ramenth
Well-Known Member
... is what Jamison named his '81 Cordoba.
Over the summer we had the chance to start working on his J-body. He'd put this thread up himself, but asked me to do it since school is keeping him pretty busy at the moment. He's in his junior year of high school and besides the normal high school thing he's just started in the local vo-tech in the diesel program.
I got the car out of the storage lot and to my shop so we could check it out.
I felt bad for the kid, really, to begin with. The car had a flat tire and I told him to go out and change it. He got the car jacked up and upon removing the offending flat he looked in and saw the left front frame rail was shot. He thought that was the end of the project right there.
Even though the last time he road in this car he was something like 6 or 7 years old he was devastated. He's been looking forward to fixing it up and using it as his driver. I told him not to worry about it. We still needed to get it in and up on the lift and I'd be the judge of what was junk and what we could save.
First, a little back story on the car itself:
His mother and father had a '76 Aspen R/T, 360/727, 8.25 Sure Grip car when Jamison was born. They were heading out of Ithaca, NY, right around when Jamison was 18 months, when they got ran off the road by a drunk driver. Totaled the Aspen, but, thankfully, my sister, Jamison's father, Jamison's sister, and the kid were okay.
But it left 'em in the lurch for a car. My then best friend had told me about a Cordoba sitting on a little buy here/pay here used car lot near where he worked. I'd checked it out but decided I didn't want it. Slant car just wouldn't do it for me and $1200 was a little too much for to spend on a car I knew I want to put work into to make it more my taste. But it suited my sister and her family just fine. They bought it.
The Cordoba was getting a little long in the tooth by the time my sister and her family needed another car, about ten years after I'd helped them buy it to begin with. I traded my '66 Newport 440 powered car to my then best friend for his '90 Daytona and turned around and sold the Daytona to Jamison's father.
When my sister and Jamison's father split up, Jamison's father still owed me some money on the Daytona, so he signed the title of the Cordoba over to me. I never had any intention of doing anything with it, but held on to it for some reason.
When Jamison's sister turned 18, 19 years old I offered it up to her, but she didn't want it and turned around and gave it to Jamison. He was about 13, 14, at the time.
So, now he's 16, got his permit, and decided it would be a good time to start on it. But start on what? The frame rail was gone, so he though the car was junk.
Don't tell me that a car can't be fixed.
Here's the pics of the car when we rolled it in to take a look.
Over the summer we had the chance to start working on his J-body. He'd put this thread up himself, but asked me to do it since school is keeping him pretty busy at the moment. He's in his junior year of high school and besides the normal high school thing he's just started in the local vo-tech in the diesel program.
I got the car out of the storage lot and to my shop so we could check it out.
I felt bad for the kid, really, to begin with. The car had a flat tire and I told him to go out and change it. He got the car jacked up and upon removing the offending flat he looked in and saw the left front frame rail was shot. He thought that was the end of the project right there.
Even though the last time he road in this car he was something like 6 or 7 years old he was devastated. He's been looking forward to fixing it up and using it as his driver. I told him not to worry about it. We still needed to get it in and up on the lift and I'd be the judge of what was junk and what we could save.
First, a little back story on the car itself:
His mother and father had a '76 Aspen R/T, 360/727, 8.25 Sure Grip car when Jamison was born. They were heading out of Ithaca, NY, right around when Jamison was 18 months, when they got ran off the road by a drunk driver. Totaled the Aspen, but, thankfully, my sister, Jamison's father, Jamison's sister, and the kid were okay.
But it left 'em in the lurch for a car. My then best friend had told me about a Cordoba sitting on a little buy here/pay here used car lot near where he worked. I'd checked it out but decided I didn't want it. Slant car just wouldn't do it for me and $1200 was a little too much for to spend on a car I knew I want to put work into to make it more my taste. But it suited my sister and her family just fine. They bought it.
The Cordoba was getting a little long in the tooth by the time my sister and her family needed another car, about ten years after I'd helped them buy it to begin with. I traded my '66 Newport 440 powered car to my then best friend for his '90 Daytona and turned around and sold the Daytona to Jamison's father.
When my sister and Jamison's father split up, Jamison's father still owed me some money on the Daytona, so he signed the title of the Cordoba over to me. I never had any intention of doing anything with it, but held on to it for some reason.
When Jamison's sister turned 18, 19 years old I offered it up to her, but she didn't want it and turned around and gave it to Jamison. He was about 13, 14, at the time.
So, now he's 16, got his permit, and decided it would be a good time to start on it. But start on what? The frame rail was gone, so he though the car was junk.
Don't tell me that a car can't be fixed.
Here's the pics of the car when we rolled it in to take a look.
