Raceman
10-18-2003, 10:16 PM
We loaded up with the neighbors at the lake and went to the monthly cruise about an hour from here tonight. It was the last one of the season at this particular location, and the car population was a little weak by comparison to it's usual turnout.
Anyhow there were a couple of interesting Fords there that I haven't seen before. One was a super nice 69 Boss 429 Mustang (Shotgun motor) and right in front of it was a very nice 64 Fairlane sedan with a for sale sign. I got to talking to the owner of the Fairlane about his car, since I've always wanted to build a Thunderbolt clone. I thought he was a little high on it and was about to walk away, when he mentioned that he had a "real" Thunderbolt in the garage at home, but said it was real dissassembled and many of the important components were missing. After a little interogation about the car and it's history, we decided to hang around an extra hour and a half until the cruise was over and follow him home to look, instead of makin' another 2 1/2 hour round trip to do it later. When we got there the car was unbelievable, as most too good to be true car stories are. I was looking under the hood for the factory modification of the spring towers to verify that the car did have at least some chance of being authentic. As I was doing this, he pulled the cover back to reveal a 2 dr. hardtop. Everybody knows that all the Thunderbolts were sedans, so this one was eliminated right then. What a let down. Not only that, but this car didn't have the spring tower mods, or the holes in the radiator core support for the air induction hoses from the two inner headlights like all Thunderbolts had. After that it was a long ride home...................... seeing a glimmer of hope for finding one of the ultimate resto projects turn into no chance whatsoever in about 2 minutes.
Anyhow there were a couple of interesting Fords there that I haven't seen before. One was a super nice 69 Boss 429 Mustang (Shotgun motor) and right in front of it was a very nice 64 Fairlane sedan with a for sale sign. I got to talking to the owner of the Fairlane about his car, since I've always wanted to build a Thunderbolt clone. I thought he was a little high on it and was about to walk away, when he mentioned that he had a "real" Thunderbolt in the garage at home, but said it was real dissassembled and many of the important components were missing. After a little interogation about the car and it's history, we decided to hang around an extra hour and a half until the cruise was over and follow him home to look, instead of makin' another 2 1/2 hour round trip to do it later. When we got there the car was unbelievable, as most too good to be true car stories are. I was looking under the hood for the factory modification of the spring towers to verify that the car did have at least some chance of being authentic. As I was doing this, he pulled the cover back to reveal a 2 dr. hardtop. Everybody knows that all the Thunderbolts were sedans, so this one was eliminated right then. What a let down. Not only that, but this car didn't have the spring tower mods, or the holes in the radiator core support for the air induction hoses from the two inner headlights like all Thunderbolts had. After that it was a long ride home...................... seeing a glimmer of hope for finding one of the ultimate resto projects turn into no chance whatsoever in about 2 minutes.