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Art
Stanwood
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An unexpected gift.
My car came to me by way of my brother. I was living in Chicago at the time and he gave me a call and asked a curious question "Where do you park your car?". I was living in a condo and I told him that I had a covered area that I parked in. He said "Good, I am sending you a car."
Naturally that prompted a number of questions and finally he said "I am sending you a Porsche" well you could have tipped me over with a light touch. I knew Mike had a 911 whale tail but I didn't know he had a 356. My brother knows how to spell wrench but does not know how to hold one in his hand. Apparently, he had always wanted a 356 and purchased the car from a dealer in NH. Mike lives in TX and drove the car for a year or so. He was having constant maintenance problems with it, primarily due to a lot of crud in the gas tank and no filtration system for the fuel.
Long story short, 2 weeks later, a large truck shows up and off rolls a very pretty ruby red 356 coupe. I have owned a lot of sports cars but never a Porsche. One look and I was in love. She had a number of issues to deal with, mostly a lack of TLC. I drove it for a year, went overseas for 2 and then came back. By that time, the car really needed seeing to.
Although she only had about 55K on the odometer, the car had lived most of its life in New England. Thankfully, the previous owners had kept the car off the salt during the winter. There was extensive corrosion under the car. I decided to go ahead and do the whole car and built a rotisserie to do the body work on. I removed the engine and transmission, bumpers and other external bits and pieces. Mounted the car on the rotisserie and proceeded to sand blast the underside of the car to see what I really had in front of me.
Outside of replacing the longitudinal and some metal in the battery box area, the underside was in very good condition. I rebuilt the brakes, replaced some suspension components and the other standard fare for a 80% restoration project. The transmission didn't need anything, however I replaced the axel seals. The engine was next so I tore it down for an inspection and discovered cracks around the circumference of each cylinder where it met the head. Don't know what caused it but it was sufficient for me to go ahead and rebuild the engine. I used the standard stuff, 1750 big bore kit and Harry Pellow's cam.
Back together, the car was a delight. Driving it to work one morning, I was rear ended at a stop light by a wee Scot who was in the Charlotte NC area on assignment for his company. The Taurus creamed the rear section just under the area where the engine cover attaches. I jumped out of the car and set about a verbal tirade that not only made him cringe, but embarrassed me for its vehemence. I felt worse than he did after I calmed down and apologize profusely. I found a really great metal man to carefully pulled out the dented section and did a fantastic job of making the car look normal and correct. Almost no body filler was used. Paint job and it looked great again. Of course a rear bumper, overiders and tail lights were the order of the day too.
About 6 months later, the exact same thing happened again only this time I was hit so hard, I was slammed into the car in front. I was in a state of shock and simply screamed NOOOOOOOOO!! at the top of my lungs. I was determined that this time I would remain rational and calm. The driver of the 1982 tank like Olds was too busy still talking on her cell phone to bother addressing my gentle query if she was ok. Gritting my teeth, I patiently called the cops on my cell and walked back to survey the damage. It was extensive. The rear section of the car was pushed in and upward. A big wrinkle in the skin was evident between the rear window and the rear left quarter window. The left front fender was pushed all the way back to the wheel. Incredibly, the hood was not even scratched.
Looking at the state of the car that hit me, I just knew that she didn't have any insurance. Thankfully, God smiled on us that day and she did in fact have insurance. The GIECO man was very helpful but said that he was going to total my car so that there would be enough to make all the repairs - they gave me 21K for the car.
I made a promise to my brother that I would never sell the car and would keep it in pristine order. I allowed the car to be "totaled" and retained the car for subsequent repair and re-registration as a "salvaged" automobile here in NC. The 21K was actually just the right amount to fix the car. I used the excellent front and rear panels made by Trevors Hammer Works and had the same guy who did the great work the last time do the work. While I was at it, I replaced the complete interior using the Autos International kit which was superb. I went with all leather in a very nice tan color. 4 months later, she was back together again and felt like, smelled like and drove like a brand new car. I have been having fun ever since.
I don't drive it to work anymore.
Warmest regards,
Art Stanwood
1964 SC Ruby Red Coupe
Huntersville, NC
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