1962 Ford Fairlane 500 (the ordinary man's luxury vehicle)

I picked this sled up in 2006 to take a little of the wear and tear off my other car at the time. I needed a cheap and stylish runabout to get groceries and run mundane errands. This car had a smooth V8 engine (221ci), smooth shifting two-speed automatic, four headlights, round tail lights, and tail fins. It checked all the boxes.  Cons: The carburetor was leaking gas, the drive shaft was about to fall out due to shot U-joints, the tires were cracking, the interior was shabby, the drivers fender was smashed, and both bumpers were hammered. But there was something nice about the way it drove, so I struck a deal and bought it for $1400. I think I over paid.

                                     
After work, a trip to Lake Natoma in Folsom for some evening Kayaking. Trusty, versatile, and luxurious Ford Fairlane "500". (2013)

Nitrous fed 1985 BMW 325e

I picked up this 85 BMW sometime around 1999. The coupe body has clean styling and the inline 6 cylinder engine has good torque. The steering is precise and the brakes are excellent. These are awesome driver's cars. These cars represent some of the best of BMW- straight forward engineering without a lot of excess for excess' sake. Power, performance, reliability, classic lines. I wanted to turn it into a dual purpose street and track car. I installed a 6 point roll cage, a 50 hp nitrous oxide system, and some chassis stiffeners. The cage precluded the existence of a back seat, which was fine, it added to the cool factor. The nitrous made it a bit of a sleeper.

The paint was a cheap respray in the original blue that was fading and chipping, and I wanted to go Alpine white with BMW factory racer-style graphics. I achieved the white, but it looked so clean and subtle that I left it that way. I found a euro-spec rear bumper in the junk yard to replace the large American spec unit, and failing to find a nice slim euro bumper for the front, I simply shaved it.

Stock 325e, lowered on Eibach springs.

1974 Triumph Spitfire 1500 (Part two)

I drove the Spitfire almost exclusively year-round with the top down for about four years. There came a time when my modified engine no longer passed the strict California Emission Control test guidelines and I couldn't legally register it in that configuration. Also the transmission was starting to sound really bad in first gear. I decided to park the car and tarp it. It sat on the side of my brothers house for about a year and a half. I pondered how to overcome the smog check issue and hatched a plan. I decided to buy an earlier model Spitfire "donor car" and "convert" my '74 1500 to a '71 Mk4. At that time a 1971 was exempt from smog laws, but it would be  a few years until the '74 was exempt.

                                           
                                   This car, even faded and tired had good charisma. You can see plenty of                                                     red paint peeking through from where the cheap burgundy paint is flaking away.

1974 Triumph Spitfire 1500 (part one)

I grew up around convertibles and always wanted one of my own. It was the summer of 1996 and I had managed to scrape together $900 through months of careful saving and probably from holding on to my tax return. I decided that it was time to buy a convertible. I scoured the Sacramento Bee classifieds to see what the coolest convertible I could get for $900 was. There were only three viable options in my range: A 1971 Fiat 124 Spider in Antelope, a 1960's VW dune buggy in Citrus Heights, and a 1974 Triumph Spitfire in Roseville.

                                     
               Complete and full of potential, this little Spitfire was a perfect fit for a kid on a tight budget.

1987 C4 Corvette (a cheap skate's dream super car)

One day a few years ago I was convincing a buddy of mine that the absolute best bang-for-the-buck in automotive performance was the 1985-up C4 corvette. 300 horsepower, posi traction rear end, 4 wheel disk brakes, and all aluminum suspension! How can you go wrong. A quick search of Craigs List showed him that there was no shortage of supply for under $5k!! Well, I ended up just convincing myself really. I found this gorgeous 87 TPI Corvette for $3200. The body was near perfect, leather interior like-wise, but it drove horribly. The tires were out of round and out of balance. The add-on adjustable fuel pressure regulator was set too low so the engine pinged and had no power....And it had 215k miles.

                                      
              I don't have any better pics left of this car unfortunately. It was a nice subtle shade of gray.

Cheap cars, no will power

In the past, I have bought cars just because they were cheap...and why not? I love cars. I'd like to own every car once in my life. I've always said I like them new, old, shiny, dull, running, dead, pristine, dented, exotic, pedestrian, rusty or clean....I like them all. A few cars I had just for a short while since they were cheap and seemed like a good idea are the following: 1960 Ford Ranchero, 1977 Toyota Corolla "lift back", 1982 Toyota Tercel, 1966 Pontiac Le Mans, 1977 MG Midget.....

I was going to school in Fremont, California back in 1998 when I spied this seriously beat-down Ranchero on the side of the road with a for sale sign in the window. Me, always being a sucker for a cool old American car that looks like it's going to be cheap to buy, I pulled over and jotted down the phone number. I  later called about the car. It sat funny, because, as the seller explained, it was missing the right front coil spring...(Huh?) How does that happen? Someone removed it and couldn't figure out how to put it back in I guess. The drivers door had been replaced after having been side-swiped and the B pillar was a little messed up. But it ran!!! It had a 6 cylinder and two speed automatic (which leaked ATF from the front pump seal). The car was pretty shabby inside and out, but I bought it anyway for $400. Score! 

I cut and re welded the B pillar so the door would close normally and slathered a little sloppy bondo here and there and took to painting her in hardware-store cans of white and black primer. I used it as a commuter and to move stuff occasionally. It was a fun and comfy no-frills car that was cheap to own. It was, however, a worn out jalopy, and I sold it down the road after about a year and a half.

                                     

      I bought it in gray primer. I parked it on the street away from my apartment so people wouldn't associate        it  with me.

The fleeting 1971 Toyota Celica ST

One of the coolest foreign cars I've ever owned was this 1971 Celica ST. It had a 2.0 liter engine and a 5 speed transmission. I think it was one of the first years that Toyota imported the Celica. The body had great lines reminiscent of a cuda or camaro. The fuel filler was at the very rear of the car hidden under a trim plate. The hood was adorned with faux vents like those from a '66 Chevelle SS. Bucket seats and a full complement of gauges made this car cool looking and cool to drive. The two-liter four cylinder engine had plenty of power when fitted with a Weber down-draft carb and slightly tweaked ignition timing.

I spied this car sitting in a field in Penryn, Ca one day among a bunch of other cars. I stopped in and knocked on the door of the house attached to the field. I eventually made a deal for the car- $300 and I towed it out of there. It needed a clutch. Well, it also needed some interior work and general cosmetics.
                                   
                             Mis-matched paint and general scruffy appearance, but if you look past all that,                                            it's got great lines and a pretty tough aggressive look to it.

2000 Yamaha V Star 650 Chopper project

I was between motorcycles in 2008 and nursing my broken back from the motorcycle accident that claimed my beloved Buell. I was on state disability as I couldn't work with the broken back, and my monthly mortgage payment was depleting my savings fast. Since I was off work and had a lot of spare time on my hands, I was itching to get back onto two wheels, but I didn't have much money to do it with. A friend of mine had a clapped out V-star sitting in his side yard. He bought it new and racked up 54k miles on it before parking it. I bought it off him for a few hundred bucks.

The paint was badly oxidized, tires balding, clutch slipping, seat cracking, but fundamentally, it was a solid bike. I went to work stripping it down and cleaning it up. I sanded the tank and rear fender and applied a semi-gloss black coat of rattle can paint. I shelved the front fender. I relocated the license plate, bobbed the rear brackets and built a straight pipe exhaust system from steel tube stock. I cut down the seat and reshaped it and then had it professionally recovered.

I rode this bike for over a year. It was comfortable, easy riding, but a little light on power and a little bouncy on the freeway due to it's light weight design. It was a good bike and ultimately it sold me on the cruiser motorcycle.

                                     

1965 Ford Falcon wheel selection

I really liked the idea of the centerlines on the car. I wanted that mean 80's street-machine vibe. When it was all said and done, I wasn't satisfied with the pairing of the wheels to the car. I tried old slot mags, of which I am a huge fan, but I think the white  walls kept the cool factor down so they had to go. To my eye, the black steel rims and white walls looked cool, but unfinished. I had considered some original hubcaps with spinners, but feared loosing them during spirited driving. I tried some Summit brand torque thrust knock-offs, not quite right. I ended up settling on some Cragars, and when I did, to my eye, I had the perfect rim. I can't see anything else on the car. There's a harmony to the polished edge and light gray center, the sharp, crisp edges of the spokes that plays well with the lines of the car.

My original concept for the finished Falcon was 80's street-machine, the look didn't suit the car. These are 15x7 rims

Granada organ donor for the 65 Falcon

I'll get to the red paint shortly, but I think here is a good spot to insert where I sourced most of the heavy mechanical parts for the Falcon. Sometime in the future I will post an homage to donor cars with pictures of all the vehicle's who were condemned to the junkyard by my hand. I'm not proud, or particularly thrilled about sentencing otherwise usable cars to the crusher, but sometimes there is no better option towards the relentless and passionate pursuit of my goal.

I picked up this lovely 1977 Ford Granada in the S.F. Bay Area and drove her all the way home to Sacramento. I paid $1400. She had 53,000 original miles, was equipped with a healthy (but smogged down) 302 V8 engine, a C-4 transmission that shifted right and power disk brakes up front. This car also had everything I needed for the 5 lug conversion and more.

                                      . 
The day I brought the Granada home. It was a really nice looking car on this side. Good clean lines and I even like the color. All original paint, 1 owner car. This was around March, 2008.