What a great score, congratulations!!
Please post some full-body pics of the car (this website needs a centerfold every now and then
)
That is the best color combination you will find on a car, period. (...) Nice car, can't wait to see the photos.
Thanks to all for the positive comments. "Centerfold" pictures will have to wait. Space was at a premium around the car when
@Ripinator and I saw it, and as a result all of the whole-car and interior pics that I took this past Saturday clearly show the seller's face. I therefore don't want to post them here for privacy reasons (once a photo is publicly available on this site, it somehow gets indexed in internet search engines and there goes the person's privacy).
I may have an opportunity to take more pics till the end of this month, at the earliest. Work will be crazy till then (I am writing this on a quick lunch break), and work comes first. Meanwhile, below is a pic of the rear.
This is great! I'm surprised it's a SureGrip....are there remnants of a hitch on the back?
No remnants that I could see.
I am just repeating what the seller told me about the gears and SG -- I did not get under the rear diff to check. The seller's story is that he used to work as a mechanic for one of the biggest Chrysler dealerships in the DC area (a company that later took on Volvo and VW franchises, for which he worked as well). After driving a bunch of Mopar muscle cars in the late sixties (he's now in his 70's), he wanted something bigger/more comfortable that he could still take to the drag strip. He specced this U-code after seeing a blue/white/white 300 'vert delivered for a customer and falling in love with it -- a sequence of events that is consistent the late scheduled build date (June 9, 1970).
I have no reason to doubt his word, as he seemed like a straight shooter and everything that he said has panned out so far. Hopefully,
@david hill will be able to confirm it if he finds a build sheet when he spruces up the interior later this spring -- although the fact that the interior has been redone and the car repainted (and, if memory serves, the carpet replaced) lowers the likelihood that one is still in there. David and I will need to take off the interior rear side panels to fix a couple of tears (one on each side) and to free up the rear windows, so that is one more location we'll naturally have an opportunity to search -- that's how a build sheet was found for Poppy, my first C-body.
138 isn't high.. just over 2700 miles a year, it's been pampered.
2.7k miles on average, true. However, the last year when the car was registered is 2001 -- so we are just upward of 4k miles/year if we assume a constant annual mileage from 1970 till 2001 -- see the number plate below:
Still, I agree, even 4k/year would still be lowish mileage. This said, the seller told me that he had not driven the car for 35 years. Even if he referred to something different by "not driven for 35 years" than what I thought it meant, a life on the road limited to 1970-1985 would double the mileage to almost 9k/year. That might explain the "multiple" repaints and the front seats redo that he mentioned.
Regardless, you are right: this car clearly was given a lot of attention by the first owner and, as a result, it presents well today after sitting under a cover in a garage for all that time.
On the downside, lest you get the impression that it is all rainbows and unicorns, there was some work done in the rear. The seller had mentioned on the phone that the rear frame extensions have (had?) some rust, and the trunk pan shows clear evidence of bondo inside the trunk too. The rest of the car seems solid -- dunno why the rear was affected more than the front, perhaps clogged water drains? We shall see...
PS: as an aside, the seller had told me on the phone that the trunk was "solid" -- but his meaning (as
@saforwardlook guesses, probably just that one can still put heavy stuff in the trunk without worries) seems different than what I mean when I say "solid (original metal and no weak point).
