This page is to give you some idea of the known history of my Chevelle and briefly what I have done to it. I bought the car from Tom Richdale, a friend of mine. Tom is an ASE certified mechanic and kept the car in great mechanical shape. The car ran beautifully when I bought it and to this day it still does! At the time I knew little that there is to know about automobiles. I felt that I had to start somewhere, and what better than to rebuild a Chevelle?

The car was in pretty bad condition when I first bought it, as you can tell by the pictures above and below, taken a few days after I bought the car. At the time I was 15 and I did not have my driver's license. I did not really have any set plans for the car. I began by taking the trim off of the car, starting with the rocker panels. As I kept taking piece by piece off of the car one thing led to another and I began taking the entire front end off of the car. That is when I decided to restore the car. During that time I opened up my mind and began reading many different magazines. I resubscribed back to Hot Rod Magazine and from there I realized what a restoration would endure.

I began going to car shows with my father and going to the Englishtown Swap Meet, (at Raceway Park), in the spring and fall. I looked at many different restored chevelles and other types of cars. I began putting my ideas together in my head of what I want the car to look like. I started with just trying to get the car to look nice and not be full of holes.

From there I began shopping around for parts I needed and continued to take the car apart in our garage. I took the part of our garage my father and I made for restoring his 1967 Pontiac GTO. His car went to the other space in our garage still waiting for it's restoration.

Tom told me a story one day of where the car originally came from. He bought it from a small used car dealer in Somerville, NJ and the owner of the dealer told him the car came from a barn on the other side of town. The used car salesman told Tom that this couple moved into a new house with an adjacent barn. When they were cleaning out the barn they found the car under piles of hay. The couple did not want the car and chose to sell it to the used car dealer. From there Tom bought the car, supposedly the second owner, and kept it for about two years. Tom replaced each mechanical part that broke. He also did some minor engine modifications which are listed in the drivetrain page and aired the car out extensively.

Sometime in July of 1996 I was over Tom's house with my friend Matt Dmochowski. I noticed a "For Sale" sign duct taped to the inside of the front windshield. I asked Tom how much he wanted to sell the car for. He said that he wanted around $5,000.00. I told him I was interested in the car, but not for $5,000.00. He took me for a drive in it and drove me over to the Bagelsmith. James and I belive Ian were working that night. I told Tom I would think about it. I then came back to him on wednesday of that week. I told him i can give him $2,000.00 cash. He said that if I can get him the money by saturday the car was mine. I told him "You have a deal.". Saturday my dad and I went to the bank to withdrawl the $2,000.00 from my bank account. That was pretty much most of the money in my account. It was also the largest amount of cash I have seen at the time. We went over to Tom's house that morning and gave him the money. He then drove it over to my house and then the car was mine. It sat outside for that whole week. Then I made room in the garage for it and have kept it in the garage ever since.

The pictures you see on this page I took around 3 or 4 days after I bought the car. As you can see the car was a wreck. It still drove prefectly fine. The only problem was the condition of the convertable top, interior, and body panels. Click on any of the links to the left of your screen to read and see more about the rest of what I have done to my car.

Last updated on September 21, 1999 (7:08 PM)