Two-Lane field car
It was a cold day in the junkyard just outside of Petaluma, California, in January of 1970. Their feet made crunching sounds in the sparse grass that had grown, and then died, between the ruts and the discarded cars. The sky was blanketed with gray clouds, the air carrying an astringent edge. They were searching for a body.
They already had a driveline to build sitting in their garage, waiting. Last month they’d found a brand-new Chevelle, one of those hot SS 454s in another junkyard. Its teenaged owner had wrapped it around a telephone pole within a week of buying it, but the LS6 and the M-22 rock crusher were still perfectly fine. They wanted something reasonably lightweight, but still stout enough to take the big 454, something that could stand up to the torque and with room between the frame rails. No deuce coupes for these guys.
The pickings weren’t exactly slim, but they knew they needed the right car and the right car was harder to find than just any car. Most of the inventory in the other junkyards they’d searched was a little too new, a little too heavy. They didn’t want that any more than they wanted something built when their own parents were infants.
This yard was different. It dated back to the 1920s and the old man who owned it never threw anything out. But he also didn’t do much business in the modern stuff. Hot rodders and old-car freaks had been coming here for decades. It wasn’t what you’d call a well-kept secret, but it wasn’t a place many people visited lately either. A graveyard as much as anything else, with old Hudsons and Studebakers slowly rusting back into the earth. A couple of old front-engine dragster frames sat in the weeds too, stripped of any driveline parts and forgotten by a world that had already gotten faster.
“What about that one?” the mechanic asked, pointing at a derelict ’55 Chevy 150 coupe.
“Looks pretty thrashed,” the driver said as they walked toward it.
“We ain’t got a lot of bread, man,” the mechanic replied. “I want to spend most of what we’ve got on the motor.”
“She ain’t gotta be pretty,” the driver said in agreement.
The car had once been painted black. Now it was a stripped and partially charred hulk sitting on stands made from old steel wheels. None of its original chrome trim remained, and several of the windows had been broken out. Whatever engine had been in it was long gone, along with all the front-end sheet metal. They walked closer.
“Check it out,” the mechanic said. “Rear fenders already been raidused for us.”
“Looks like it’s been rolled,” the driver said, ever the pessimist.
“Got a cage in there. We can knock the worst of it out. Give it a primer job. We can get 'glass for the front end, doors, and the trunk.”
“At least we wouldn’t have to strip it out much.”
“Looks like the gas tank ruptured,” the mechanic said. “That’s OK, we’ll be using a cell anyway.”
“We’ll have to rewire it some,” the driver said. “Redo the fuel lines, too.”
“We’d probably have to do that anyway. It really doesn’t look too bad.”
“We could work with it. Let’s see how much the old man wants for it.”
They walked back to the little trailer that was used as an office. The old man inside offered them coffee in styrofoam cups to warm up a little.
“You boys find something out there?” he asked.
“That ’55 with the burn scars,” the driver said. “How much you want for it?”
“That old carcass?” the old man said with a chuckle. “Been here about eight years now. Some dipshit son of a local rancher got it upside-down street racing it. Used to be a damn fast car for its time. Wrecker brought it in from a field off Paradise Road back in ’62. Far as I know, the kid never raced again.”
The old man, like many old men, liked to tell stories. The driver and the mechanic didn’t give a shit about history. They were about moving forward. As quickly as possible.
“How much?” the driver asked again.
“I could let it go for 75 bucks. You got a trailer?”
“Yeah, we got a trailer,” the mechanic said with a grin. The driver was already peeling off bills.