When my son was 14 in 1994 I told him I would build him a hotrod, he could pick the body style and drivetrain, well he looked and looked at thrifty nickel new papers and car ads and one day he found this ad for a 1950 Ford 2dr for sale in a nearby town. We drove over to look at it, the man was asking 1000.00 for the car, I told my son not to say anything and let me do the negotiations, we arrived and the car was a little worse shape than I had hoped for, it was just a shell with no drivetrain and a Ford truck rear end stuck under the back to roll around, there was no interior and most of the glass was bad, but my son was instantly in love with it, he could hardly control his excitement, as we looked it over and talked with the owner, I felt like the car was worth 500.00 as we were going to have to source a lot of parts to fix it up, my son just kept telling me it was perfect and would be so cool , he really liked the shoebox fords.
Well I had told my son he would have to pay for the car so he would have some skin in the game and he had worked and saved the 1000.00 and had it in his pocket with him, I make the owner an offer of 500.00 and he declined and said he could sell it for 1000.00 easily, my son was squirming worried that we were not going to make the deal, we talked a little more and finally the owner said he would take 800.00 for the car, my son blurted out that he had that much in his pocket right now, well that was the end of negotiations and we bought the car and carried it home on a trailer next weekend.
He studied all my motor books and chilton books looking for the right motor and transmission, one day he tells me he found what he wanted to use, it was a 1970 Cadillac 500 motor because it made 500 ft lbs of torque and 400 HP from the factory and room for more power, I was a little taken back as I had figured he would want a ford motor like a 460 or something like that, but no he was sure he wanted to do that.
Well I started searching for a motor and in the process I met Larry Kruzick and Racheal G. at CAD motorsports development, Larry was very kind and helpful with the parts and information to build this motor for a street rod, we purchased the parts 512 blackbird kit and Racheal sent my son a poster of her with Larry's 500 Dragster, he had that in his room for a long time and was very proud of it. We built the engine and I mounted it in the chassis with some modifications along with the turbo 400 we bought and rebuilt, my son busted his knuckles and studied to know how to do this, we had some great times together doing this, we got it running and drove it for the first time with his learner permit, he was very excited, over the next year we upgraded the gauges to Dakota digital dash with full gauge package and shift indicator, his grandparents paid for the interior to be redone after we found a set of front and rear seats. We shaved all the chrome off and slicked the body and then had it painted bright red. There were a lot of other problems that we worked through to make it a reliable driver.
Fast forward to 2023 Sadly my son passed away in Feb this year it was sudden and unexpected, he left behind a 13 year old son and 12 year old daughter. The car had been setting since 2013 as life had taken over them and they had moved around several times. I bought the car from them and told my grandson I would fix it up for him to drive to school, I have been working on some major upgrades, such as adding EPAS Electric steering, Power disc brakes and Sniper 2 fuel injection, along with other normal maintenance items, hoses, belts, tires and ect. I hope to have all this done for his 15th birthday in March of 2024 so he can start to learn to drive in it.
