Lola and my Boy
Posted: Tue May 03, 2016 6:42 pm
Hi there! I’m new to the board, and a recent owner of a 59’ Belvedere 2d hardtop with a 318 and a Powerflite. Like many a marriage, the experience is not exactly what I thought it would be when I inked the deal, but I am committed to making the relationship work for the long haul. Here’s the story: I was visiting a soon to be divorced friend staying with a childhood buddy in Ledyard CT. In previous visits I had noticed a ‘cover it’ type tent in the corner of the driveway, but didn’t give it much thought till I visited after a storm had blown up the Thames River that the house is situated on and blown the tent away to reveal the reddish orange behemoth. I asked about it and he said it had been in his family since new and had been redone at one point, but had been banished to the tent when he needed the garage space and had been dwelling outside ever since, about 5 years. It looked OK and had some rust, but he had a lot of replacement panels for it. My 15 year old son was on one of those reality singing shows in LA at the time and was beginning to advance in the competition, making some real cash in the process. He was making sound financial decisions with his Mom, (saving for College, putting away for contingencies and retirement) so I sent him pictures and asked him if he felt like throwing thousands upon thousands of it away by adopting a classic car. I informed him that you don’t really own something like this, it owns you and you serve it. If you do it well it will provide you with enjoyment beyond measure. If you don’t it will leave you a broke and broken man. He understood that he was signing on with me to be a willing steward of a forgotten piece of Americana and that if he bailed on the responsibility, he’d make back about half of what we had into it, (that marriage reference again). He saw the pictures, and she looked damn good, (those FINS!) He named her ‘Lola’ at first sight and off we went. We paid $4,000 for her, $2k down from the asking price but we still paid $2k too much. And I drove it home. The tranny shifted fine and it doesn’t smoke or tick or knock. It pulls awesome and sounds great despite its 95k miles. It has a comical amount of play in the wheel and the bias ply wide whitewall tires catch every nook and cranny in the road. It has no power ANYTHING. What could be more perfect to teach a new driver to drive on? Like taking him to a brothel staffed by professional wrestler type girls for his first experience. “If you can handle this kid, you can handle anything”. I had looked under it and checked the frame where it sat and saw it was solid front to back, but when I got it up on ramps I had a moment of horror that people must feel when they’ve had their first moment of clarity after committing a horrible crime. “What did I just DO?!?” The rockers and rear quarters were an adventure in swiss cheese rusted metal that was held in check with Bondo. When you rapped on it, it would mock you with a shower of rust and chunks would fall off. No problem, I just went to the trusty internet to order up some replacement panels. (I can hear you all collectively groan). Apparently, this car wasn’t popular enough for anyone to have made replacement panels for it, so I came up snake eyes. They would have to be manufactured by hand, at an $80 per hour body shop labor rate because I sure as hell couldn’t craft metal into the shape of a car. My son came home during a break in the show and his enthusiasm hadn’t waned in the slightest. He was like the protagonist in that silly horror movie about this car, in love with it despite its many flaws. In fact, he was resolute. “I’ve always wanted something to learn to work on cars with, and this thing is as simple as a lawn mower under the hood. Besides, we’ll do it together”. How do you say no to that. We diagnosed a bad generator, blown heater core. Pathetic breaking system, (although the drums look pretty good, the master cylinder was rusted and the size of an apple). Needs new break lines, although the fan motor works for the heat/vent, who knows where it blows out because all the ducting’s made of freaking paper that has long gone the way of the dodo. The horn makes a noise, but it’s a sad, forlorn dying cow kind of thing. But that was about it. Everything else was sound and working. The previous owner let us keep the plate and his reg and insurance that he had just paid, so we tooled around town with it. You might as well be driving a Lamborghini. EVERYONE stops to look at this thing, and they all smile and want to talk about it. If you cant make friends driving this car, it’s your personality, bud. We happened upon a childhood friend of my wife’s who just happened to have a 57’ Belvedere 4 door and a garage where he did classic car restoration. He has a guy working for him who specializes in… wait for it rust repair and body fabrication! He makes $20 an hour and I get the parts. This was about half the price of the three quotes I had just gotten so I agreed. It’s been there all winter and about 80 hours and $4k later, 90% of the rust has been cut out and new 20 gauge steel has been laid in its place. It looks great and will be solid for at least another generation. It will get new paint in the next few weeks and then we’ll start the mechanical work. I figure Ill be into it for about $10k before its reliable and safe and it’ll be worth about $8k at most (?). But still, can you put a value on sharing an experience like this with your son? (The answer to that is yes, about 10k). I could have gotten an appropriate first car for my son with that money. A crumple zone equipped, airbag clad, good gas mileage sensible car, and my wife cant figure out for the life of her why I didn’t. I don’t think I have to explain it to any of you. I would love any information anyone could provide that could add a little proverbial Vaseline to help the restoration of this car go easier and less painful. I complain, but I’m happy to have an antique back in the family. This is not my first marriage to an iron maiden you see, and although the first one (68’ Firebird 400 Convertible), ended poorly, I’ve missed being in love.