d55dave
Well-Known Member
I thought that I would share the story and some pics of our 55 Royal Lancer with you all, not an A body but still a neat car. Here goes;
I was always brought up on old cars - fixing them, going to car shows, and one of the favorite pastimes of my brothers, dad and I was to tour through wrecking yards. In 1986 I was 17 and had my first car - 69 Barracuda. That summer we were on holidays in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia and we went for a walk through a wrecking yard in Oliver that had a bunch of vintage cars. After spending an hour or so walking around I spotted an old Dodge sitting in the back corner of the yard beside a house. We had a look at it, it was a 2 door hardtop, green and creme, nice colors, the engine was in it but the top end was not there and there were puddles of water and severe corrosion in the cylinders. Some of the trim was missing and someone had sanded the paint on the front end so it was covered in surface oxidation. The Okanagan valley is very dry - almost desert, so there was very little other deterioration and no rot.
On our way out we asked the proprietor of the yard about the car, it turns out that it was his car, all the trim and engine parts were in the trunk, and he said - oh yeah, its a hemi....you can imagine the excitement that this brought to a 17 year old. When asked if it was for sale he said that it was. By this point (before I knew it was a hemi) I had told dad that we should buy it and go halves. We settled on a purchase price of $1000, and hauled it to Penticton to a piece of property that my parents had just bought to build their retirement home.
It turns out that the car was sold new in Penticton, and in 1968 the owner the wrecking yard bought it, drove it for a few months and when it developed a rod knock he pulled the top end off with the intention of fixing it in the car, and pulled off some of the trim as he wanted to paint it. Then it sat, forgotten for almost 20 years and remarkably well preserved. When we bought it the car still wore its 1968 licence plates.
That fall we returned home and left the car in storage under a tarp. we had by then determined that the engine block was scrap (in retrospect we could have sleeved it, we still have the original block) and the search was on for a replacement engine core.
I was always brought up on old cars - fixing them, going to car shows, and one of the favorite pastimes of my brothers, dad and I was to tour through wrecking yards. In 1986 I was 17 and had my first car - 69 Barracuda. That summer we were on holidays in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia and we went for a walk through a wrecking yard in Oliver that had a bunch of vintage cars. After spending an hour or so walking around I spotted an old Dodge sitting in the back corner of the yard beside a house. We had a look at it, it was a 2 door hardtop, green and creme, nice colors, the engine was in it but the top end was not there and there were puddles of water and severe corrosion in the cylinders. Some of the trim was missing and someone had sanded the paint on the front end so it was covered in surface oxidation. The Okanagan valley is very dry - almost desert, so there was very little other deterioration and no rot.
On our way out we asked the proprietor of the yard about the car, it turns out that it was his car, all the trim and engine parts were in the trunk, and he said - oh yeah, its a hemi....you can imagine the excitement that this brought to a 17 year old. When asked if it was for sale he said that it was. By this point (before I knew it was a hemi) I had told dad that we should buy it and go halves. We settled on a purchase price of $1000, and hauled it to Penticton to a piece of property that my parents had just bought to build their retirement home.
It turns out that the car was sold new in Penticton, and in 1968 the owner the wrecking yard bought it, drove it for a few months and when it developed a rod knock he pulled the top end off with the intention of fixing it in the car, and pulled off some of the trim as he wanted to paint it. Then it sat, forgotten for almost 20 years and remarkably well preserved. When we bought it the car still wore its 1968 licence plates.
That fall we returned home and left the car in storage under a tarp. we had by then determined that the engine block was scrap (in retrospect we could have sleeved it, we still have the original block) and the search was on for a replacement engine core.
