Progress has been steady over the past year. Jumping a bit forward to current, I actually drove the car to the gas station this weekend. The update I’ll try to make today though is on a part of the car that has no impact on its drivability, but is one of the most overdue and visually impactful improvements that I could make.
First, I have to set the stage that this car’s path back to a reliable, somewhat modernized state of existence is rife with compromises, most of which are necessitated by the early 80’s tilt front-end and the rear fender flares from the same era. I bought the car in 1998 as a teenager and the fact the car had no grille was of little consequence. It bugged me, but not enough to do anything about it.That has changed, and it needed to be addressed. Funny thing though, whoever molded this front clip had zero intention of someone ever being to use a factory front grille insert or headlight buckets. My guess is it was built for rectangle headlights and a billet grille, remember…1983…
So here we go…I sliced the important bits out of a repop 69 grille, trimmed off most of the now superfluous brackets from the buckets and set about righting a 40 year old “wrong”. Enough words, here’s the pics (apologies for thumbnails)
Is it perfect, heck no, but seeing something that resembles the grille and headlight setup the car should have is an incredible improvement for me and my enjoyment of the car.