So I bought the car today
Its an interesting story. Please feel free to let me know if you think I did good on this one, or if I got screwed
Five or six years ago I was in the local Sears, buying a new battery for my 69 Galaxie. The guy behind the counter asked what car the battery was for, and when I told him, he said, "Oh, I've got a 69 Torino Cobra!" I vaguely remember this, and also remember spending some time talking to him about the car. Apparently I gave him my number and told him to call me if he ever decided to sell it.
Thursday night, out of the clear blue sky, he calls me, introduces himself, and says he thinks its about time he sells his car, and would I still be interested in it. Taken totally by surprise, I asked him some questions about the car. His computer was broken, so he couldn't send me any pictures. He also couldn't text me any because he didn't know how to do that with his phone
He said he wanted $6K for the car, which sounded fairly reasonable to me. I forgot to ask if it was a fastback (sportsroof) or formal roof, but I made an appointment with him for Saturday morning to look at the car. Then, last night I called him back because I really wanted a fastback, and he said that's what it was. I had decided I was going to bail if it was a formal roof car, because that's not really what I wanted.
Anyway, so I get out there this morning, and this car looks like it has been in a time capsule since the 1970s. The owner said he'd purchased the car in 1975; he'd had it for 40 years! It looked like he did a bunch of work on the car when he was a kid (he said he was 58 now), and then didn't really do much to it after that. It has all the 1970s cues: air shocks, Keystone Klassic wheels, shag carpeting on the rear deck, multi-color blue and white carpeting in the interior, slapper bars, Hooker headers, Holley 780 vacuum secondary carb, an add on rear spoiler that looks like its a reproduction for a 69-70 Mustang, the list goes on and on. The license plate registration tabs said 1994 was the last time the car was registered! It looked like he put a battery and cables in it recently just to get it running so he could sell it.
I checked the VIN number on the dash and the door tag, and they matched the Marti report that he had for the car. As mentioned in my original post the owner said it was originally a 428SCJ car, and although the shaker hood scoop and oil cooler were gone, the hole in the hood and the scoop on the hood looked correct, and the brackets to hold the oil cooler in place in front of the radiator were still there. So I think the owner was probably correct that it was an original SCJ car; the Marti report also says it had the Drag Pack option. I crawled under the car and there was the N-case and Daytona pinion support, plus the staggered rear shocks, and the from what I could see the transmission looked correct also. The owner said he'd replaced the clutch in the past, and it used the 11-1/2" clutch disc, which also gives me some confidence that the transmission is the original big-in big-out trans.
The bodywork on the car also looks just like it came out of the 1970s. The rust holes have been patched with bondo, and a marginal paint job was applied, which of course is now completely faded. The owner said he'd been unhappy with the paint job at first, and had made the painter redo it, but it really just wasn't a very good job. Both front fenders, both doors, and both quarters had rust holes in them, evidenced by the bubbling bondo and a few places where the holes showed through. But a close inspection of the exterior showed that the panels weren't entirely rotted away, and that with the patch panels available out there they were definitely fixable. Inside the trunk it actually looked really good; the drop downs are intact, no holes around the gas tank, and the holes in the quarters are relatively small, at least compared to some I've seen. Not too bad, really, for a Minnesota car. Underneath, again surprisingly, the floor pans looked pretty good. The driver's side torque box has got some holes in it, but I wasn't able to find any in the passenger side torque box. Both front fenders are also a little tweaked, and should probably be replaced. But in any case, the car needs a complete restoration on the body.
One thing that was promising was the trim on the car. There were very few spots where the trim was dinged; in most cases it looked really good. He didn't have the wheelwell trim for the rear wheelswells, unfortunately, but all the other trim, and both bumpers, looked pretty nice.
I offered him $4K, then $4500, because the body work would be so time consuming and expensive, but eventually I gave in and we settled on $5000. What do you guys think, did I do OK? Pictures below, starting with the Marti report and the build sheet (with the consecutive serial number blacked out). Note that the build sheet says "SUPER COBRA" down at the bottom:
Here's the engine compartment, showing the hole for the ram air in the hood, and the 390 that resides in the car now:
Here's a shot of the oil cooler brackets, still installed:
Here's a look under the rear of the car, showing the staggered rear shocks:
An interior shot, showing that psychedelic carpeting
And the rear deck, showing the awful troll-hair shag carpeting:
