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Tom and Kevin, the cars look great!!!! Glad you got them out at least once this year!!!

The car show at the beach started out from my house had lots of fun

Washed my Monte and washed the wheels/tires and rotated them then took a small drive.

Tommy I replaced the trunk floor in my 71 with a whole floor for a 71/71 Chevelle, I believe it was from AMD. I bought it from Leo Konik a member here that runs Koniksklassics, he has many Monte Carlo parts. Leo also talked me through the replacement of the floor. Leo’s insite was really helpful, great guy that is recommended by many on this site. I was able to install the whole trunk pan from below (my car was off the frame at the time also). I removed/ replaced the trunk drop offs which gave me a little extra room. It is tight with the quarters on but can be done. I cut the Chevelle back brace off and spliced it to the Monte rear brace as mine was in good shape. I will try to add some pictures. It came out great and no one have been able to tell that the trunk was ever replaced.

Many here know my dream car would be a 1970 or 1971 Monte 402 4-Speed. Nothing against those who would prefer an SS454 but I just can’t understand why Chevrolet didn’t produce a Monte SS with a manual transmission so my preference would be a 402 4-Speed over an SS454. A number of years ago I met a guy who had one. Almost immediately we became Car Guy Friends. I always told him that if he ever decided to sell that car to please let me know. A few years later he called me and said he had cancer and needed to sell all of his cars so his wife would not have to deal with selling them after he is gone. He asked me to help him sell them. At the time I did not have enough money to purchase the 71 402 4-Speed but I was able to hook him up with someone to purchase one of his Chevelle's and I sent him 3 people who were interested in the Monte. Two of those three people called me and told me that he would not sell him the 402 4-speed. When I called him, he said he didn't want to sell it to them because he knew I wanted it and would hold onto it a little longer. A year later I ran into him at a cruise and he had his Monte there. I told him at the time I was ready to buy the Monte if he still wanted to sell it. He told me that it turned out he did not have cancer but knew I was still interested in his car and I would be the first person he would call if he decided to sell it. Time passed and I didn’t run into him at cruises and suspected things had gone bad for him and pretty much gave up on seeing the 402 4-Speed ever again A couple years after I retired in 2013 I took a part time job at Home Depot to stay active and one day he came into the store and we renewed our friendship and he told me he still had the Monte. The last time I saw him he did not look good at all. He told me that he had been diagnosed with mouth cancer but they felt they were going to be able to get him through the treatments. Fast Forward to this past week. I got an email from his wife that he had gone in to the hospital for a heart valve replacement and while in the recovery room he had a heart attack passed away a week later in the ICU. She said Brian had mentioned me often and trusted me and she needed to sell his 4 remaining cars and asked if I could help her assess a value on them. Some of our members here know the rest of this story because I contacted a number of people from the club to see if between me researching the values of his cars on line and our members input I was able to get a rough value for his 4 cars. The 4 cars are: - 71 350 3-speed on the floor bucket seats and console Chevelle Convertible 43,000 miles, - 1980 350 4-Speed El Camino, - 1977 400 engine and 4-speed Pontiac Trans Am 54,000 miles, - 1971 402 4-Speed Monte Carlo 65,000k miles Thanks to all who gave me information I would be able to provide to his widow. Last night our granddaughter and I went to look at the cars in person so I could look them over and give her an honest value as best I could. His widow told me she had already gotten an appraisal from a guy who is a dealer and he was giving her an offer to buy all 4 of the cars but his appraisal was considerable amount below her husbands estimated value of the cars. I told her to please not tell me what he was offering for each of the cars until I could look at them. The reason, I told her, that I did not want to be influenced by his appraisal and I wanted to show her the values I had come up with from my research on the 4 vehicles prior to her telling me the appraiser’s value. As it turned out the appraiser’s values on 3 of the 4 cars was very low but the one car the appraisers value was way too high on was the 71 Monte 402 4-speed.. This is where my disappointed day came into play. As I gave her the approximate value on each of the other 3 cars first I was glad to hear what he was offering for each of the other cars was too low it was my hope that his offer on the Monte was below what it was worth so I figured I would be able to buy it myself I was very upfront with her on each of the cars, including the Monte and I told her that while I would love to own the Monte, not only because it is my “Dream Car” but also because it was a her husbands favorite of the 4 cars, but I told her that with the appraiser being $10,000 to $12,000 over the estimated value of the car that there was no way I could come up with that kind of money for the Monte. I did tell her that if the deal with the other guy would fall through that she should please call me. I would love to own the car but I could never compete with a millionaire collector/dealer willing to over pay for the car by that much. Thanks for listening/reading my disappointing day post. rob