Well Cats, the piece does not make the age thing all that clear. I bought and built my first cat at 17, (“Cleveland Rocks”, a Black Imron '70 HT that the 351C engine and 4 speed top loader for Isabel came from), and had that car for 30-some years until I bought and built Isabel using parts from 3 cars, Cleveland Rocks, Bronx Cat (a parts car) and Isabel. I am 52 now and was 45ish at the time the ECI odyssey began. I wouldn’t say that the odyssey “sucked” at all, it was a tremendous challenge and the results have been supremely gratifying and satisfying. Not for everyone, not for most people, but for me I wouldn’t trade the time spent for any easier road/way (of which there are many).
Hope this clears things up! Thanks all for the comments.
And that right there, folks, is what it is all about…the challenge. At least, that is what it is all about for me…“I CAN do this…and I don’t care who says I can’t or shouldn’t”. I do it to prove to myself I can, regardless of accolades, write-ups, bits of plastic/wood/marble, etc.
(That doesn’t mean I’m going to go out and get another and go all 68FastCat, or anything)
Knowing what I do now, I would have rather had the piece link to CCC (if that content was here in full), the hits on the MCNot ECI thread are going up faster than I’ve ever seen them, i.e., up 250+ since I looked earlier today. The thread views stand at 127,758 when I looked just now…
I HATE being told “you’ll never be able to do that”.
I always have to try to prove everyone wrong. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but as long as I learn something from the experience then it’s all good.
Tbh, it’s part of the reason my car looks the way it does. When I told folks I planned to give it a restoration in a lock up garage with only a foot of room either side of it, no power, no heat, and no water, a few folks pretty much laughed in my face.
It just made me more determined.
Although I admit that such crappy working conditions led to a not inconsiderable amount of frustration, and an equal amount of profanity!!
Nothing like being able to say “f*** you!” to the doubters !!
That feeling you get when you’ve finished something which everyone said was impossible is worth much more than any trophy.
This is where I restored mine.
The garage is a mile from my house. Some panels I had to remove and take home to repair, but 90% of the welding was done in here !
Sorry if my attempt at a little tongue in cheek fun about the age thing was misunderstood as a negative comment about the rebuild, it wasnt intended. I think anyone who owns a classic only knows too well what kind of effort it takes to maintain let alone rebuild such a fine car as you did. Cougar recognition is such a rareity that when it happens it gives all the owners a pat on the back
Just shy of 128K views now, almost 500 hits in about 24 hours, guess the MMF link is being typed in (as long/difficult as it is!). Pretty cool.
Oh, and C2, almost finished changing the bazillion links that were broken by my buddies gallery site recent changes. About 10 more pages to go (out of about 115 pages, over 1700 pictures), whew.
129,529 views, about 500 views per day since Thursday (when I started looking). Bill said printed magazines are doomed, this kind of data makes you wonder. IMO, Kind of like the traditional wired circuit-switched telephone vs. IP telephony, traditional things are not going away any time soon…
Sure Bob, way to help the corporate overlords. Now they’ll probably sucker some other generic parts seller that doesn’t sell classic Cougar parts into forking over a bunch of cash. “Look guys. Look at all the hits this site gets! You’ll double your sales in no time!”
