- Joined
- Apr 5, 2011
- Messages
- 121
Back in around 1965 I rebuilt this 53 Chev. Spent 6 months working on it about 8 hours a day 6 days a week. Around 1971 or 2 a woman backed into it as my wife was driving along by behind her in a parking lot lane. It wiped out the right front fender and door as well as the front part of the quarter panel right behind the door. I did replace the door and fender with used ones and drove it for a short while and then after I opened my own service station in 73 I bought an old 63 Ford pick up for service truck and about the end of 74 leased a brand new Dodge extended van and took the Chev off the road. In 1975 I bought a Sunoco service station in another town and it had a long storage shed along the back of the lot so the car went in there. It sat here until around 2000 I wanted to sell it. I had a 283 engine in it that I had bored out to 292 with a quadrajet carb and an aluminum powerglide with a shift kit in it and floor shifter/console. It had a 57 Pontiac rear end and a Merc drive shaft. It only had 15,000 miles on it when we took it off the road.
My daughter asked if they could buy it so it stayed in the family. They started working on it in the shop's back yard and later on the hoist I helped them rebuild the body mounts, brakes etc. We spent two years working on it together in spare time and it has now been eight years since it was painted. My son in law is currently working on taking it apart since I have a rotisserie built and he wants to redo the bottom end off the frame in my shop once my Studebaker is finished.
Here you will see 2 photos. The first one shows my youngest daughter standing in front of it when about 4 or 5 years old. The second photo shows her son in front of it at about the same age. He is just turned 9 I believe. So our car history goes a long ways back. Over the years I have customized a 51 Chev, customized a 49 Morris Minor among regular cars and VW Beetles.
My daughter asked if they could buy it so it stayed in the family. They started working on it in the shop's back yard and later on the hoist I helped them rebuild the body mounts, brakes etc. We spent two years working on it together in spare time and it has now been eight years since it was painted. My son in law is currently working on taking it apart since I have a rotisserie built and he wants to redo the bottom end off the frame in my shop once my Studebaker is finished.
Here you will see 2 photos. The first one shows my youngest daughter standing in front of it when about 4 or 5 years old. The second photo shows her son in front of it at about the same age. He is just turned 9 I believe. So our car history goes a long ways back. Over the years I have customized a 51 Chev, customized a 49 Morris Minor among regular cars and VW Beetles.
