'77 Volare Premier wagon FOTD on Hemmings

old yellow 78

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Well I'll be!!! An actual Volare wagon on Hemmings Find of the Day feature! This one is....nice, but.... the auxiliary fuel tank spoils the cargo area. Are gas stations that hard to find in Maryland? Otherwise, it is a very nice survivor and comments reflect how rare it is to see any Volare/Aspen these days. I really like the color and it has my favorite grille style of all the F's: the '76/'77 Volare grille. Of course the haters can't resist making the stupid "malaise" comments although they have to keep it restrained now that Hemmings threatened to pull the entire feature a few months ago when so many comments about FOTD articles became too hateful recently. Sign of the times I suppose.
https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/cars-for-sale/plymouth/volare/2296934.html?refer=blog
 
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Trey

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The body on that car looks good for 130K miles and being from Maryland. It's not priced toooo bad. Looks like it had some nice options too. I see power seat and cruise control, although I don't see the servo under the hood for the cruise. Surprised to see headers on it.
 

Opticon77

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The takedown...

1) What is that "rear torsion bar"? That term is used for reinforcements to twist-beam dead axles on the back of FWD cars. Is that an anti-sway bar from another platform just clamped to the axle tubes? That's not how live axles work.

2) "Exhaust Manifolds with dual Exhausts to rear" turns out to be ground draggers, mix-n-match pipes with band clamps, and wonky side exits. There's an indicator of build quality if I've ever seen one.

3) "New Cams & Valves" ... Typo? or is this actually a FWD DOHC kid playing with an old car?

4) "New Torque Converter (2019) to compensate for rebuilt engine" ... Stock replacement or does compensate mean a 4000rpm stall?

5) Roller Tappets/Heavy Duty Rocker Arms/Ported and Polished Heads ... HMMM. Rocker ratio? Valve size? Ported with a dildo on a Makita wrapped in 40 grit? Because it's not striking me like a machine shop kinda project.

6) "Electric Vacuum Pump to compensate for new cam" ... HA! Yeah I thought you went too far. Probably murdered velocity with a high duration carb, intake, cam, porting, and headers but can't flow anything through the stock valves at high RPM either. Might even have the stock 7:1 compression.

7) Electric Fuel Pump. Aux 25 Gal. Fuel Tank with Electric Switching between Main & Aux. Fuel tanks"... Well now I'll not step withing Hollywood explosion range of the thing.


It's a nice body but 10 grand is a bit much knowing I'd have to redo all that.
 
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Aspen500

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It isn't so much the modifications, it's the QUALITY of the modifications. It looks kind of, well,,,,,,,cobbled. When the work you can see looks that way, what about the work done that you CAN'T see (like the engine)? Plus the fact the seller sounds to know very little about cars. Nothing that couldn't be fixed for the right selling price though. It appears to be a very solid base to start with, meaning rust free (from what I can see).
 

old yellow 78

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Well now I'll not step withing Hollywood explosion range of the thing.
Very good point!! I just don't get the auxiliary fuel tank idea. I'm assuming that it is located under the blanket in the rear cargo area, attached to the big sheet of plywood - but maybe not. If so, it completely ruins the usefulness of the cargo area, and it is completely unsafe and very likely illegal. I don't know where else it would be located. Dumb idea.

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Darth-Car

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Yep I saw it the other day on Hemmings, since I now receive their daily newsletter after listing Darth Car on their site. Darth Car is half the price, and far straighter than this car, and he did not get featured as a deal of the day. :(
 

Aspen500

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I wondered about why the extra fuel tank also. If you're going to drive across the Sahara desert or something, where I'd guess gas stations don't exist, then it would be useful. Unless it's a fuel cell, I'd be uneasy about having a fuel tank inside the car. Then again, pickups had the tank behind the seat until the early '70's. Like I always say, to each their own.:D

At least there's a fire extinguisher next to it. Unsecured, but it's there. Unsecured cargo. You know what that becomes in a crash,,,,,,,,,a missile.
 
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