styromaniac

Held Sat Feb 29. Always a good show.

My first car ....a '77 Pinto.( Graduation presents for my twin bro and me from dad...he got almost a 2 for 1 deal from a dealer in Newport News Va. Brother's Pinto was silver, mine dark forest green. My paint held up a lot better than his. ) A high school friend of ours had a coppertone '72 Pinto Runabout , the version with the hatchback, it was a sporty little car so we had no qualms about the choice. I had a traveling job after college and I drove the wheels off that car. Not the best for building up speed on an incline but was reliable and that rack and pinion steering was a trip. It wasn't until later I heard about the piston scuffing and then the potential explosiveness in a rear end collision. ( but then...what subcompact in those days would come out well in a collision ? ) The recall's remedy for the fuel tank if I remember correctly was an the insertion of a polyethylene shield between the big bolt on the differential and the fuel tank and an extension of the fuel filler tube. I put more than 100,000 miles on that car so I guess we got our moneys worth. The 2.3 litre engine proved popular down the road....I've posted before that a stone mason I worked with in the 80s and 90s used to hop up those motors for racing boats. ( Bob Bernardon...he owned the C-Gas class gasser records in the 60s with his 39 Chevy "Jolly Dolly". )

Agreed....Larry is a top notch builder and his Thunderbird as well as his numerous hot rod subjects are all state of the art builds. His model of his brown colored Mustang was affectionately called "the Turd" by some fellow MAMA club members. Good sense of humor those guys.

Really captures that early 60s Kustom feel...

One of the best poster artists of that era...Wes Wilson...passed away recently. Stanley Mouse...who was into that Freddie Flypogger stuff for Monogram models...morphed into another poster artist....

Dang....thats my first car!...Dad got a 2 for 1 deal off the lot in Newport News Va back in 76-77 and my brother's was silver and mine dark green. Had a traveling job right out of school and I drove the wheels off that thing. They werent a refined ride but that little 2.3 litre motor was peppy. Later on I worked with a stone mason who reworked those Pinto motors into racing boats.

For reference maybe some collector can chime in with pics of the "Star"cars that were kitted...I bet there's quite a few more than we realize...and I'm not talking about the usual George Barris/ Gene Winfield stuff ( i.e. Munster Koach, Raiders Coach, Monkee Mobile etc. ) I think a lot of kits tried to take advantage of TV notoriety...say..."Welcome Back Kotter"? I myself have a Farah Fawcett Vette in my corvette collection.

Thanks Scott. And the boxes on those shelves are 2 and 3 deep! My wife thinks I'm nuts....but those kits take me back to a lost childhood.