Well, I did try. You may remember a month or so back, there was a 50 Crown Imperial (limo) on Ebay. There was a lot of talk about saving the car. I bid but lost to a guy named John from Rockford IL. To make a LONG story short, John got in touch with me a couple weeks back after gettng the car delivered from DC to Rockford and realizing it was more of a project than he expected. While I was not eager to compensate him for his transportation costs, I did think we could work out a deal near what he paid for the car. Monday, I headed north with my trailer, a cashiers check and some 'negotiating cash'. Spent the night in Southern IL with my uncle and at 4AM yesterday he and I headed north to Rockford, arriving at 10:30.
Good news/bad news/unexpected news/ The interior was shot as advertised. However it was broadcloth in the front and vinyl in the back so it would not be TERRIBLY expensive. Good news is that although the front seat is fixed, I could fit fairly comfortably behind the wheel. The motor appears to have been rebuilt because the trunk is full of pistons etc. It started with no smoke and sounded strong. The body was solid with the only rust some holes in the floorboard of the drivers side.
The bad news was that ALL the chrome was very bad, including everything inside which was considerable. All the potmetal side trim was 'popped' badly as was the delicate interior trim. All in all that was the surprise of the trip. The Ebay auction said that 'some' of the trim was bad and MIGHT need rechoming but that is a pretty loose interpretition of might.
So, the final answer is that the car is still in Rockville. My enthusisam for the project was falling rapidly so I made a fairly low offer on the car to help compsensate for the 10K in chrome work and the owner decided to keep it. (didn't blame him) He will be wanting to sell it and I expect it will hit ebay fairly soon and who knows, perhaps someone in the midwest might be interested since it has already been moved. John and I were the only serious bidders so I hope someone saves it.
My thinking was that it would cost at LEAST 20K to take the car to #3 condition and probably 30K + to go to #2 and that considers I would do the mechanical, and body work myself. I just couldn't justify it.
The good news is that now I will be able to get to work on the 61 GeeA limo project.
Kerryp
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