My Time Capsule to the 1980s (and 60s)
Between 1984 and 1990, I had a whole fleet of 1960s cars that I worked on out of a rented storage barn. This was due to the neighbors' inability to see the history and grandeur of these classic cars - I lived in a condo at the time. Believe it or not, I am still paying rent on this garage mainly to store a car that is worth probably less than 1 years worth of storage payments, but oh well. This summer I will be trying yet again to form a plan to bring the Ford home. I bought this 1963 Galaxie in 1990, and actually drove it a bit. I stored it in the late fall of 90, and it has been sitting there ever since. It has some surface rust and dry rot, which is very normal. The car has only 60-something thousand miles on it, and as you can see by the front license plate, originated in New Mexico. Yes, that's a snow tire on the left front. It's a 390 4-barrel, 4-door sedan with dealer installed AC. Original color was white with turquoise interior and roof, but someone put one of those cheesy DIY vinyl roofs on it long ago (black) and it has turned to gunk. The plan is to see if I can get the tires to hold air and then get a tilt-bed hauler to come and winch it out, and deliver it to the Hoosier Garage.
Pictures should be self explanatory. The car is covered in gypsum dust from the decaying innards of the storage box. And the photos will depict a few recognizable Chevy parts, left over from those days. The last three depict the Bronco sitting outside the storage place (I forgot my gate code), and the results of a right front blowout on the Dodge on I-74. I didn't like the looks of the tires when I got the thing, but I was not in a big hurry to spend the $$ to replace them. I originally thought they were retreads due to the edge line I could see on them, but some people who have seen the photo say it's just an ordinary tread separation. When I got my new tires, the guys at the tire place told me the old ones had a date code of '6' meaning the tires were made in either 1996... or 1986. And I was driving on them in 2006. Oh well, not anymore. Put four new Kelly radials on it shortly after these photos were taken.