63 riv story with pix

[Guest Steeleco]

My Dad had a 63 riviera that I got to drive around when I was in high school. He sold it to some friends of mine about the time I graduated. They (I mean a roudy group) drove it from Florida to Colorado and beat the heck out of it. Hundreds of Gallons of gas later they returned. They probably spent $200 as fuel was cheep circa 1973. I remember seeing pictures of donuts in a field etc. tire marks every where. That car probably went to the crusher soon after. Flash forwad to last may my wife saw a craigs list post. As it turned out the Craigs list post was in the North Carolina Craigs list, the owner lived in south Florida and the car was in Mississippi. Having see only 3 pictures of the car I took a chance and bought it. As it turns out it is the same color as the one my dad had when I was a kid. So the car ran good had some rust and still has some floorboard rust issues. I have had a great time doing repiars on it mostly bodywork and decided to paint it with a compressor and spray gun in the driveway. So on a Sunday morning around 6:00 I got to work. Convinently there was no wind and the humidity was fairly good. The guy that sold me the paint told me you can't paint it in the sun or the reducer will pop out. So I had to be finished before the sun popped over the trees. Hope you guys get a kick of of the story. When I retire I may actually resore this car. But for now it is "freshend" a bit. So I included a few pictures of rust, Painting in the driveway and a couple pictures of the car back together. Even with the worn interior, there are so many cool thing about the interior of these cars. For instance the "A" piller has chrome trim on the inside of the car, I cleaned it up and man is it pretty. This is a great project I am having a lot of fun and appreciate all the help from you guys. Let me know what you think

Steele

[tenugent]

great job-like you i have a history with these cars.owened a 64 in the 70s-blew it up and aways said i would get another.so two years ago i bought a 63.now i have a 63 parts car-64 driver-65 project-and the 63.like your im fixing up as a driver not totally stock.dont have time or money for total restore.ive got about a month to go on 63 then im going to drive the wheels of of it.long live the riviera.t.nugent roa#12969.

[RivNut]

I love the 20-20* cars. Easy to maintain, fun to drive, you don't have to sweat bullets every time you drive it.

Good looking paint job from what I can see. Did a couple in the driveway myseld once upon a time. The color on the paint chip and the color on the car weren't even close in the sunlight, but my wife liked it. Win-win.

Ed

*20 feet @ 20 mph.

[Guest rsmalling]

looks great and you really cleaned it up nicely! Fun driver now

[TexRiv_63]

Looks great! I painted many cars outside in the old days, brought back memories.

[whitewatersky]

awesome!

i wish we had cars in this condition/price more easily accessible here in Oz.

it turned out great, by the look of it.

nice work !

[63 Rivi]

I agree with Ed, always good to have one that looks nice but is not a #1 trailer queen so you can still have fun with it.