The Idea
My name is Matt, Im 26 years old and I live in Tri-Cities, WA
I have had the urge to restore my parents’ old Trans Am, for many years, dating back to about 12 years old. I always liked the look of that car and remember riding in it when I was younger. It must be in a boys’ instinct to want to own or fix up something their parents owned. Possibly because of the memories that particular item has imprinted in the boys’ mind.
My memories of the car seem pleasant for the most part. I do recall getting pulled over many times by police while my mother was driving. I remember one time in particular my mother had gotten pulled over and told my brother Nick and I to start crying, in some sort of hope to have to officer sympathize with a mother with two crying boys in the car. While my brother and I were still young and by no means child actors, she slapped us both in her attempt to get us to cry. I don’t recall if that trick worked or not. If she got a speeding ticket that day or not escapes me.
Other memories of the car were standard as far as a child riding in a car goes. A two door American muscle car was hardly an appropriate vehicle for a mother with young children. It was a pain to have us load up in the back, car-seats and all.
Years pass, my parents had randomly stopped driving the car and it was parked. (I find out even more time later, that it was apparently because it had a slight exhaust leak and my mother was uncomfortable driving us around in it, in fear of the toxic fumes it could have subjected us to.) I watched the car grow old and fade over the years as I grew up. The car was later towed from in front of the house where cars were parked, out to the field behind our well house in which had nothing.
In about 2005, I was living at my mother’s house alone and I had an urge like I was going to actually start and do something with that car. The tires on the car were as flat as pancakes and the car was basically sunk into the ground. I borrowed a floor jack and got a piece of plywood to make a flat and stable surface, and I acquired new tires and I removed the wheels and replaced the tires. I also bought a new battery and attempted to start the car. It fired up after a few attempts and it brought joy and hope into my heart, just to hear the car start. I felt like there was still something I could do to rescue this Finley field doomed car.
Fast forward to about 2011, I was working with Gary and we had been tossing around the idea of me maybe borrowing some space in his shop to work on this car. At the time it was just a thought and he said sure. I was serious about it, to a point. I knew it was going to be a lot of hard work and I didn’t know much about cars outside of changing the oil. I also knew that I didn’t want to get too involved with it, because my mother still retained the title to the car in her name, and I knew better than to invest time/money into something that she legally owned.
Well another year went by and my mother procrastinated about ever getting to the title business. Gary and I mentioned the car again one day and it was almost like a light switch. He suddenly had this fire, this passion to do it. That of course got me excited because he was fully onboard with the idea. I then got my mother on the fast track to getting the title done, which by no means was fast. Then in May 2012 we had the title and we called up my uncle Mike and we got the car trailer and headed out to Finley. We got it loaded up and headed off to its next home for the next 1-2 years (hopefully).
The car seemed to be in relatively good shape. At the time I had no idea the extensive work we had in store. The interior was completely shot. No chance of salvaging much of anything. We started to disassemble the car. As we got deeper and deeper into it, all I saw was time and dollar signs. Gary always stays optimistic and hopeful, which helps me stay the same way.
Once we got the carpet up and the truck opened, I thought we were dead meat. The floor pans on the passenger side had extensive water/rust damage that had eaten through the floor. And there were 2-3 cases of beer that had been abandoned in the trunk for who knows how many years that had exploded and leaked to rot out the trunk pan in various places.
Still, Gary was very optimistic and acknowledging that while it would be a lot of hard work, it was all repairable. So we thrive on.
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