Now the fun begins.

After making some improvements on the important things like brakes and rebuilding the entire front end with all new bushings, ball joints and tie-rod ends; we drove it around for a bit and decided to do the restoration starting immediately. This would give us the entire Winter to get it done so we could enjoy it come Spring.

The first thing on the list was to remove the engine and transmission. The engine was brought to a professional race engine builder to be completely rebuilt to bring it up to today's standards.

The transmission was brought home to be rebuilt by a friend and myself.

The body work was mostly done by our son. He started inside the engine bay and worked his way around the outside. He was very careful about getting it smooth and level. That extra effort paid off in the end.

His first step was to do any welding and straightening within the engine bay area. The primer coats came next with the usual hand sanding in between. Then came the color coats and many clear coats.

When the engine bay was finished we reinstalled the transmission and engine.

Next he moved on to the body. Here he had some rust and plastic to contend with. We welded in new metal where necessary and tapped out metal where it was sound. Next came the primer coats and then the meticlous checking for level surfaces. This process took many weeks. After the final of several primer coats came the color. Now it was begining to look like a real car. It was strange that when the garage was dimmly lit, the flat black of the color coat made it almost impossible to see, as there was no reflected light.

Finally, we donned our pressurized air masks and applied several coats of clear. It looked like a diamond. There was not a flaw or dust mark on the car. We have a way of painting in a garage and eliminating any dust without using blowers or filters to stir up anything.

By now, Spring was begining to arrive. We could now move the car out of the garage to perform the messy process of hand sanding the clear coat. After alignment of the hood and trunk came the buffing which produced remarkable results.

The final step was to install the soft top, seat, bumpers and brightwork.

Thanks to the meticulous care our son applied to the early stages of the bodywork, the car is now a head turner. I receive many compliments on the finish.