There comes a point in every race car build when the project actually starts to feel like a race car. For many of us, that time is when you can actually sit in it. Well, in a racing seat and not a milk crate!
Gary Faules and his crew have been hard at work getting Lucky ready for the 2007 edition of La Carrera Pananmerica. You can follow their progress at Gary’s build blog.
Now hold on there a dad burn minute. LOL. I can recall a time when a milk crate would have been something more akin to luxury than what I was used to. I grew up on a ranch in Southwestern Oregon. I found an abandoned 37 Ford pickup out in the forest and even thought there was no motor or running gear in the eyes of a 16 year old it had the makings of a rear crowd pleaser. The first obstacle was to borrow my father’s chainsaw and harvest a tree that grew up thru what used to be the floor and then branched out thru the windows. Once the tree was removed it was an easy pull with the tractor back to the shed next to the shop. The best “fifty-dollar” motor in the wrecking yard was a 396 Olds but it bolted up perfectly to a GM four speed trans that a friend let me have. A few weeks later a friend had a mishap with his GTO so that rear end found it’s way into my old truck.
After building a removable plywood floor for future quick change clutch jobs all that was left was something to sit on. It took a few months to find just the right thing so in the mean time my test drives were confined to using a wooden apple box. I had my eyes on a set of bucket seats out of a Falcon Sprint but since they were worth more than a 16 year old had the seats had to come from whatever truck had the best fit.
A few cases of flat-black primer later and a set of mags and that bad boy was the talk of the town.
So I guess you can see, even a milk crate may be one man’s treasure but whatever you sit on it seems the seat is always one of the last things on the builder’s list or priorities. Isn’t it ironic since it’s the first thing a driver puts on.
There many memories of sitting in a partial build pretending to drive. It doesn’t matter how old you are either, it’s always fun to daydream!