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I feel guilty bout abandoning my thread here for about 4 months so I fiqure I'Ill make up for it some by sharing a little info on a lil LO car I used to own before my current car.
In 96 I was looking for an original LO Dart & came across a 2 line ad in National Dragster advertising . As it turns out, the owner was Steve O'Neil from MA area. Went down to check it out, & verified it was an original LO.It looked like a beat up ol race car & it was just plain ugly, but it had the potential to be a good car. So I had it shipped up to Canada & started on it. I started sanding the car down to find a base color of silver with an orange inlay on the sides, and blue stripes across the top. Needless to say, what I had stumbled into. So I contacted Mr. Landy hisself, & after over a year of monthly conversations with him, sending him pics of my car, I was finally able to convince him enough to come up here to Canada to look at it. Picked him & his wife Jeanne up at the airport in my 70 4 spd.Hemicuda & brought him out to my place. I'll tell ya, there was nothing cooler than driving Dick around town in the passenger seat of that cuda, with him chompin on a cigar, telling me about the ol days of racing. Something I'll never forget.Long story, short, he documented my beater LO car as his original 4 spd Hemi Dart.
But there was something I didn't understand about my car. It was tagged as an auto. not a 4 speed. His response went something like this. He ordered 2 cars at the same time, he wanted one as an auto, the other as a stick, & he wanted them right now. Dick was informed that there were only automatics available at that time. So he told Hurst to ship one auto by truck to his shop, BUT, for the other car, take one off the line as a completed body only, sans engine & trans, throw the clutch pedals etc, in the trunk, & ship it by 747 to his shop. So, it arrived at his shop where he converted it to a stick car before it ever turned a wheel under it's own power. This car to this day has never had an auto in it, even tho it was tagged as one from day one.
Interesting little fact, is, this car is the #5 car, 2 serial numbers earlier than the car I'm now trying to find the history on for the last 7 years with no luck yet.

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