Bad Wolf racing

Good luck on the build, sounds like you are doing one similar to the one I am doing

BTW, if interested, O'Neal and Sons Upholstery here in Plant City did the upholstery and interior work. onealandsons.com I gave them my vision of a "stock appearance with modern safety and comfort" and I think they knocked it out of the park.

Those are factory buckets from OPGI but I had the foam custom cut and stitched up with leather. I'm trying to keep it as original looking as I can while adding a little comfort and safety for the track. Wanted the bolsters to help hold me in hard corners. I'm not putting in a roll bar so 5 point harnesses are out of the question and I installed true 3 point. For the track I'll wear a Hans Hybrid that works with 3 point belts.

I'm in Plant City. Great area but I've been fighting city hall for 3 years to get a variance to build a garage beside my house. If you move here try to stay out of the cities. Here's the issue I live on what they consider a "corner lot" in the historic district. By corner there is a single car wide poorly maintained alley between me and the two neighbors on it. By being a "corner lot" not only do they want a 10 foot easement but another 15ft from that before you can build; that's 10 feet from my house. I only have a 15 foot wide back yard so no room there. I finally had to hire an attorney and he is getting frustrated with them now. Both neighbors have given me signed affidavits that they are more than OK with this (did I mention the guy behind me is rebuilding his first car (a Toyota 4X4) and the guy across the alley has a turtleback t body on an A chassis with a flathead 8 plus two other 1930's and 40's era cars in the back of his garage?). The city even verbally agreed to a smaller footprint so I reluctantly agreed but then they backed out of that. Of course there are developers violating all kinds of rules within 2 houses of me. I think me asking who they paid off so I could pay them off too may have had a negative affect on me LOL. One thing here there is a great car culture, year round cruises and shows, in fact we have a monthly one in Downtown Plant City called the Strawberry Classic Cruise in. Only 1996 and earlier cars can compete for awards but they allow any year / make / or model. We occasionally even bring the wife's highly modified 18 Camaro SS with our Modl A and / or Monte.

I've done a few recently and have a few more to build. I too did it as a kid, did it with my son as he grew up, and now I'm back doing some again

Well I see I joined the right group. LOL

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome. It's been a real treat this last week after getting everything dialed in to where it's a reliable driver. I've been daily driving it to work every day (30 miles each way) to make sure it's reliable enough. I'm taking to my buddies restoration shop (about 400 miles away) under it's own power instead of a trailer. My wife will be caravanning with me to bring me home. I figured "one last road trip in it before a complete overhaul. What's funny is the whitewalls you see in the picture of it coming out and on the trailer after my parents passed a couple years ago are the exact tires you see on it at the Super Chevy Show from about 1990. What is funny is when I got it home to FL I left it on the trailer and over the next couple of weeks, the tires exploded one by one from dry rot just sitting on the trailer LOL.

Probably the 50 year old spring has just worn out and weakened. I would try just replacing the spring first.

Ditto, painted behind the chrome black and left the chrome face. About to rechrome i so may go back to the factory look.

Due to the level of build I'm doing, I worked with Hagerty on the value of the car once complete and I went high; I anticipate having close to $50K and they didn't bat an eye. I don't recall the premium but it was very inexpensive for what I got.

And here is a picture of it seeing daylight for the first time in about 3 decades.

I finally joined... I bought my 1972 Monte when I turned 16 in 1984. Was told I was crazy for paying $3,500 for it, I laughed then and I laugh now. Car was nearly destroyed by an unscrupulous body shop in the early 90s and I was lucky enough to get it back ... in pieces ... on a flat bed. We (my wife and I) had a young child by then so into dry storage it went for a "few years" I thought. Now over 25 years later my parents unfortunately passed away and the dry storage was at their home in N GA so it saw light for the first time in over 2 decades as I used my fathers vintage Ford 600 tractor to pull it from his basement workshop to the driveway where I loaded it onto my trailer with a manual come along. My son is now grown and I helped him build his 97 Trans AM, my wife has almost her dream car (her dream car was a 79 Z28 she saw in high school, bright blue) she now has a heavily built hyper blue 18 Camaro SS she races in the Optima Ultimate Street Car events ... where the Monte is now destined in the vintage class. It started as a 350 2bbl basic Monte Carlo, bench set, but did have the rear window defroster and tilt wheel option. As soon as I got it, as a gear head kid I immediately started modifying it and got it to about 350hp. Restored it after graduation and showed it around the Atlanta area. best feeling was taking a top 5 at the Super Chevy Show in Atlanta. I had the 3rd fastest student owned car in high school behind a buddy in a Z28 and another friend in a Chevelle. Now that I drug it out and after a good bit of work now have it running and driving again, I put in a QA1 pro touring suspension, redid the interior with factory buckets and manual console except I used black leather for the upholstery, added better front seat bolsters, and a true 3 point seatbelt but all designed to look as close to stock as possible. I'm taking it this weekend to a friends shop in GA (Morris Body Shop and Restoration) to have a complete frame off rotisserie restification done. Every nut, bolt washer, etc. will be taken and brought back to new condition. Replacing all the gauges and factory lights with the factory gauge package, dropping in a highly built big block, a Tremec 6 speed, 4 wheel disk (probably from Wilwood), and am figuring what size tire I can run with the lower stance. I'm keeping the 15 inch rallies with 225/70R15s for street and show, but am looking at 18 inch Cragar SS for the track to keep the period look while being able to run high performance tires. The original color was sandalwood with a dark green vinyl top, I had it repainted yellow back in the 80s with a black top while retaining the sandalwood bench interior. On this restification I'll be keeping the yellow with black vinyl top but already mentioned I switched to black leather factory style buckets. I'll be sharing pictures of the build as it progresses and am hopeful to have it at the Ultimate Street Car events and car shows in 2023. I also hope to get it to some eastern meets of the FGMCC. Below are pics from the Super Chevy Show circa approx 1990, pictures from last week at a rides and Coffee in Tampa, and even a picture of my wife in her Camaro "beast" and me with our 29 Model A

As a road course racer we are required to have our windows down for safety crews to be able to get to us. Are you running with windows up in drag racing to reduce drag? Would it be possible to run windows down without losing ET?