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Here is the car as it was when I bought it in December of 2000. A little background as to how I acquired this car. I had been looking for a project car for the past three years with no avail. The cars I'd looked at up to this point had too much rust to repair, had just had a new motor installed (there's a warning sign), had just had a new paint job, or was a hardtop. I did research this possibility of converting a hardtop to a T-Top, but the loss of structural integrity by cutting a T-Top in was too dangerous.
While searching AutoTrader.com I ran across this car in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and it looked to have everything I was looking for. I called and spoke to the owner of the car to get some questions I had answered. Then I called my brother that lives near Virginia Beach and asked him to look the car over for me, see how it ran, etc. to see if it would be a good car to go with. I called the car's owner back and informed him my brother would be contacting him to set up a time to stop by and look the car over. I received a call back from my brother stating the car looked to be in good order. It did have some problems which I would expect in a twenty-year-old car. He also sent me additional pictures and video of the car. Well, after looking for three years, this car looked to be the best of what I had seen. So, on my next trip to visit my brother and his family I went over to look at/drive the car. After having done so, the owner and I sat down and negotiated an ammicable price for the car. Then I started my 6+ hour drive back home to South Carolina.
The car did well on the drive home and I did not encounter any problems along the way. The only annoyance was having to move the turn-signal lever back and forth whenever I needed to turn right. This problem was easily corrected by changing the light bulb in the front right turn signal. I could tell the car had quite a bit of potential, but a lot of work needed to be done before it was where I wanted it to be.
The first order of business was to remove the ground effects and the interior to see what all I'd need to work on and/or replace. I knew I wanted to have a mechanically sound car before I started customizing it.
