The find

  OK, so I've got some cash, and I've got to find a project car. Actually, I already HAD a project car at that time, but the car in question is a 1968 Fairlane. It's a great project, and a cool car. Back in the 1990's, it was my daily driver, and it was a million miles from being a show car, but it shined up decently, and got attention. But, my tastes have changed. I really love traditionally styled kustoms and hot rods, and something from the musclecar era just isn't going to trip my trigger anymore.

  So, I began searching for something older. I've always loved the 49-51 Mercury, but they are one of the most desired cars from their era, so not only are prices higher on these, they're harder to find, and at the shows I like best, there are always several of them. So, you have to do something really odd or spectacular to get them to stand out.

  My search was broad, to say the least. My criteria were: It had to have been manufactured between 1909 and 1962. It had to be able to seat at least three people (my girls worked to push me down this road, anything that we couldn't all ride in was unacceptable). It also had to "speak to me," as it were. I had to be able to have a vision for it from the first look. That vision would almost certainly change during the build process, but the initial vision would let me know that this was the car for me.

  So, I begn searching local classifieds, classifieds on the Hokey Ass Message Board (HAMB is a huge resource- more about it later), Flakelist (Craigslist) and eBay. Within a couple of days, I was coming across cars with a LOT of potential:

  A 1949 Olds torpedoback in Chicago that sold the day before I inquired about it.

  A SWEET 1949 Lincoln 4 door, but it was in Oregon, and would have cost an additional thousand dollars just to get it here.

  A decent 1951 Ford 4 door (easy conversion to a 2 door) in Cincinnatti that tickled my brain continuously until I went a different direction.

  A pair of '49 Chevy 2 doors (one to build, one for parts) in Southern Indiana. I dismissed them because of not wanting my neighbors to have to look at a semi-stripped car in my driveway for months.

  An interesting 1941 Chevrolet that I was trying to get used to the profile of.

  A 1940 Ford 2 door sedan that was REALLY rough.

  And on eBay, there was an interesting 1951 Chevrolet 2 door. I didn't put much hope in finding a car on eBay, because it would likely be so far away that transportation costs would make the buy-in price higher than I wanted to pay. But, this '51 was in Indianapolis, had an opening bid set at $1500, and had no bids. It looked pretty workable, so I contacted the seller about coming to take a look at it. On Friday, March 19th, after Lori got off work, I asked her if she wanted to go for a drive and get some coffee (sucker offer). I also told her I wanted to show her something. We went out, and when we pulled in the drive, she oohed a bit at the faded maroon beast.

  The father of the seller came out (it was his house) and began showing us the car. It was plenty rusty (well, DUH- it IS a Chevrolet!), and someone with no business working on cars had perpetrated quite a bit of nasty fuckery on it. But, it had potential. Lots of it. He fired it up, and it didn't run perfectly, but it didn't run badly, either. It wasn't anything that would be safe on the road as it was, but it did have a functional driveline. Lots of rust underneath, clearly a buttload of bondo, wheels that... well, let's just say that someone apparently went shopping for wheels with the intention of getting the set that was most wrong for that kind of car. At some point, the driver's side front wheel had actually come off when the car was in motion, which tore the hell out of the bondoed to the hilt fender and door. I like to think that the car knew the wheels were ghastly, and was wanting to get rid of them. We thanked Mr Clark,and indicated that we were still quite interested in the car.

  The auction was due to end Sunday or Monday night. I contacted the seller after we'd viewed the car, and asked him to e-mail me outside of eBay. In our conversations off of eBay, I told him that I was still interested in the car. I told him that I would NOT be the first bidder on the car. I told him that if the car got no bids, he should e-mail me, and I'd make him a fair offer for the car on a private sale. I made sure to tell him that I would NOT be lowballing him, and if the car got a bid, then ignore the e-mail- I'd be in the same boat as everyone else.

  The car got no bids. The seller e-mailed me a couple of days later, and asked what my offer was. I told him that if I had bid on the car, and nobody else had, I would have paid $1500, and eBay and Paypal would have taken 300 of that, which would have left him with 1200. I offered to split the difference with him. I'd pay 150 less, he'd get 150 more. He agreed. We would meet on Friday the 26th, we would meet at his father's house to complete the deal. Now I was faced with deciding how to get it home. Driving it was an option. If carefully driven, it would make it with no problem. But, the brakes were pretty dodgy, the electrical was beyond shot, the front suspension and steering were an unknown, and both the brake and clutch pedals liked to stick. Common sense won out, and I had a rollback meet me there. I met the seller for the first time then. Talking with him, I found that his plan for the car had been to do a restoration to factory stock. (Boy, he won't like where I'M gonna take it) but a house fire and other pitfalls from life had put him in a place where he needed to just sell it. He asked me to send him updates and pictures as I built the car. The wrecker driver loaded it up, and we were off!