Dear east of Wilson, I sent you a message but don’t know if it went out. Anyway, I’m 73 now and not able to do too much. I bought the 1959 conv. In January of 1967 for 200 dollars. It was an impala-red with a black top. It had a 348-350 horsepower motor in it. I believe the block code was tc. It had a carter afb on it, part number 3721s which was off of a 1963 vette 327-300 horse motor. It had some rust in the rear floorboards but the rest of the car was solid. I put some thrush mufflers on it. I street raced the car very much around Durham and Hillsboro. Anyway, in September 1967 I got called up to us army. So I put the car in a barn on my grandma’s farm. When I came back from Vietnam in 1970, I went up to the farm in Hillsboro and put anew battery in it and it started right up. When I got back to Durham I began to street race the car whenever the situation arose. It had a powerglide aluminum case transmission in it and when I got that weight rolling it was almost unbeatable. Most race stories I have forgotten but once I was coming back from person county drag strip and a better got on my bumper. I hit it and pulled many car lengths from that. He would pull up on me again and I would pull away. This went on to roxboro. I know we were hitting at least 105-110 mph and this was on curvy back roads. I could not look at the speedometer because we were going too fast. But the needle was buried. You have got to have balls driving over 100 mph for extended period of time as I found out. I had been told that 348 and 409 motors were “breakers” and”boat anchors” but I can say that I have as much punishment to that 348 that I possibly could and that motor never failed me. Especially after sitting up for 3 years. I loved that car but in july1971 I bought a 1963 impala ss 409-340 horsepower with 42000 miles on it. This was a beautiful car. I put the 59 in the paper and it sold on first day. A lady with 2 kids came over and I let her have it for 150 dollars. I’ll put some pictures on here if I can figure out how. I hated to sell it but I could not afford 2cars on my salary. As far as parts ar concerned I’m not sure what I’ve got up in my garage. I know I’ve got a tach and a pair of cylinder heads that are complete number 690 and a matching aluminum intake 3814678. When I got my 63 in 1971 sometime after that , there was a guy in a local service station who had a nice 63 ss parked outfront . I went in one nite and he said he had a set of hi-perf heads and intake completely assembled. He said he bought these from a guy who had a63 409-400 wrecked. This guy said he put these on his 409-340 and it actually ran worse. They had been locked up since 1968. I gave him 100 dollars for them complete with pushrods. I have had them wrapped up in the house for 50 years. I hate that if something happens to me she will not know what they are and they will dissaper. I’ll put some more about other cars I’ve had if you are interested. James jones
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