Received an email from a buddy of mine about this thread last night. Been out of the loop for a while and lost interest in my cuda but I hope to have it on the road one of these days - soon. I appreciate the
about my Cuda. I remember these crazy paint schemes when I was young and when I had a chance to purchase the 71 below I jumped at it. Partially because the car hasn't been on the road since 1977 and it is just super solid. The paint was done in the early 80's by the second owner who took it off the road. He was building this car for the World of Wheels circuit I was told.
Basically the second owner never finished the car and after his death in the late 90's the guy I purchased the car off of bought it. When I originally saw the car it was in a barn in upstate NY and on the drive home from looking at it my buddy asked me if I was going to buy it and if so what I would do with it. I told him I was going to buy it because of how solid it was and I would most likely repaint the car. Well, after getting it home a few weeks later and out in the sun I was just blown away by the colors and craftsmanship of what went into painting this car. No way I could paint it so I decided to put it back together as best I could without going overboard with the craziness. Basically the interior is and will be all stock. Other than the wild paint scheme, custom hood and a ton of parts chromed it's pretty much the same as a 71 Cuda should be - no custom grill or flares or other body ad ons. I am forgetting the frenched in rear antennae though.
Seeing how wild the car looked I then figured it better be able to walk the walk if it looked that wild so I put a 511 Arruzza Hemi in it with a Keisler five speed setup. The Dana was already in the car and is a 70 E body vintage. Car was originally a 340/4 speed, Tawney Gold and a two fender tag car. I do have the original engine.
Looking forward to getting back on the road and like I said it hasn't seen any pavement for 30 + years. I think these wild paint scheme cars are coming back in favor a bit. It definitely won't appeal to all hopefully the haters will at least appreciate the work that went into some of these cars. I do agree some are more tasteful than others, not sure if mine is one of them but I'm just carrying on with what the second owner started. I do like the cars that have been posted. Love to see some of them in the flesh.
Link to a bunch more pictures :
http://www.putfile.com/album/29955
