After being put up in 1996 and starting restoration in 2009 my first car is finally finished! I just ticked the last thing off the to do list.
I was supposed to get my dad’s 1964 Comet Caliente for my first car, but at that time I wasn’t crazy about it. My dad traded a ’29 Ford Roadster for this car when I was 15 and with a little bit of my Mom’s help I finally talked him into keeping it for me. He said “Okay, but that 351W and C6 is coming out.” He found a 4 door Comet with a 260 and we swapped that in after my cousin side swiped the Comet into a tree while we were off-roading it in my grandparents pasture before we could legally drive. A year later it blew a head gasket or maybe cracked the head and it was easier to swap the 351w back in than fix that, so we did. I drove it through High School and for a while afterward. It needed a lot of work at that point that I didn’t have the money for, and then it got rear ended so we put it up in storage in 1996.
We got it out of storage in 2009. After tearing it all down and the bodywork I had a really good painter paint it. I gave him a copy of the big GT/CS book with the car. I didn’t ask him to but he ended up doing more research and putting it on a rotisserie and painting red oxide on the bottom and putting the proper chalk marks all over it and the springs, rear end, etc. Unfortunately it sat in the paint shop for two years. In the meantime I got married and then had kids shortly after it got out. I also got really busy with work and had several health and house issues and had no time to work on it. So my dad did almost all of the work of getting it back together. If I had to do this myself I probably would have given up and sold it a long time ago. I was really lucky and blessed to have him work on it, which he did instead of the projects he wanted to work on. He grew up in a body shop and has built street rods and custom cars for many years so the body panels fit way better than any 60s Shelby or Mustang that ever left the factory. Coincidentally, my dad’s shop is in the country in Weatherford, TX where it was sitting who knows how close to “Little Red” all these years!
It now has 3pt seat belts, Power Disc Brakes (that was done a long time ago), A/C, Power Steering, a lot of insulation, and some other what I consider tasteful and mostly period correct mods. The engine is a Shelby big bore aluminum block 427w with a 4R70W transmission and 3.25 gears. I had the engine built fairly mild for what it is. It puts out 530hp and 560lbs of torque. I asked the builder to build it where it would run on 87 octane so I would never even think about not driving it, but it didn’t turn out that way. I’d still like to find some way to reduce the compression so I could run 87 in it. It doesn’t need all this power. It won’t stick and if it did it would need subframe connectors, etc.
In one of these pics we had not put on some of the chrome trim yet.
I want to thank the site owner for putting this together and everyone here for all the great information that you, and those before you posted that we've read over the years and used during the restoration of the car. It was invaluable!
I’m now looking forward to driving it a lot and attending some shows!
I was supposed to get my dad’s 1964 Comet Caliente for my first car, but at that time I wasn’t crazy about it. My dad traded a ’29 Ford Roadster for this car when I was 15 and with a little bit of my Mom’s help I finally talked him into keeping it for me. He said “Okay, but that 351W and C6 is coming out.” He found a 4 door Comet with a 260 and we swapped that in after my cousin side swiped the Comet into a tree while we were off-roading it in my grandparents pasture before we could legally drive. A year later it blew a head gasket or maybe cracked the head and it was easier to swap the 351w back in than fix that, so we did. I drove it through High School and for a while afterward. It needed a lot of work at that point that I didn’t have the money for, and then it got rear ended so we put it up in storage in 1996.
We got it out of storage in 2009. After tearing it all down and the bodywork I had a really good painter paint it. I gave him a copy of the big GT/CS book with the car. I didn’t ask him to but he ended up doing more research and putting it on a rotisserie and painting red oxide on the bottom and putting the proper chalk marks all over it and the springs, rear end, etc. Unfortunately it sat in the paint shop for two years. In the meantime I got married and then had kids shortly after it got out. I also got really busy with work and had several health and house issues and had no time to work on it. So my dad did almost all of the work of getting it back together. If I had to do this myself I probably would have given up and sold it a long time ago. I was really lucky and blessed to have him work on it, which he did instead of the projects he wanted to work on. He grew up in a body shop and has built street rods and custom cars for many years so the body panels fit way better than any 60s Shelby or Mustang that ever left the factory. Coincidentally, my dad’s shop is in the country in Weatherford, TX where it was sitting who knows how close to “Little Red” all these years!
It now has 3pt seat belts, Power Disc Brakes (that was done a long time ago), A/C, Power Steering, a lot of insulation, and some other what I consider tasteful and mostly period correct mods. The engine is a Shelby big bore aluminum block 427w with a 4R70W transmission and 3.25 gears. I had the engine built fairly mild for what it is. It puts out 530hp and 560lbs of torque. I asked the builder to build it where it would run on 87 octane so I would never even think about not driving it, but it didn’t turn out that way. I’d still like to find some way to reduce the compression so I could run 87 in it. It doesn’t need all this power. It won’t stick and if it did it would need subframe connectors, etc.
In one of these pics we had not put on some of the chrome trim yet.
I want to thank the site owner for putting this together and everyone here for all the great information that you, and those before you posted that we've read over the years and used during the restoration of the car. It was invaluable!
I’m now looking forward to driving it a lot and attending some shows!
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