I'll make this introduction short and sweet: These last few winters I have brought my O-1 car home to do some work to the sheet metal etc and to show my 14 year old son the ropes. He's a busy kid spread thin with sports and school and girls but I wanted him to at least learn mechanical skills if anything.. No pressure: just giving him the chance for something to reject
It hit me like a ton of bricks a few months ago that he doesn't have any interest in working on a car that is to be my opus.. Its WAY too anal, time consuming and expensive...I'm over the top with it and thats just no fun for him.
An opportunity fell into my lap with an abandoned project I've known of since 2001. After some though and a discussion with Mike about changing gears and making a hot rod that he can help craft there was a big attitude change around here that bordered on actual excitement..
So with 2 years to go before his license we are going to put this car back together...

Circa 1972 ish

Just so happens the car is an old drag car out of Texas & Arizona.. Rust free.. great options but butchered belly. check it out

The picture above was the day after we cleaned this garage out and found all the remaining parts in 5 different locations. We forgot our camera for day one Basically the reason the car didn't sell before me was people are very scared to take on totally disassembled projects.. and the car came with zero drive line..
Mike lumped all these parts into this upstairs office.. My friend Chet is letting us use this bay for the project.. Its an abandoned hot rod motorcycle paint shop...THANKS CHET

Feast your eyes

My man and I ready to rock. The good news is that the body shop is across the street so we can roll the shell over for weekend work and get out of Dodge by Monday morning

Theres gotta be 3 dozen drilled holes in the firewall, floor and rockers from stuff like trunk mounted batteries, straight up shocks and roll bars.. I did not have to strip the car but whomever had this thing was no craftsman

Very bad man torched out the back of the wells WITH the shock towers

8 hours later and Mikes learned to drill, cut, nibble, grind etc... even learned to drive the forklift.. This is what its all about...

I'll post about what we are hoping to accomplish and our driveline choice soon

Awesome that you guys are doing this together!!! Neat car from the options on the tag!!! Too bad the driveline is gone!

NO kidding.. Thats the reason I'd been passing on this car so long.. But now its HOT ROD time to a legit RS SS 4 speed deluxe interior console gauge car...........

BTW Sierra Fawn paint.... Thats a rare one

Excellent project Camaro for you and your son. Does Mike want to keep the Sierra Fawn color and Black Vinyl top? Cool color combo! Remember, we all came from humble beginnings and did things in our past that we wished we didn't so we learned from them. Your son couldn't have a better teacher! Once he goes through this he will have some idea how much work goes into them, but best of all how much fun they are to drive! Thumbs up!

Thanks T! Yes.. I don't want to get ahead of myself but the car is getting shot in Sierra and then the outsides getting some sort of custom 70's treatment..( hint: His highschool colors are blue and gold ) The underlying though being if later in life he chooses to make the car " normal " its an outside sand and shoot to make the car original paint color...

Yes.. I think vinyl tops going back on.. was looking at mod tops etc... can't find blue-gold-or wheat colors though...

Might have to buy the boy some bellbottom pants when this rig is done

Early thoughts are this paint style...

But the center would be the style of the Magic Powders gold band... and Magic Powders tire combo