This was my first car, a 1972 AMC Matador with a 258 6 cyl.  I owned the car from 1978 - 1989. I wish I had it back, but i'm sure it's been crushed years ago. This photo was taken in 1984 at QuakerCityDragWay where that evening I met my brother in the finals of street legal. He beat me with his smallblock powered 1974 Camaro. Enough of the past, check out my PRESENT day pride & joy below:  ENJOY !

The car is a 1963 Chevy Bel Air 4 door with the original 79,000 mile 140 horse 230 6 cylinder with a powerglide.I bought the car back in 1996 for $1,500.00 and right away started cleaning everything from front to back.I drove it until 1998 when i actually decided to have the body work done, which was 2 small rust holes and changed the original ice blue paint to a midnight blue metallic from 1965.All the chrome is original,I also took off the 14" bias ply tires and installed 15"chevy rallye wheels with Cooper Cobra tires going with 225/70/15 on the front  and 245/60/15 on the rear.The interior is light blue in color and when I replaced it iIkept it the same color.The only thing I added to the interior was a set of stewart - warner gauges.Some upgrades I did to the engine : installed a 2 piece header from Clifford Performance,Summit 18" glasspack mufflers with full length exhaust which really sounds old school. I've also added Pertronix Ignition, Pertronix spark plug wires, Accel SuperStock coil, SplitFire Platinum Sparkplugs, K&N Filter Charger,and for oil I trust Royal Purple 20w50 and a K&N oil filter. I really enjoy DragRacing so I take the '63 out as much as time allows. It runs pretty good, could use a bit more on the top end, the powerglide has a lot to do with that. I do cut pretty good lights so that helps. Below are updated pics & some photos of some cars that race out at Quaker that I think are pretty cool along with some of my friends rides. PLEASE RATE MY RIDE !!! THANKS !!!

    Here's my son Dustin's '76 Nova sitting beside my '63 while we were waiting to get called to the staging lanes for our first time trial. He just sold the Nova on 10-15-09 and bought a 1979 Chevy Camaro that needs a motor so he's building a 355 for it.

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    Father vs Son..... Got caught sleeping, cut a terrible 1.037 light. So much for showing up my Son!  All I seen was tail lights the whole 1/4 mile.

Here I cut a much better.504 light. (my normal reaction time)

This job took several cans of engine degreaser and a lot of quarters at the car wash, Then lots of Chevy Orange paint. Never thought it would look like the next 2 photos.

The buzzin' half dozen with DUAL outlet header which was pretty exspensive, around $300.00. The Muffler Man did an AWESOME job hooking up the rest of the exhaust bending it just like the factory did for the V8 models. Those 14'' glasspacks from Summit Racing really crackle when you jump on it, I have set off a few car alarms !! The mufflers are probably going to be replaced with FlowMaster 60 Series to quiet this thing down, it's just a matter of time before I get pulled over. The local law enforcement really frowns on that kind of stuff.

The L6 all painted up & added some chrome, possibly a smallblock will be replacing the L6 in the Spring of 2010.

  15'' rallye wheels, A XMAS gift from my youngest son Doug. They do look a lot better than the old 14'' chrome wheels I had on the car for over 7 years. What a major IMPROVEMENT. THANKS DOUG !

The Bel-Air has come along way since this photo, it was lots of fun and other than body work and paint I did most of it myself.

An old QuakerCityDragWay sticker which I have on both vent windows, I put them on around 10 yrs. ago.

Colorado air program sticker from Nov. 1992 & Steel Valley Super National Participant stickers from the past 3 years.

A couple photos of the interior, clean & simple.

A shot of what's under the deck lid.

I won CLUB CHOICE at this car show. The '73 RoadRunner is my friend Kevin's car, he took BEST MOPAR. The RoadRunner is now FOR SALE

Mileage log & Insurance guide which explains what to do if you are involved in an accident.

Original copy of the owner protection plan found in the glove box issued by DownTown Chevrolet in MPLS. Minnesota.The car was delivered new Oct.11,1963.

Original owners manual, had some reciepts in it from mid 60's where the owner had some work done.

Original copy of the lifetime warranty for this car, couldn't believe all this stuff was still in the glove box and in very good shape !

Awards I've won so far, Best antique car in FireMan's Festival Parade, Club Choice, and Best Of Show Runner-Up.

While waiting in staging lanes we were talking to a guy who runs 12.30's in a 2006 Pontiac GTO, THAT GOAT WAS AWESOME !! (2009 STEEL VALLEY SUPER NATIONALS )

Heading down the return road back to the staging lanes for another quarter mile pass at the 2009 STEEL VALLEY SUPER NATIONALS.

1964 Biscayne with a big block & 4 speed, it ran real well .

Some day I will hopefully own a car this nice & be able to run the 1/4 mile in the low 10's, I really like the big body Chevy's !!!

Found an old picture of the tower at QuakerCity in Salem, Ohio. This was a national landmark but sadly ended up getting destroyed when they attemped to move it out by the entrance way. A much bigger & better tower was put up to help modernize the dragstrip.

You can see the tower behind the old Mopar. I wish they would have left it alone just because of the history involved. It was one of a kind.

This is one tough looking HotRod. The stance is awesome!!

We went to a car show at Columbiana Pizza Hut to benefit a person injured pretty badly in a cycle accident, beside me is my son's '76 Nova. The following week we hit another car show at our local Dairy Queen which was also a Benefit for a young boy who died in an accident not far from here. They put all the money that was made into a scholarship fund in honor of the boy and are going to do it every year as the owner of the DQ knew the family. The turn out was very good with close to 100 entries.

My best friends Monte Carlo. I keep telling him to get a set of wheels and ditch the factory rallye wheels.

My son's  best friends '73 Nova, He's trying to get the car fixed up a little at a time. Once it's done it will be pretty nice. It's even got a factory folding sunroof. He just installed a set of headers and hooked them to a set of Purple Hornies, they sound pretty cool !!

This is another friend of mine. This car is REALLY AWESOME !