The new year brought a new sense of adventure. Instead of going on these Automotive Archeology Expeditions on a whim or doing day trips, I would try to plan out more detailed expeditions and going further. Meeting up with people and going to see cool Barn Finds rotting away. And as of January 1st, 2012 I did the first one with a friend Bob and some cool cars he knew about west of Chicago. So we met up at a McDonald’s on North Avenue. Ironically, sitting there in the parking lot for the technical college was a very rough 1972 Plymouth Fury. A good way to start off a day.
We went and dropped Bob's car off at his friends house just down the road. The friend had gotten a cool GTO for a decent price after the last owner had a carb fire and a few other issues they didn't want to deal with. A 400 Cubic in Pontiac V8 under the hood and an auto on the floor. Still a good project that Bob was sure would be out cruising by summer.
Our first stop was another friend west of the city that had a few cool cars that had been sitting for a while. A cool Mercury Montego MX convertible and a Mercury Cyclone GT. The guy had gotten the cars years ago and had them tucked away. He worked on them when he could, which is better then nothing happening at all. But both cars needed some serious work.
The Cyclone was main project at the time. He said he had rebuilt the engine recently after a fire and was putting everything back together after cleaning up the engine bay and repainting it. Hopefully the old girl will be out and cruising, rather then sitting rotting away in a garage. The Montego was suppose to run and drive, just needed to be gone through and cleaned up.
With daylight running out, we headed over to another friends who was a diehard Ford guy. After getting lost and ending up in the middle of nowhere, we made it to his friends new/old shop. Sitting outside was two Ford Torino fastbacks. The friend mentioned that the first one was supposedly the very first Cobra Torino Fastback produced. He would prefer I not open anything on the cars, so I didn't push it.
Inside the garage was another cool project, a Ford Fairlane the guy was slowly working on. Had some pretty sweet engines lying around. He said one was a 429, but I couldn't tell and didn't want to get messy so late in the day.
We left the garage and made our way back to Bob's friends home. It ended up being a Ford day, but still some really nice cars just hanging out, waiting for their time in the future.
If you know of any cool cars sitting anywhere in the mid-west. Let me know. There are big things happening with the Automotive Archaeologist!
Ryan Brutt
TheAutoArchaeologist@yahoo.com
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