to learn, document, teach and display how the cars were built and the subtle differences between each car, even if they were built back to back on the line.
