How Perfect Does It Need To Be?

One of the blessings with re-creating a vintage race car is that it doesn't have to be 100% perfect. I wasn't building a replica Show Car, I was building a replica RACE CAR. That made a difference in my approach.

These cars often saw a lot of dings and creases to the body simply between unloading the car at the track and the end of the first practice. Add to that the fact that a driver often raced on an asphalt track on Sunday in one town, spent time sideways on a dirt track the following Wednesday evening, and then put the car to the test in a bullring in some other podunk town on the Saturday after that, all with the same car! Sometimes it was a wonder the car still had fenders, much less paint.

But please don't read into my explanation that I wasn't planning to put a good effort into making a very nice-looking stock car clone. I just simply had the luxury of not having to build a Concourse-quality restoration for my replica to effectively represent the period and be attractive. In fact, many of the folks who check out Fireball at car shows come away more convinced the car was the real deal because it isn't "too perfect".

So, I filled those 161 little holes, shaved the fenders and trunk, sanded and primered the car, and had it ready for paint. I could still see small areas where the lower line of a quarter panel wasn't exactly perfect... where the molding line in the roof wasn't dead-on... and where the crown of the hood had a slight low spot. And painting the car brought them out even more so. But in finished form, that doesn't detract from the overall impression of the car.

Likewise the accidental color-changing nature of the bluish-purple paint. The pure pigment red paint we added to the light metallic blue acrylic enamel didn't blend perfectly , and drew the metallic like a base coat, causing the color to shift slightly as you see it in differing light. And the fact that my dad (71 years old at the time, and insisted he paint it) painted the car on what had to be the hottest day of the year; the fact it has ANY gloss is a testament to his experience and expertise.

The decals (created by Odie at Predator Graphix - I am forever in your debt) that replicate what would have been hand painted numbers and race graphics don't take away from the image of a beautiful car from a golden era of stock car racing... When Stock Cars WERE Stock.

The pictures of my car on this page were all taken at ALL-AMERICAN SPEEDWAY in Roseville, CA. I want to thank them for letting me have access to the track for this series of photos.

I'd Like To Thank The Academy...

Very few, if any, projects like this are done alone. Someone, somewhere, made something available, lent a hand, lent inspiration, gave advice, or maybe just offered moral support.

Some pages on this site, like my "About Me" pages, are just for vanity. Then again, pretty much every site on CarDomain.com is created as a result of a car owner's vanity and pride in his car and his efforts to make that car special, even if only to him. (Or her... I've noticed more than a few ladies' rides on here.)

In my case a significant part of that vanity is to acknowledge those people in my life that made Project Fireball possible, no matter how big or small the contribution. So, here goes...

 Thank You!!  

First of all, to my beautiful wife , for her love and support, for showing interest in the project even when I know she has no interest in hot rods or understanding of a guy's interest in this kind of project, for giving up quite a few weekends with me, for buying me a lot of cold Pepsi, for putting up with a lot of my cussing... and for her good-natured eye-rolling. (Hey, guys... I know where my bread is buttered!)

My dad , for his vast car knowledge, his help, his advice, his painting skills, and more than a few parts that I might not otherwise have been able to afford! (Okay, for the beer, too.)

My mom , for many lunches while I was working on the Galaxie at their place. And just for being my mom.

Fireball Roberts , for living a reality that helped foster someone else's dream.

Odie at Predator Graphix , for the outstanding job on the graphics, above and beyond the call of duty. I definitely couldn't have done this without your good work. (Hey, hope you get to feeling better real soon!)

Lance , for the vastly better grille, Galaxie knowledge, and for introducing me to...

Charlie , for his incredible skills at building a killer exhaust system.

Mike , for lending tools that I always seemed to need.

Big Al , for the 5.0 shorty headers.

Gaven , for making the car available to me for such a great price, which was critical in getting the project started at all!

Mark Reynolds , President of the Galaxie Club of America, for putting up with my technical questions.

John Davis , founder of the Historic Stock Car Racing Series, for the opportunities with the group and its events.

Ron Huber , for his support and friendship. I miss you, my friend. God Bless.

Doug , for lending the welder, the die grinder, and a few other small, but needed, parts.

Donald (the other Don - a.k.a. Led Zeppelin on this site), for the jokes, for his great PR work on my behalf on this site, and for just thinking this project was so cool to begin with.

America's Armed Forces , past, present, and future, for giving ALL of us the opportunity to fulfill our dreams in this great land.

The many eBay sellers who, unknowingly, provided access to needed / wanted parts.

The many eBay buyers who, also unknowingly, bought my unneeded parts so that I could buy other needed / wanted parts.

And, to the visitors to my CarDomain.com site who put up with my silly drivel and actually read this.

How Did This All Come Together?

As an adult who has suffered for years with Attention Deficit Disorder I am not the most organized individual in the world. Nor am I blessed with great strengths in sticking-to-it. I could type out a laundry list of grandiose plans and half-done projects that would make even the greatest procrastinators wince. But this was going to be different. This HAD to be different! So, with a level of determination never before seen in my life, I was going to succeed!

Yes, I was getting organized. Of course, there was still the issue of following through on the monster I had created...

It's A Big Project. How Did I Keep From Getting Overwhelmed?

In order to complete my project I needed a kind of roadmap.

Now, it should be noted that there are no available instruction manuals on "How to Build a Replica of a 43 Year-Old Stock Car in 9 Months for $3,900". (Well, then maybe I should write one! Wait... that's kind of what I'm doing on here, isn't it?) So, I had to start even THAT from scratch so I could stay focused and on track. But what?

Thank You, Bill Gates

I had bought a new Dell laptop a couple months earlier and loaded Excel onto it. I began to make a list of everything I needed to do, everything I wanted to do (wants and needs are not the same), parts I had, parts I needed to buy, parts I wanted to buy, a running accounting of how much I was putting into the project, and estimated costs to finish the project. One of the beautiful things about the electronic age is that making changes to put things in order doesn't require re-writing everything from scrath every time you alter the document. This, along with my ADD, helps explain why I never could do anything on an old typewriter. My scattered brain doesn't always process thought in a linear fashion and the old way of making changes was too time consuming. (Just think of all of the youngsters out there that know no other way than the computer.)

I then arranged the items in categories such as Interior, Chassis and Drivetrain, Engine, Exterior, etc., and then arranged the tasks in order. It always helps to remind yourself that you can't very well fill the holes in the body before you remove the chrome, right? (With that kind of logic, you've probably noticed that I have a mind like a steel trap... rusty and illegal in 37 states.)

I then built a timeline of when I wanted to have things done, as well as a daily schedule of what tasks I wanted to accomplish on a particular day. I also tracked tasks as either "Pending", "In Progress", "Completed", or "Should Would Be Nice" for those items I wanted to do but were not critical to the completion of the project. I chose a completion date of July 23, 2007 with hopes that I would have the car done in time for my annual trek to work at the San Jose Grand Prix.

I even color-coded the status so I could see at a quick glance just where I was in the grand scheme of things. It made the project more tangible when I could watch the progression from "Pending" to "Completed", giving me a real sense of accomplishment. (This is critical to a person with ADD.)

I established my budget. As I would acquire something, I tracked its cost. If I sold something off the car I no longer needed, or sold off a previously bought item that I no longer wanted or was not critical to the project, I discounted the cost. This also gave me a running list of my project's "inventory" of items available.

Bottom line is that when it was all said and done, I had accomplished something that many of my long-term friends would never have believed of me. They had seen far too many of my schemes fall to the wayside due to a lack of organization or loss of interest. And, by tracking the purchases of everything from the car itself to a bag of screws, I was able to stay on budget.

Planned date of completion: July 23, 2007

Actual completion date: July 9, 2007

Total time of project (starting with purchase date): October 1, 2006 to July 9, 2007. 282 days.

Available budget for project (including purchase of car): $4,000

Total cost of project at time of completion (including money received from sale of unneeded items): $3,864.57

Level of satisfaction for completing a 30-year dream: Priceless

(Cue MasterCard logo.)

So, What's Next?

At the beginning of this whole hairbrained idea, my lovely wife told me that I could only have one toy at a time. So, buying the Galaxie meant selling my old Ranchero. No problem really. As much as I liked the 'chero, I've already received more satisfaction in the 10 months I've owned the Galaxie than in the whole 8 years prior that I owned my '66 Ranchero.

This must be evident, because one night my wife asked me what I had planned for next. I told her about my next idea, and her response was, "I guess we'll need to figure out where to park both the cars." (I told you she was great, didn't I?)

So, here is a small peek into my mind on a potential project I am seriously considering now that this one has seen completion.

(Update 5/3/08... I am considering IF I get some cash...)

(Update 1/21/09... Still considering, still no cash...)

(Update 6/6/09... Governor Swartzenegger has cut our pay by 10% and is going after another 10%. DEFINITELY no money for any new project at this moment...)

The Starlifter

No, we're not talking the C-141 aircraft here.

In 1962, Ford changed their Galaxie, foregoing the sloping roof of the previous two years' Galaxies in favor of a "boxed" roof. In rerospect, this didn't make total sense since the previous two model years had done pretty well. The result was a car that had some better headroom for the rear passengers, but slowed down perceptibly on the race track.

"Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday" was the Dearborn / Detroit mantra in NASCAR. The new Ford wasn't cutting it. Enter (as usual) Holman-Moody.

Ford engineers came up with a Starliner-styled fiberglass top that could be fitted to the Sunliner convertibles, and Holman-Moody would make it a racing reality. It was dubbed the "Starlifter" because you could "lift" the roof off of the car. The Ford ran real well when it was installed. Too well. Fred Lorenzen won with the car in its only official outing at the 1962 Atlanta 500, then NASCAR banned it after that one race saying that it was not a regular production item. The car would later see Bonneville, but not much else.

So, my next project idea is to find a 62 Galaxie convertible with little to no interior, and hollow it out. Then, graft a roof off of a 60 or 61 Starliner to re-create the Starlifter. At least installing the roll cage will be much easier without the roof on the car!

So... thare ya go!

If you'd like to see a more in-depth article I wrote about the Starlifter online, go to The Starlifter Story , part of our website of the NASCAR Golden Age Society , a partnership of fellow CarDomain-er Led Zeppelin and myself. Check it out at http://www.nascar-gas.com .