Thanks John. I was scheduled to get out of the military in 1975 and my dad was the Service Manager at the Cadillac dealer in Beverly Hills at the time. I was considering re-enlisting, but my dad begged me to come home and help him start up a business building Cadillac pick-up trucks. WTF??? I told him I thought he had rocks in his head! I went ahead and left the military and returned home, then immediately went to work with him. The biggest compliment I ever heard was from people looking at the cars and saying they had no idea Cadillac built pick-ups and station wagons. There were other companies doing similar builds, but it was immediately obvious when looking at them, they were custom builds. Ours actually looked like factory built models and were exclusively sold only through Cadillac dealers. If someone contacted us to ask about a purchase, we'd refer them to their local dealer who could order one for them. It added quite a bit of legitimacy to the quality of the build. I'm proud of what we accomplished. Dad always loved customizing cars, but he was a perfectionist and hated anything that LOOKED non-factory. He wan't in to gluing on every stupid chrome doo-dad off the shelves at Wally World or Pep Boys.

When I was a senior in H/S, he and I started building my little street racer. Dad and I always loved "sleepers" .... cars that were FAST, but nobody THOUGHT they'd be fast. I bought a '65 Corvair off a used car lot for a few hundred bucks and we went to work on it. I made my "beer money" with it while in college ... racing on the street. Not politically correct these days, but common then. In those days, if the cops stopped you, they'd look at your car, ask questions about the performance, then tell you to go home and stay off the street! If you happened to be drinking, they'd make you pour your beer out before telling you to go home. Simpler times back then.

Anyway, we finished this car right when I graduated high school. I drove it to the track and turned a 10.65 ET in STREET TRIM. It had a top end of 187 mph (yes, I hit that on the Interstate late one night). I drove it that summer and to college. THEN, the powers that be, decided to come out with the draft lottery and my ass was headed to Vietnam! I only drove the car 17 months, then stored it at my parent's house to await my return from the military. That was in Memphis. They eventually moved to Tulsa and dad towed the car there. THEN ... they were going to move to Los Angeles. Dad wrote me and asked if he could sell the car as it was too much trouble transporting it to L.A. I agreed and he sold it to a Chevy dealer in Tulsa (don't know which one). The dealer wanted it to put on their showroom floor to draw in some looky-loo's. I never saw the car after that and have always wondered if it still exists.

During the build, Dad was adamant about keeping it as stock looking as possible. It had a roll bar, but we made sure it was nearly invisible (especially at night, when most of my racing was done). I'd get a kick out of the jerks who'd laugh at me saying big tires and racing stripes won't make a racecar out of a Corvair! I'd tell them for a couple hundred bucks, they can make a fool out of me! Once the money was on the line, I'd crank it up and watch the fillings rattle out of their teeth! (Dad built/blueprinted the engine and there was nothing on the street that could touch it ... yet it was my daily driver).

I've posted these pics before ... a few times ... but I'm feeling nostalgic and missing my dad and the good times we had working on projects together. This car looked stock, especially at night. I wish I had better pics, but I never was one for taking pics for some reason. These were taken in the parking lot where I worked.

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At a glance, nobody realized the back seat was missing! This is what was attached to the go-pedal and where all the action took place!

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