If so please stop and see us.

and bring some of those cold Jabbruzzesi's to share.....

ebo

 

Barry

 

 

Tell us a little more about your car.  How did you come to own it?  What condition is it in and what do you plan on doing with it?

Thank you all for the warm welcome.

I plan on heading to Carlisle on Friday for the day; hopefully I will meet a few of you. I'm sure ebo will be easy to spot as it seems that is where the trouble/fun will be!! 

To answer tb2k82ce's question, I could just take the easy way out and just say that I bought my 71' LS5 convertible last year and be done with it. But since you asked...

I'll start with some background and context leading up to this purchase.

 

I bought my 90' L98, automatic, convertible in 93' from a guy that needed to sell it because he was getting married and was buying a new Ford Explorer, poor b@stard... I wasn't looking to buy a vette but a friend worked for this guy and I said if he every sells it let me know, well the opportunity presented itself and I bought it. He DROVE it, so it was no trailer queen. But now the car has a much better life, I would not hesitate to drive this car anywhere; it even went to NCM once and Carlisle once. 

So 9 years go by (2002 now) and I'm at a kids b-day party and this time my friends neighbor is selling a 65' 327 4spd triple black convertible vette for the family of the owner that passed away. He asked if I was interested, I liked it a lot but money was tight and I lacked  adequate garage space. Well I let that one get away, did I mention it was only $25k.. ugh.. Still to this day I'm kicking myself for not buying that car. 

Well here we are again July 2011, minding my own business, took my 90' to the local mechanic to get the A/C charged and sitting out front is this 71' 454 4spd, Brands Hatch Green, convertible. I go inside and the counter guy says "nice car huh? It's for sale if you're interested". Oh my, here we go again!! I say it's beautiful but same old story, money is tight and still lack adequate garage space. I go home thinking about it, and tell the wife about it. She remembers missing out on the 65' and says just buy the car. How many wives say that? So I called him back and said I was interested and the sale dragged out for a few months because the owner was getting divorced and they had to figure out how to split the car. Now the dilemma, where do you store 2 vettes (never, ever, ever thought I would have this problem!!)? Now I have to get creative; do I have enough ceiling height to stack the cars? I have a 9' 1" ceiling, the vettes are ~48" high each, the 4 post lift runways are ~5" high, that leaves ~8" to spare, split that between the 2 cars and 4" doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room. I researched 4 post lifts but wasn't going to buy one until I knew I was getting the car, well I ended up buying one. I have to say the 4 post lift was the best tool that I ever bought, I don't have enough room to stand up straight under the car but it makes it much easier to work on the car.

The 71' is great, and is a numbers matching car. During the restore the PO did some upgrades that can be undone if I wanted. He installed Hooker sidepipes, MSD ignition (this thing starts right up all the time, great upgrade), Edelbrock Torker II (I've read so-so reviews on this but there aren't many options), a Holley 750cfm, and a VBP Rear Leaf Spring. The PO gave me the original exhaust manifolds, intake and QJ.

It also has a black interior and should be green; I will probably change it back to green at some point.

I left a lot out, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Regards,

John