I was born, February 11, 1956, in the car crazy northeastern Indiana town of Auburn. The town was the home of the Auburns, Cords, and Duesenburgs but classics like these were not in my youth. I grew up working on and racing oval track cars, homemade chassis with small black Chevy’s for power. I was the chief gasket scraper and head gopher. The smell of alcohol and rubber still takes me back to those days. As with most of the kids growing up in the late 60’s and early 70’s, my dreams were crushed about 1973 with the gas crunch and insurance company shutting down Detroit muscle cars. These were the dark years muscle cars were being replaced by Opels, Datsons, Pintos, and Vegas. My family stopped racing oval tracks.
By 1977 I purchased new the only thing I still considered cool, a F100 flareside red with black interior 302 Ford pickup. This was my weekend cruiser and I had a $100 beater as a daily driver. This went on thru the late 70’s to mid 80’s. I then got married and had a couple of children. At this time, I started to get serious about my father’s refrigeration business. About 1983 or 1984 I needed to get back to swinging wrenches, time in the garage where a man can be a man, the smell of gasoline and the roar of a V8. However, how would that happen when all of the newer cars were wimpy V6, computer controlled and metric? All I knew was 4 barrel V8s that only required basic hand tools and basic skills. That is the background of my present almost full time hobby of Novas.
In 1983, while on a refrigeration service call, I spotted a 66 four door Nova for sale. This was a V8 car and at a price I could afford $300. I purchased the car, brought it home and with very little money I had a project that started me on my way and just kept getting more involved with these cars. In the last part of the 80’s I went through a divorce. I had my family refrigeration business doing well, but I needed to keep myself busy. I really cranked up my car hobby. I can remember buying a car a week. These were scrap cars that most people would have crushed. I was just into parts for the sport coupe cars I had. This slowed down thru the early 90’s when I got remarried and had two more children.
In 1995 my interest in the hobby got a big boost when I traded my F100, bought new in 1977, for a rust free red/black 283 SS automatic Georgia car. This was the leap from the driver car hobby to the now show car hobby. I love the show cars but seem to need the drivers more. I keep buying these low mileage four doors and those priced right parts cars. I now have three low mileage four doors; two 66 (one with AC) and a 67. I also have six SS cars; five 66 and one 67. They are not all show. They range from roller parts to show and everything in between.
I also usually have two or three parts cars at a time. I have never kept track but I estimate around two hundred cars that I have owned in the last twenty years. Then there are the parts that I have collected over the years. It is hard to keep track of as I sell and buy parts daily. I really enjoy the parts part of this hobby. People are happy to find someone who knows their stuff and won’t rip them off. The hobby I have enjoyed for so long is real close to becoming my profession. I prefer it just be an obsession. I have a profession, the refrigeration business, which I now own and operate has been really good to me. On August 2005 the hobby I have enjoyed once again changed with the purchase of a 66 L-79 Wagon; numbers matching, documented 23k, true and correct. It may be the only one known to exist today. The interest in this car has changed the way I’ve been collecting cars and parts. I now will concentrate on a no holds barred restoration on this piece of GM history.
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