In my last post dated 4/19 I ended by saying I hoped to get the car painted by mid- May. It was kind of wishful thinking because nothing was certain, in fact it was as if everything had to fall perfectly into place to make it happen. Mike, who has been doing the bodywork and was going to paint the car, lost his connection on a paint booth, and on a minor note, a car trailer too. My next door neighbor threw me a lifeline by introducing us to his friend who owns a paint shop and was willing to rent out his paint booth for Mike to paint the car. In the meantime Mike got a job in a restoration shop (good for him, it's what he does best) up in Grass Valley. And he moved up there too. Now Grass Valley is only about 40 miles from Lincoln but it might as well be on another planet. Anyway, Mike was only available on weekends and Rich, who owned the paint booth, raced on weekends so his offer was really only good during the week. The planets would have to align perfectly for Mike to paint at Rich's shop.
Fast forward to last Sunday. I promised to take Maria out for lunch to spend some time together because I spent all day Saturday on the Coronet. As we were taking off I said the only plan we have is that we go eat someplace we've never been before. Taking a leisurely drive we wound up in Newcastle, a small town located in the Sierra foothills about half-way between Lincoln and Auburn. We found a cool little deli and had a great lunch. After eating we were walking around town when I remembered that the son of a friend of mine owned an upholstery shop in Newcastle. I dug out his business card and we decided to find out where his shop was. Now keep in mind, if you walk from one end of Main Street to the other end, turn around and walk back, you've consumed about 15 minutes. Not a huge metropolis and so we figured we could find his place just poking around. And we did. The sign outside the shop read Prime Time Customs, listed a whole string of services, including upholstery. And the rollup door was open; at 3:00 on a Sunday afternoon. Maria waited in the truck while I walked in. I found Kenny in his little shop working on a couple of '62 Plymouth bucket seats, the kind that swivel to allow ingress/egress. I can't even describe the fabric, it was turquoise out-of-this-world material together with factory vinyl, held together with a silver buckle. The seats looked incredible and I knew that he was the right guy to reupholster my seats.
After we talked Kenny took me out to the rest of the shop, which was a restoration business. They had some beautiful cars in there, including a '69 Barracuda in B5. Troy the owner happened to be there and we all got to talking. Cutting through the details, I had found my paint shop! Not only did Troy know Mopars, he had painted a 55 Nomad Mango Tango, the exact paint color I had chosen for the Coronet. I've seen the Nomad plenty of times at local cruise events and it's absolutely gorgeous. So Troy does Mopars, has laid down my paint color recently, and by the way, at the end of the week had a 3 day window where the paint booth wasn't being used.
That's the good news; the bad news is that the car was not ready to deliver to paint. There was still some minor wet sanding needed, body plugs installed, seam sealer added and a final wash down. Oh yeah, and the front end was riding on a metal cart with a 2' wheel base. Mon thru Wed nights after work were spent getting the car ready. Today I took the day off from work to give enough time for final prep and to pick up the auto transport rental. To be brief (finally), it took 2 hours, 3 guys and enough wood to build a treehouse to construct ramps and platforms to get the Coronet secured on the trailer.
This afternoon we dropped off the car. It will be painted tomorrow and Saturday, cut and buffed next week. A week from now the car will be done; 4 days ago I had no idea where or when the car was going to be painted. Everything just fell into place at once. It was a mad scramble at the end but it was worth it. I'm not one to believe much in fate, but this story had too many coincidences.
Below are the last pics of the car in primer.
One part ingenuity, one part Beverly Hillbillies
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