Читать книгу Lost Muscle Cars - Wes Eisenschenk - Страница 8

INTRODUCTION

Fifteen years ago I was conversing with a co-worker about the history of his 1966 Formula S Barracuda over a pile of base and casing at my father’s stain shop. While restoring his car in 1988, he came across a gas receipt with a name on it. I asked him to bring it in so I could have a look at it. Eight years later I handed him the home address of the individual who purchased the Barracuda new.

We all remember Geraldo Rivera standing in front of Al Capone’s long-lost vault with our eyes glued to our 24-inch Zenith televisions. Palms sweaty and mouths dry, we awaited the greatest discovery of the twentieth century. Surely gold bars, tommy guns, and dead bodies littering the floor would be found. Capone wouldn’t have it any other way. Finally, after a continued buildup, a series of preset charges blasted dust and debris into the Chicago night. After the concrete chips and flying particles settled, there it was . . . nothing.

What Geraldo went through on that chilly April evening in 1986 is something that almost every muscle car hunter has gone through at least once, a crushing and emphatic automotive archeological defeat.

However, unlike Geraldo’s vault, the dead end for a muscle car sleuth is just a wrong turn. Sure, that empty garage staring back at you feels like failure, but you can always find another source to talk to and another photo archive to thumb through. If Rivera were a car guy, he’d be back talking to the guy before the guy who led him to the dead end. And like a true enthusiast he’d be off and running toward the next unopened Capone vault.

To become an avid car sleuth, you have to be armed with a variety of talents, tools, and skills. The first skill is the ability to comprehend that patience is the key ingredient in any hunt. Dead ends are simply turnaround points, and long breaks without any news are simply just dramatic pauses in the grand scheme of things.

The tools for a muscle car hunter are not too different than those of a crime scene investigator. Thorough interviews need to be conducted and ample rehashing is to be performed over bits and pieces of information that may seem minute and trivial, but invaluable to connecting the dots. Photographs are examined like a hawk peering over a field for the movements of a rabbit with the researcher intent on finding that subtle tell that could release the floodwaters. Letters are mailed to the state DMV in hopes that historical ownership could lead to a promising new clue. Any and all paper trails are backtracked as far as humanly and digitally possible. And finally, the talents are in developing relationships with people that halt just before the threshold of annoyance is reached. An enthusiast has no shortage of avenues to go through to “solve” the case.

The abundance of truly spectacular lost muscle cars possibly still in existence is astounding. The list of legendary cars unaccounted for sounds like the roster at the Muscle Car & Corvette Nationals or the starting lineup for the 1927 Yankees. They’re still out there. With names such as Z16, ZL1, and S/S AMX, from Hurst, Yenko, and Shelby, they are waiting to be rediscovered. They include famed promo/show cars, race cars, rare factory production cars, and celebrity-owned muscle. The total value of these lost muscle cars is potentially in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And yes, I have stories about Corvettes and Rancheros just to fire up the age-old debate as to whether sports cars and trucks are to be considered muscle cars.

Some of the stories included here do not include information on VINs, serial numbers, or other data. This is because many people didn’t keep that information. Remember, at one time these cars weren’t considered collectible. Lost Muscle Cars presents these cars in their last known configuration, location, and ownership lineage to the best of its owner’s recollections. I’m calling on you to remember that badass Rebel Machine that used to roar through town or that 1969 Yenko that pulled its wheel out past the 60-foot marker at the local dragstrip. You could hold the keys to the last piece of information that could uncover the location of one of these missing beasts.

You don’t have to be Jay Leno or Ric Gillespie to be a part of the next great discovery. Armed with this book, you’re now a real automotive archeologist!