The Big Extraction
Not a good week
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I recently took part in a rather hurried recovery of one of my projects in the making. After dozens of unanswered calls and messages I finally figured out what was going on and acted quickly to recover the car and most of the parts I left for completing the metal work on my 1962 Impala convertible that I had acquired a few years back. It needed the “full Monte” with rockers, quarters, trunk pan, floor pans and supports, etc. Paul Stensland was instrumental in connecting me with CARS, Inc. for most of the replacement metal, many thanks to him for that support
. I passed all that along to what I thought was a competent body man but I was far from correct in that judgement. I blame myself for not being more aggressive and monitoring progress better over the past year. I guess I could claim that I was too busy with other things and trusted someone to do the right thing, but that dodges the situation and my role in it. I should have known better…
When I first vetted this guy, he had a lot of the qualifications that one might see as positive. Vietnam veteran (Navy), late 60s, ran a body shop in New Jersey for 40 plus years, retired to raise horses with his wife (who was a Veterinarian) on a piece of ground in rural Missouri. Good references, mainly from boat owners who hired him to do fiberglass repairs, etc. Fooled me good
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I should mention that I always wanted a 1962 convertible, Dad had one back in the mid 60s when I was a teenager. Lots of fond memories of towing his lake boat with his convertible out to Edgewater and running about in Lake Erie (I grew up in the SW suburbs of Cleveland). So I wanted to capture a bit of that past and have one of my own in honor of Dad, who passed some 12 years ago. I was fortunate to have a candidate show up in my own backyard (well, 12 miles away to be exact) and snapped that up as my starter kit. I knew it needed a lot of metal work, but it was a start. Looking back, I should have purchased a more solid candidate, but those always seemed far away and out of reach price wise.
After purchasing the proper metal parts from CARS (again, special thanks to Paul Stensland) I sought out some competent metal bumpers to get the project rolling. I knew James could do most anything needed, butI knew he was into several other major projects and thought I’d go "outside" for some support while we worked on the drive train, etc. Well, James took care of that part but I screwed up in selecting a body man who had some good references. It all looked good at the outset, I saw several of his projects, including several Corvettes that were repaired and painted to a level that looked promising. He also did a lot of fiberglass work on boats, as he was near a large Lake of the Ozarks. Drunken boaters provided him with a lot of side jobs. One problem was he was 90 miles away. Second was over time he stopped answering my calls. I did make several treks out there, sometimes unannounced, to check on progress, which was slow to non existent…
More later once I regain the courage to share the details of my misfortune. I suspect you know where this is heading...