Loco Limo 1967 Chevrolet Bel Air Limousine |
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The story of how I got this car is pretty bizar. I went looking for a new limo, 'cause, for a reason I don't remember, I couldn't drive my Cadillac. It was probably because some %&*^%-ed up son of a &(*^ inspector for dutch APK (a yearly safety and environment check-up) did not want to give me my desired stamp. Later examination showed the dude was wrong, but you can read more about that in the story 'bout the Cadillac Limousine. | ||||
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I looked in some used-car magazines and found an add for a 1967 Chevrolet Bel Air. It had a picure of a 1983
6 door Impala or something. I had never heard of a sixties Bel Air, and no idea what it would really look like.
I phoned the guy, and asked him 'bout the car. He told me it wasn't ready for sale yet, it had to be painted.
But I did not want new paint, he didn't want to take the risk of not painting it and not be able to sell it to
anyone but me, so I bought it over the phone. UNSEEN. When I got there I fell in love with the model, but the car defenately needed some tender loving care. But the frame had little rust and it was street legal, so I drove it home. It was a trip of some 130 miles and when I came home I found out there was no water in the cooling system. I already liked the toughness of the engine. |
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I drove this car for about two years while every once in a while I repaired some things. Weldzilla welded some new sheet
into my roof, of which I had sanded all the paint off. I repainted the roof in a special boat-primer that should be salt-water-proof. G-Ice had bought a Camaro to use as an engine donor but there was also a set of nice 14" Wolfrace rims on it. So I stuck new tyres on them and put them on the Bel Air. IMHO they look great. We also rerouted the exhaust because I couldn't turn fully left. |
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| I drove around for a while with my repainted roof, but wasn't really happy with the way the metal around my windscreen looked. I knew from earlier experiments that taking out a windscreen from an old car has a 50% chance of breaking the windscreen. I couldn't take that risk, so I parked the car in my garage and tried to sand of all paint along the edges of the window. When I did this I found out that the windscreen was only kept in place by the metal strips around it. So we removed them and took the window out. Now we could restore its seating right. So I took my triker-sunglasses, started the car and drove to our workshop. I can tell you that a windscreen is a blessing once you know how it feels doing 60 without one. |
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Weldzilla once again took mr. Tico and started to rebuild my windscreen-seating. He did a great job. Because we had to take of almost the entire front of the car, we also repaired the parts under the fenders, as well as the fenders themselves. After we were finished, I drove my car back to my garage and we re-seated the windscreen. This is the state the car is in at the time of this writing (17-6-2003). See large picture above |
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In the future I have some plans for this car. First it will get a new paintjob. The main reason it hasn't had one yet is
design. I simply can't find a design that looks nice on this car. I keep getting back at twotone. Once I have some nice
artwork you will find it in the design section. The second reason is a missing wheel-arch. I can't find a weld-in piece
anywhere and a complete quarter is gonna cost me an arm and a leg. What this car really needs is a new interior. The seats have almost no cloth on them, but once again, design is the issue. |
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As far as I know, this car was imported in 1966 or early 1967 by a dutch coach-builder in Haarlem (NL) who stretched it about 30". After that it got its papers and saw duty as a funeral limousine in Baarn (NL). As funeral cars have different licenses and the license on the car has changed in 1988, my guess is it was in use as such until then. Like most Limo's some student-fraternity bought it and drove it. They sold it to a fellow enthusiast that already did some repairs for them. I accidently talked to this guy on the phone 'cause he was looking for some spares for a totally different car and wondered if I had them. What are the odds ?? :) After this the car was privately owned by two different people both in the east-part of the Netherlands. Now it's mine.......<VBG>.... |
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