Old iron in Williamsburg Ohio and more.

I went up into Ohio to pick up some parts for the work truck. Cool little town. I seen this wall painting and knew there had to be something laying around. I still hear people say that you can't find these old cars. I never go any place without running into something. You just have to go down the road less traveled.


One block away is this old Mavrick. I know, it's a Mavrick. When was the last time you saw one.(KEEP THAT IN MIND)

Poncho

Few more blocks and I run into these trucks.

This shop was full of stuff. Nice guy. He let me walk around the shop by myself and snap a few pics. He had a little of everything. Tons of truck stuff. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

A second red 'Stang.

I drove out of town and hit a back road. I ended up on Old State Rt 32, I think it was. I seen this Chevelle and stopped to see if it was for sale. It wasn't. He has own the cars 20 or more years.





I talked to the guy for a while. He said he was going to register and wouldn't mind joining in on some club runs thins summer. Here is the other car is is working on. It's sitting on a shortened S10 frame.

I drive about a mile up the road and here's a couple more.

This 'glass jeep body was with the stuff above.

It just goes to show you that there is still stuff to be had. Just look. I took off back to Ky and still seen a few more before going home.

These two are around the block from Joey



Couger on Central in Newport.


I sure a lot of you remember this 67 Charger. It's on it's way to the shreader. If you know someone that needs any parts it won't be long before it's all gone. Yeah this is the one from Rt 8 in Silver Grove. It's at Chuck's place if you need anything.


I walk into the parking lot and this thing is sitting there. Two in one day. Pretty sad shape but it did have all the AC stuff still on it.

These trucks are nothing new but they just looked cool sitting there so I snapped a picture. Randy Turners stuff.

Those Mavericks have the right size rear=end for a Model-A and the roofs have a nice crown to use as a filler panel on the roof too..

man those pooch's dont look to happy that ur taken pics of their poncho.....

must be one of them there rat rods everyones adoin.

I'd love to find a 62-64 FWD F-100 like some of those.....

Dear group;
I wouldn't cut up a good Maverick for the simple fact that they make EXCELLENT sleepers for short money. years before the Chevy Vega/Monza & Poncho Sunbirds became popular sleepers, the Maverick and it's cousin, the Mercuury Comet, were the platforms of choice for sleepers.

Much like the Willys coupe of yesterday, the Mavericks were successful sleeper rides because of a number of factors:

Ford must have built a gadzillion Mavericks. They were everywhere and thus unassuming. In other words, they didn't look wicked or menacing, which is necessary for a successful sleeper.

They were uber-cheap. Because Ford tagged the base model Maverick at 1,995$, this meant that used car sales were also extremely cheap. For example, I bought a running 73 Maverick in 1980 for 50$.

All Mavericks came from the factory with an I-6 engine. Because of this, the engine compartments were very roomy for an auto that was classified as a compact car.

They were lightweight for their time. At under 3,000 lbs. driven off of the showroom floor, the Mavericks were among the lightest American economy car offerings. This made life easier later on down the road for building a sleeper.

If, like me, you wanted a ride that could compete with the Camaros and Mustang fastbacks on the street scene during the late 70s and early 80s, but were strapped for cash, then the Maverick was the ticket to fast times. In short, a kid could wrangle a LOT of bang for the buck with a bit of scheming.

Here's what we'd do. After obtaining a Maverick for next to nothing, we'd promptly tear out the I-6 engine along with it's supporting transmission and stuff a stock 302 or 351 (along with it's supporting drivetrain) in it's place. Since the 190 CID I-6 engine shared the same dimensional mountings as the small to mid sized Ford V-8 family, fabricating new motor mounts was not necessary.

And because of the Maverick's roomy engine compartment, very little trimming was necessary for a nice fit. As I recall, a bit of judicious pounding on the tranny tunnel with a small sledge was all that was needed for for the tranny to clear and a few minutes with some tinsnips to the inner fenderwells was all that was needed for the exhausts and VOILA! INSTANT FUN!

Then, after radiusing the rear fenderwells for wider rear meats, point that badboy down the boulevard and get ready to hang on for dear life!

Instead of sinking untold amounts of cash into a 'Stang fastback or a Camaro, we'd have what amounted to what was basically a disposable hot rod. For well under 500 skins, we could run with the very best of the bad boys while keeping the money situation firmly in hand.

With a stock engine and a decent pair of mags, we had wheelstanders for far less than it would have cost to buy an engineless Camaro or Mustang. By swapping money for some creativeness and a bit of ingenuity, we could compete with those high dollar rides and make them look silly in the process.

Ahhhh, the bad ol' days of hot rodding....
Your friend;
LAMAR

I bought a new V8 Maverick in '73, put a top loader in it and a glass snorkel hood but it never pulled the wheels. It was probably a good 16 second car.

Dear Mr. Fabulous;
It sounds like you had the same problem as I did. The only R&P ratio available for the Maverick/Comets were 2.79:1, 2.83:1 (one year model only, but I can't recall which year) and 3.00:1, none of which were conductive to quick launches.

I eventually resolved this problem by building everything on my first Maverick to *Cobra jet* specs, which included swapping out the worthless 7.5" rear diff with a 8.8" diff that came with a 3.91:1 R&P. As I recall, the installed rear diff with like 3/4" wider than the Maverick rear diff, which wasn't even a real consideration.

Coupled with the mildly worked over 351C and tranny out of yet another trashed 'Stang I think the best time I clocked on that Maverick with around 15 seconds, which was right in line with the factory powered Cobra Jets of the era.

As I remember it, I bought a tired 351C for 250.00$ that came with a truly horrendous Torker manifold/wayyyy too big Holly carb package on it. I pulled the oversized Holly off and replaced it with a Carter AFB and that solved that particular issue. I sold the double pumper and kept the intake.

The guy that sold the engine to me also swore that it had a Crane (or Crower or something) cam in it, but when I tore it down I discovered that it was a stocker cam.

Oh well, I had been lied to before so I put an Isky in it with a slightly longer duration and stock lobe lift. By milling the heads to square them up with the rest of the world and installing thinner head gaskets I was able to increase my CR to around 11:1 which was good with the premium gas at the pumps in those days.

I crowded a lot of lead into the timing which then necessitated pulling the stock 2 core radiator out and hauling it down to the local radiator shop to have a 4 core installed. This solved it's overheating issues.

All in all, it took about 4-6 weeks of dedicated wrenching and swapping/horse trading to work out all of the bugs and the total cost was around 800.00$, car included.

What I basically ended up with was a car that ran like one costing about 2 grand more, so all in all, it was a pretty good deal. Plus, it looked uglier than sin, which added insult to injury whenever I blew away a so-called *muscle* car of the day.
Your friend;
LAMAR

Plus, it looked uglier than sin, which added insult to injury whenever I blew away a so-called *muscle* car of the day.

thats funny...

JRiggs wrote:Plus, it looked uglier than sin, which added insult to injury whenever I blew away a so-called *muscle* car of the day.

thats funny...

Dear JRiggs;
Not only is it funny, it's also quite true, sad to say. As I recall past events, when the first fuel crunch struck, the people who owned muscle cars couldn't give them away. I remember that a gallon of regular gasoline was selling for .22 cents and a gallon of premium (also called Ethyl) was selling for .28 cents. Within one week after the fuel crisis hit, regular had shot up to over .50 cents and premium climbed past .65 cents a gallon. This happened along about 1972 I guess. It was at that time that high school kids could afford to buy (or talk mom and dad into funding) a previously unobtainable muscle car.

And once those cars got into the hands of 16 to 21 year old kids, it was only a matter of time before they were being used and abused to no end (mostly the cars, but the kids too). By the time I got my driver's license in 1977, those muscle cars were just plain TIRED! After 5 years of constant non-stop abuse and wanton displays of acceleration, not to mention the countless hours of being tinkered on by amateur mechanics (of which I was soon to be one), those muscle cars were starting to become downright forlorn.

It seems that we could manage to scrape together enough cash to buy fancy hi-rise intakes along with big carburetors, headers and the occasional camshaft or two, but no one ever had enough money to buy a rebuild kit or a fresh set of pistons. As a result, by the late 1970s, the muscle cars were mere shadows of their former showroom selves and it didn't take a whole lot of car to beat one when racing from stop light to stop light.

And I don't suppose that things have changed all that much since then, either. Technology has advanced to the point where kids today now bolt on NOS kits and swap chips in order to try and gain some cheap HP. Very much like the days when I was a kid, the kids today look for the cheap and easy way to fame and fortune instead of sticking to the high performance basics.

I just have to smile whenever I hear kids talking about *re-programming* the torque curve of an engine through a laptop computer or building a ride that *drifts* well, whatever that means. I suppose the hot rodders of the previous generation smiled at us the same way when we talked about pop-up pistons and double pumpers.
Your friend;
LAMAR

OK Doug Ice,
Butch sent me this link and I think it's time you fess up about your Maverick only havig a six-banger in it.

Guest wrote:Dear group;
I wouldn't cut up a good Maverick for the simple fact that they make EXCELLENT sleepers for short money. years before the Chevy Vega/Monza & Poncho Sunbirds became popular sleepers, the Maverick and it's cousin, the Mercuury Comet, were the platforms of choice for sleepers.

Much like the Willys coupe of yesterday, the Mavericks were successful sleeper rides because of a number of factors:

Ford must have built a gadzillion Mavericks. They were everywhere and thus unassuming. In other words, they didn't look wicked or menacing, which is necessary for a successful sleeper.

They were uber-cheap. Because Ford tagged the base model Maverick at 1,995$, this meant that used car sales were also extremely cheap. For example, I bought a running 73 Maverick in 1980 for 50$.

All Mavericks came from the factory with an I-6 engine. Because of this, the engine compartments were very roomy for an auto that was classified as a compact car.

They were lightweight for their time. At under 3,000 lbs. driven off of the showroom floor, the Mavericks were among the lightest American economy car offerings. This made life easier later on down the road for building a sleeper.

If, like me, you wanted a ride that could compete with the Camaros and Mustang fastbacks on the street scene during the late 70s and early 80s, but were strapped for cash, then the Maverick was the ticket to fast times. In short, a kid could wrangle a LOT of bang for the buck with a bit of scheming.

Here's what we'd do. After obtaining a Maverick for next to nothing, we'd promptly tear out the I-6 engine along with it's supporting transmission and stuff a stock 302 or 351 (along with it's supporting drivetrain) in it's place. Since the 190 CID I-6 engine shared the same dimensional mountings as the small to mid sized Ford V-8 family, fabricating new motor mounts was not necessary.

And because of the Maverick's roomy engine compartment, very little trimming was necessary for a nice fit. As I recall, a bit of judicious pounding on the tranny tunnel with a small sledge was all that was needed for for the tranny to clear and a few minutes with some tinsnips to the inner fenderwells was all that was needed for the exhausts and VOILA! INSTANT FUN!

Then, after radiusing the rear fenderwells for wider rear meats, point that badboy down the boulevard and get ready to hang on for dear life!

Instead of sinking untold amounts of cash into a 'Stang fastback or a Camaro, we'd have what amounted to what was basically a disposable hot rod. For well under 500 skins, we could run with the very best of the bad boys while keeping the money situation firmly in hand.

With a stock engine and a decent pair of mags, we had wheelstanders for far less than it would have cost to buy an engineless Camaro or Mustang. By swapping money for some creativeness and a bit of ingenuity, we could compete with those high dollar rides and make them look silly in the process.

Ahhhh, the bad ol' days of hot rodding....
Your friend;
LAMAR

My best friend had a Comet GT till he plastered a rock wall with. We always thought it had a 302 in it.

I bought mine new in 73. It was ordered as a 302cid with a 3 spd (you couldn't get a 4 spd) and a floor shift. I ordered the floor shift so I would have the correct column when I installed the 4 spd. About 72 or 73 most of the Mavericks had V8's because they couldn't get the 6 cyl to pass the emissions law early in the model year. There were tons of them around with V8's, two doors and four doors. Mine wasn't really quick but it would light the tires pretty easy. I think I had about $2600 in it including Cragars, tires, full set of Sun blue line gauges, fiberglas hood with scoop, and a tape player with 4 speakers. Pretty economical hot rod. I ran the wheels of of it before it rusted away. I still have the motor. It was in my white wagon and now rests in the 56 wagon downstairs.