Trying to figure out what panels are from what car.
Talk about my past catching up.. The Lance Simmers coupe. When I was working for Motor Spares in Wagga we all congregated at Lance Simmer's speed shop. It was a Total Service Station located on the Forest Hill road half was between Wagga and Forest Hill RAAF base. My claim was that I worked at Motor Spares during the day and spent many hours after work at that speed shop helping and learning. And also working on the driveway during weekends, as it did a great trade with the RAAF guys. There was a great big shed alongside the servo and lot's of cars were born there.. Like Mr Horsepower, a FJ fitted with a 272 OHV Customline engine. Another was a Humber Super Snipe fitted with a Pontiac Strato Chief engine and gearbox. Best of all may have been An FC Holden owned by the son of a Guy Named Kevin Church that had a servo just down the road. Anyways Kevin had a Jag sports saloon that was wriiten off so the engine and gearbox found it's way into the FC. To fit that we had to cut the firewall out til the firewall came back to the speaker grill.. Couldn't tell anything different from outside but it went like a cut snake til it was time to try and stop the bloody thing. Ian Bradley did the cutting on that one.
Lance acquired a MGA 1500 twin cam as a roll over and so Lance and Ian fitted the engine and gearbox into Lance's Morris 1000 shop ute. Rear axle was from a Morris Major Elite It had adapters fitted to take 13 Falcon wide wheels.. The only difference was an extended nose piece to accommodate the radiator. Was the hottest thing around.. Apart from the Total Service Station white with red and blue stripes, it had "little S eater' painted on the bonnet. The local road patrol cop Wally Kitcheher who drove a Cooper S tried many times to catch Lance in it but by the time he got to the servo, we had the S eater up on a hoist and were draining the sump or something along that line.. Gee it really used to p*ss him off.
Anyway, down to the coupe. Lance acquired a rust free FJ. Ian had already done some frenching and minor body work on Lance's 55 chevy sedan. Ian worked for Thomas Body Works in Wagga and was very well respected in the auto body work industry around Wagga. So, one day they got out the FJ and started to strip it down and Ian made a horizontal cut from the height of where the bonnet curves on the back edge right through to the back of the car. And then another from the top of the rear point of the front guard straight through. So effectively he had cut the whole car in three horizontal sections and then cut up the sections to match back together. My claim to fame was that I got the job to go to Bartholamews wreckers and find a really good Hilman Super Minx bonnet. (the bonnet was sent out to the back door of the RAAF base to get the louvers punched in. The boot lid was made from some model Hudson, I think it was a wasp. The rear guards were hand made from sections as was all other body modifications. Original colour was towards a dark blue metalic.
And that was pretty much how I saw it the last time before I went into the Army.. Brings lot's of good memories....
