Sunday Drive

[GlennCraven]

Yesterday I needed to meet my girlfriend at her folks' house in Springfield, Mo., but not until nearly 11 p.m. as she was driving back from a job interview in Wisconsin.

 

So, Springfield only being about 2.5 hours from where I live in Kansas, I started early and took a circuitous, scenic route.

 

I managed to stop a couple of places I'd always wanted to gawk at, but never had time. Two of these are shops (one Volvo, one street rod) with a lot of old cars strung about. I veered off the interstate and found an old military Jeep rig (slightly restored) for sale (no price) at a closed junk shop among tons of concrete lawn ornaments and a 67 Chevy pickup cab just sitting on the ground. I drove past a frontage road field full of buses and old cars to photograph a DeSoto near the front gate, and a very odd rat rod behind it. I also saw an early 1960s unibody Ford F-100.

 

And, at a farmhouse with an old Massey Ferguson tractor being sold and carted away out front, I picked up two 1960s Mopar factory intake manifolds -- a two-barrel apparently from a 1962 361 Chrysler (2205737, a hard casting number to trace) with an old Holley still attached and a 2206000 four-barrel they *thought* was from a 413, but I see also fits the 1964-65 426 street wedge and 1966 440.

 

Here's a bit of what I saw.

 

 

 

[Dave72dt]

I think you found another front running candidate for the ugliest Pilothouse contest.

[greg g]

So is that bay at the gas station with the hay bales set up in the fuel bay in Amish country????  Always like those Volvo sport wagons.  Never liked glasspack zoomies.

[Plymouthy Adams]

take the P1800 and run (coupe over the wagon but both are nice) checkh out is heritage bloodline from Jensen

[greg g]

all three of the Volvos seem a little nose high, wonder if all the engines have been pulled?  

[GlennCraven]

Wow, I didn't even recognize the rat as a Pilot House. And I also don't like the glasspack zoomies.

 

This is all in southern Missouri. But yes, that would make a good Amish fueling station. 

 

There are nine P-1800 Volvos at this location, but one was just sold pending pickup. An older gentleman has worked on Volvos there for decades and has two fenced-in lots full of parts and potential project cars. He recently told the young guy (Chris, in his 20s) who has kind of been mentored there that he was ready to sell everything. ... I saw the gold or silvery 1800e out of the corner of my eye from the highway about 100 yards off a few months ago and finally went back to see if that really was an 1800. It's almost impossible to see the cars from the highway; you get a split-second glimpse between a couple of berms and through trees.

 

There are five remaining 1800 coupes and three ES wagons. I adore the P-1800.

 

Definitely the engine is out of the metallic one, but the young man who has been mentored there by the older man (and who was pulling later-model turbo parts for a project car while I was there) said the engine for that one is up the hill in the shop.

 

You could take the three wagons and come pretty close to making one. You might be able to make two cars out of the five remaining coupes. ... There's quite a bit of rust involved and several of them have been stripped a good bit, especially of chrome and other small bits.

 

The older man also has a 262c Bertone coupe and a potential parts car, and the young man was telling me about another car in the yard that from what I can gather must be a 1985 240T "evo" car, one of 500 built to achieve FIA homologation and compete in Group A racing. If so, that would make it the street-going version of this below. ... Sources say 477 were stripped of much of their race equipment when sold for the street, but that leaves 23 that were not stripped. If what they have is one of the 500, it's something. If it's one of the 23, it could be really something.

 

Edited October 14, 2013 by GlennCraven

[GlennCraven]

The remainder of the available P-1800s.