The car began its return to new life on June 12th of 2007, and with high hopes to completely strip and rebuild the car before my dad could find out, I started right away with the teardown and ordering of parts. Aside from restoration parts that could be ordered from a catalog I had several hard to find parts that I needed to locate, and with the short schedule ahead of me I started right away.  About 90% of the stainless and aluminum moldings on the car are not currently reproduced, and after some internet and swap meet searches I was able to find most of it over a three month period. The required Muncie 4 speed transmission that my dad had was much easier to locate. A good friend, listening to my story about my dad’s car, let me know that he had a period-correct Muncie M20 wide-ratio transmission set aside in his garage and he would let me have it for a great price “if it was going into the car”.  The wide ratio turned out to be perfect for this heavy car, and I jumped on the opportunity.

The major metal work moved along rather quickly, with new floors and braces in the passenger compartment along with new inner/outer rocker panels, quarter skins, trunk floor and floor supports and many hand-formed body pieces complete within the first 3 months.  The body went off to the media blaster sometime that August while I completed the paint work on the chassis.  As for the engine, no expense was spared as it went through the full machining process with .030 over pistons, hopped-up camshaft, and ported factory heads.