DEPARTMENT OF
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Sometime in 2004, I started hating my shop truck.
It was a great little truck, a lowered Nissan with a slick paint job, custom
cap and stereo system to boot. But I was tired of driving a truck. My suppliers
delivered my 4x8s, and my customers picked them up. I wanted a car that
could still carry my airbrush stuff to jobs (I subcontract a lot) and haul
me, a friend or two and our junk to meets.
I bought a Taurus wagon, decided NOT to paint
it, rather to employ vinyl graphics, move the killer sound system into it,
but be able to enjoy the air, cruise, six-way-seat, power-everything comfort
level.
The BAMBULANCE was born. It's phat to drive, attracts attention, and
I always get an open left lane on the buzzway!
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My dad was a car guy. He owned a gas station in
Rochester, and after he and my mom closed Terry's Chevron (named for my
older brother), he worked as a service manager at a couple of GM dealerships.
I can add the "car" gene along with the "collector"
gene as things I got from my father.
I was one of those kids that took everything apart,
learned how it worked, and on occasion...put it back together. Nothing was
safe... my toys, wagon, lawnmowers, toasters, the family Impala. I would
jam extra sets of front forks on my bikes and make choppers out of them...I
remember trying to paint flames on my Schwinn with Testor's Model Paint
when I was 9 or 10.
Cars (and beer and chicks and rock n' roll) were
what bound my friends and I through those otherwise disposable 1970's. Eric's
'70 Skylark, Dave's '69 Cutlass convertable, Doughboy's Monte Carlo, Rusty's
'70 Dart...even Ray's mom's Valient played a big part in our weekend-to-weekend
existance.
My first really "right" street car came
in the form of my 1966 Plymouth Barracuda. It was fast, in exceptional condition,
and just offbeat and, dare I say ugly enough, that it was cool. I still
own that car after 25 years, and it only has 32,000 miles on it.
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At some point, early on in our relationship, we
offed Paulette's '79 Cutlass. It was an early 80's "S" model,
with a small V8. We had installed a sunroof, stereo system, aftermarket
wheels and some fat ass rear tires (it was after all, the 80's). I had painted
the car Candy Cobalt over a silver base, and dyed the light blue landau
top black. The car looked good.
But we sold it and bought a year-old '85 Ford
Thunderbird. They had those great new swoopy lines, lowered stance right
outta the box...but it was the ugliest shade of babyshit brown you could
imagine.
Repainting the car Garnet Metallic, led to tricking
out the interior, led to the hood scoop, rear wing, lightening up the car
to about 2,200 lbs, which led to a 10.5:1 nitrous oxide injected 1969 302,
fed by a 20 gallon fuel cell via a Barry Grant fuel system and breathing
through a Dave Rockcastle designed 3" exhaust system, backed up by
an Indymatic shifter controlled Brad Smith built C4 transmission, all tied
in to a Gary Czeh prepped chassis.
It took just over a year to complete (we bought
another T-Bird to use as her daily-driver), with a LOT of help from friends
Billy Brosch, Steve Mills, Matt Shaff, Ted Kucharski, Dave Rockcastle and
John Stassen. Paulette took it to the drag strip quite a bit, as well as
to a couple of cruise nights each week. It's in storage right now, but almost
ready to come back out and run a high 13 on street tires...without the juice!
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