Finally got the "new" Wagonaire presentable and extracted the hardtop from its winter storage corner in the Morton Building (background) to get all four 1964 Daytonas lined up for a family photo on the front lawn:
This collection represents 38 years of acquisitions, beginning with the hardtop in September 1977.
An increasingly-large radius from central Indiana became necessary for the acquisitions.
Here are the years, places of acquisition, and approximate round trip miles for each:
Hardtop: 1977, 50 miles (Coatesville IN; thanks to my wife for spotting it for sale on a side street.)
Sedan: 2002, 640 miles (Troy MI; thanks to former owner Earle Haley, his son George, and our mutual friend Sam Roberts.)
Convertible: 2007, 1,290 miles (Richmond VA; thanks to Leonard Shepherd Jr.)
Wagonaire: 2013, 2,020 miles (Eddy TX; thanks to Finland SDCer Pekka Polvinen.)
None of the cars are "restored" and probably never will be during my term of ownership. But all will be stored in the safe, tight 2001-built Morton Building to the right in the photos, kept operable, and gradually upgraded as time and money allow. I would replace any of them with a better example, but wouldn't offer any for sale until the better one was actually on location...and it would have to be South-Bend built and factory Astra White, of course, as are all of these cars:
For the trivia-minded, the hardtop was built as (and still is) a 289/4-speed. All the others are 180 HP 259s with column-shift Flightomatic. All were built with single exhaust, including the factory 4-barrel hardtop(!), but only the convertible has a single pipe today. The others had duals installed along the way before I bought them:
The varying shades of "Astra White" may be attributed to two of the cars having been completely repainted, the sedan and Wagonaire. The hardtop is 100% original paint and the convertible is about 60% original paint. (The Production Orders for all cars verify they were built Astra White, however, no "cheating" by painting a car Astra White just to have all four 1964 Daytona models in the same color!)
Education continues: As I was photographing the cars, a fellow that does remodeling and lives catty-corner to us (grey Ford pickup in the far background) came home from work. His young helper (in his 20s) hopped out of the truck and shouted across the street, not intending to offend, "Gee, that has to be about a fourth of all the Ramblers in Indiana, isn't it?"
Yes, he now knows what they are! BP
This collection represents 38 years of acquisitions, beginning with the hardtop in September 1977.
An increasingly-large radius from central Indiana became necessary for the acquisitions.
Here are the years, places of acquisition, and approximate round trip miles for each:
Hardtop: 1977, 50 miles (Coatesville IN; thanks to my wife for spotting it for sale on a side street.)
Sedan: 2002, 640 miles (Troy MI; thanks to former owner Earle Haley, his son George, and our mutual friend Sam Roberts.)
Convertible: 2007, 1,290 miles (Richmond VA; thanks to Leonard Shepherd Jr.)
Wagonaire: 2013, 2,020 miles (Eddy TX; thanks to Finland SDCer Pekka Polvinen.)
None of the cars are "restored" and probably never will be during my term of ownership. But all will be stored in the safe, tight 2001-built Morton Building to the right in the photos, kept operable, and gradually upgraded as time and money allow. I would replace any of them with a better example, but wouldn't offer any for sale until the better one was actually on location...and it would have to be South-Bend built and factory Astra White, of course, as are all of these cars:
For the trivia-minded, the hardtop was built as (and still is) a 289/4-speed. All the others are 180 HP 259s with column-shift Flightomatic. All were built with single exhaust, including the factory 4-barrel hardtop(!), but only the convertible has a single pipe today. The others had duals installed along the way before I bought them:
The varying shades of "Astra White" may be attributed to two of the cars having been completely repainted, the sedan and Wagonaire. The hardtop is 100% original paint and the convertible is about 60% original paint. (The Production Orders for all cars verify they were built Astra White, however, no "cheating" by painting a car Astra White just to have all four 1964 Daytona models in the same color!)
Education continues: As I was photographing the cars, a fellow that does remodeling and lives catty-corner to us (grey Ford pickup in the far background) came home from work. His young helper (in his 20s) hopped out of the truck and shouted across the street, not intending to offend, "Gee, that has to be about a fourth of all the Ramblers in Indiana, isn't it?"
Yes, he now knows what they are! BP
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