Just joined today after meeting a couple members @TMSBOSS and @4dMuscle this weekend at Barber. Great guys. Can’t thank them enough for the help this weekend and the ride in the GT350R.
I didn’t see a New Member Introduction forum so I decided to post here since I meet vintage requirements...personally and my car.
Anyway, when I was 20’ish I tracked a ‘83 GT for a couple years. Mid-Ohio, Atlanta, Charlotte. Got out for a long time to raise five kids.
In 2012 I purchased a rolling chassis ‘65 Hardtop off the side of the road for $1200 to build a dedicated track car with a goal of vintage W2W. Worked on it for a couple of years.
After stripping the chassis...
In 2015 I decided I wanted a ‘86 SVO so I started looking hard for one. Found several and decided to purchase one in Ohio. The night before I was to leave to purchase the car I saw a friend of close to thirty years in the grocery store. He told me he was selling his ‘66 GT Hardtop which he had owned and driven daily for over thirty-five years. He then proceeded to tell me that I was buying the car. Mind you we had not discussed any financial details. Long story short we worked out a deal and he brought me the car the week before Christmas 2015...without a penny being exchanged at that point.
When he brought it to me...all original paint and interior.
I drove and worked on the car for several years doing some car shows and such. Rebuilt the full suspension, rebuilt and installed a Toploader four speed. Rebuilt and installed a 8” Trac-Lok rear with 3.55’s. OEM engine finally gave way sometime in 2017 with what I believe to be over 240K miles. I had already started the engine build for the track car. So I finished the engine to HiPo spec with a true 289 HiPo solid lifter cam from Holman Moody. Drove it for a while longer...until the engine ran hot one day and performance fell off the cliff.
At that point I thought...I need to start getting some seat time. No time like the present. So a friend of mine had a ‘68 Mexican 302 block which he gave me and I built a the engine for what would have been for the track car, but I installed in the ‘66 GT. 100% vintage legal 289. 12.5:1 compression. Little bit of head work on some 289 heads. Custom Holman Moody solid lifter cam. I tracked the ‘66 GT for all of 2019. Final event for it was March 2020 at CMP when the Canton road race pan cracked in one of the lower sump rear weld seamsalmost putting me into the wall and spinning the guy behind me.
At that point, my wife said NO more...Park it and finish the race car. SOOOOOO, I spent the next ten Corona-Months of 2020 building the car. I finished it last Thursday night in preparation for the Barber event this weekend.
Anyway, thanks for having me. Look forward to meeting some of you other members at the track.
Kind Regards,
Patrick
I didn’t see a New Member Introduction forum so I decided to post here since I meet vintage requirements...personally and my car.
Anyway, when I was 20’ish I tracked a ‘83 GT for a couple years. Mid-Ohio, Atlanta, Charlotte. Got out for a long time to raise five kids.
In 2012 I purchased a rolling chassis ‘65 Hardtop off the side of the road for $1200 to build a dedicated track car with a goal of vintage W2W. Worked on it for a couple of years.
After stripping the chassis...
In 2015 I decided I wanted a ‘86 SVO so I started looking hard for one. Found several and decided to purchase one in Ohio. The night before I was to leave to purchase the car I saw a friend of close to thirty years in the grocery store. He told me he was selling his ‘66 GT Hardtop which he had owned and driven daily for over thirty-five years. He then proceeded to tell me that I was buying the car. Mind you we had not discussed any financial details. Long story short we worked out a deal and he brought me the car the week before Christmas 2015...without a penny being exchanged at that point.
When he brought it to me...all original paint and interior.
I drove and worked on the car for several years doing some car shows and such. Rebuilt the full suspension, rebuilt and installed a Toploader four speed. Rebuilt and installed a 8” Trac-Lok rear with 3.55’s. OEM engine finally gave way sometime in 2017 with what I believe to be over 240K miles. I had already started the engine build for the track car. So I finished the engine to HiPo spec with a true 289 HiPo solid lifter cam from Holman Moody. Drove it for a while longer...until the engine ran hot one day and performance fell off the cliff.
At that point I thought...I need to start getting some seat time. No time like the present. So a friend of mine had a ‘68 Mexican 302 block which he gave me and I built a the engine for what would have been for the track car, but I installed in the ‘66 GT. 100% vintage legal 289. 12.5:1 compression. Little bit of head work on some 289 heads. Custom Holman Moody solid lifter cam. I tracked the ‘66 GT for all of 2019. Final event for it was March 2020 at CMP when the Canton road race pan cracked in one of the lower sump rear weld seamsalmost putting me into the wall and spinning the guy behind me.
At that point, my wife said NO more...Park it and finish the race car. SOOOOOO, I spent the next ten Corona-Months of 2020 building the car. I finished it last Thursday night in preparation for the Barber event this weekend.
Anyway, thanks for having me. Look forward to meeting some of you other members at the track.
Kind Regards,
Patrick