Well I know it's not an A body but here it is, my Aspen.
My aspen started life as a '78 se in baby **** brown with a part vinyl top. It was ugly. When I first saw her I wanted to cut the kmeber out and drop it in the '49 Plymouth 2dr that my dad has as a parts car to his '49 Plymouth special deluxe drop top with a m body front clip and a 331 hemi. I was 9 at the time.
My pop knew I would start playing with cars so he kept the aspen and we cut up an '82 doba instead. When I was about 14 I started to se what the aspen could be and started to research what I wanted to turn her into.
When I was in high school I took some body classes and brought the aspen to school where I started to strip her down and fix the dents and rust. She had some of rust in all the usual F body places and I dove in head first. I also started to collect all the parts I needed to turn her into a R/T cloan with a twist.
When was in high school there were lots of little rice rockets running around and I wanted to build something that would beat them all, so I started to get crazy ideas in my head and convinced my dad to buy me an 11.71:1 366. I also bought a close ratio big block a body 4spd and a '68 b body 8 3/4. The idea was to go fast and not break anything.
Anyway back to the restoration part after I got out of high school I still had 318 904 8 1/4 primer gray aspen that wasn't all that fast but I had all the go fast goodies sitting in the garage. I took the 318 out and started to clean the bay to paint it and sure enough one thing led to another and I decided that if it is all apart I may as well take the time to do the body work right and make the car look decent.
At the time I still didn't know how to really do proficient body work so I found a body man on craigs list and took the car to his shop. He looked at the car and said two weeks we can have this thing in and out and painted. I thought sweet for 2 grand and I help do the sanding thats not such a bad deal. It was supposed to be painted for sunbust in late august. We worked on the car and it soon became apparent that all the body work needed to be redone so the car was taken back out of primer and the work started. I had done very little right. I learned as much as I could and started to pick it up quickly.
In about October of 06 I got busy with work and community college so I didnt go to his shop as often and little did I know that was my biggest mistake. He started to drag his feet and pretty soon it was hard just to get a hold of him, o yha he always needed more money because the original amount was for if we didnt have to take it back to metal . I actually had almost forgotten about my car until summer of 07 when we started to work on it a bit more, but at this time I was racing hydro planes and having lots of fun with Tara.
07 rolls around and not much has happened to my car I still am collecting parts for here but my direction has change I now want to build a really fast road race car for taking to the track and racing. At this time I have about 13K into the car including a complete suspension upgrade and rebuild. I still dont have the car back but I have all the parts except the body. I decide that I will let the guy store my car for free as long as I can, and finish collecting everything for her.
08 rolls around any I finally get a call from him saying that he cant afford to store it much longer, and it is almost ready for paint. I say cool, let me come up there and help you finish it up since I know what I am doing now and we can get her painted and out of there. Every time I try to go up there he has an excuse, usually along the lines of I forgot you were going to come up, or I have to go to court Anyway I didnt visit the aspen once this last summer despite the fact I planned to at least a dozen times. I finally got a hold of him in October and after being dicked around for 3 weeks I went and got my car back.
Sorry for such a long winded intro, lets get to some pics. I am trying to do these in chronological order but I dont have the first ones because they were on film. O and I now have about 18 grand into the car and I figure 17 different aspens and volares have gone into building mine.
My aspen started life as a '78 se in baby **** brown with a part vinyl top. It was ugly. When I first saw her I wanted to cut the kmeber out and drop it in the '49 Plymouth 2dr that my dad has as a parts car to his '49 Plymouth special deluxe drop top with a m body front clip and a 331 hemi. I was 9 at the time.
My pop knew I would start playing with cars so he kept the aspen and we cut up an '82 doba instead. When I was about 14 I started to se what the aspen could be and started to research what I wanted to turn her into.
When I was in high school I took some body classes and brought the aspen to school where I started to strip her down and fix the dents and rust. She had some of rust in all the usual F body places and I dove in head first. I also started to collect all the parts I needed to turn her into a R/T cloan with a twist.
When was in high school there were lots of little rice rockets running around and I wanted to build something that would beat them all, so I started to get crazy ideas in my head and convinced my dad to buy me an 11.71:1 366. I also bought a close ratio big block a body 4spd and a '68 b body 8 3/4. The idea was to go fast and not break anything.
Anyway back to the restoration part after I got out of high school I still had 318 904 8 1/4 primer gray aspen that wasn't all that fast but I had all the go fast goodies sitting in the garage. I took the 318 out and started to clean the bay to paint it and sure enough one thing led to another and I decided that if it is all apart I may as well take the time to do the body work right and make the car look decent.
At the time I still didn't know how to really do proficient body work so I found a body man on craigs list and took the car to his shop. He looked at the car and said two weeks we can have this thing in and out and painted. I thought sweet for 2 grand and I help do the sanding thats not such a bad deal. It was supposed to be painted for sunbust in late august. We worked on the car and it soon became apparent that all the body work needed to be redone so the car was taken back out of primer and the work started. I had done very little right. I learned as much as I could and started to pick it up quickly.
In about October of 06 I got busy with work and community college so I didnt go to his shop as often and little did I know that was my biggest mistake. He started to drag his feet and pretty soon it was hard just to get a hold of him, o yha he always needed more money because the original amount was for if we didnt have to take it back to metal . I actually had almost forgotten about my car until summer of 07 when we started to work on it a bit more, but at this time I was racing hydro planes and having lots of fun with Tara.
07 rolls around and not much has happened to my car I still am collecting parts for here but my direction has change I now want to build a really fast road race car for taking to the track and racing. At this time I have about 13K into the car including a complete suspension upgrade and rebuild. I still dont have the car back but I have all the parts except the body. I decide that I will let the guy store my car for free as long as I can, and finish collecting everything for her.
08 rolls around any I finally get a call from him saying that he cant afford to store it much longer, and it is almost ready for paint. I say cool, let me come up there and help you finish it up since I know what I am doing now and we can get her painted and out of there. Every time I try to go up there he has an excuse, usually along the lines of I forgot you were going to come up, or I have to go to court Anyway I didnt visit the aspen once this last summer despite the fact I planned to at least a dozen times. I finally got a hold of him in October and after being dicked around for 3 weeks I went and got my car back.
Sorry for such a long winded intro, lets get to some pics. I am trying to do these in chronological order but I dont have the first ones because they were on film. O and I now have about 18 grand into the car and I figure 17 different aspens and volares have gone into building mine.
