78 / 150
was good, cleaning and repairing it
and storing it away for reassembly.
The body took us three or four years to
get done. The drive line, minus the en-
gine, was redone. My brother-in-law
repainted the car for $1100. It got to
the point where it was time to make a
decision about the engine. I sent it off
to a machine shop because it needed
some modern technology to deal with
today’s fuels and oil. It came back the
day after Christmas, 2012, balanced
and blueprinted and we restarted it
for the first time. It cranked over
about three turns and then fired right
off. A ton of little details still needed
to be done. The original tachometer
had been stolen and during the recon-
struction I found someone who had an
original tach he had bought at a flea
market in 1970 in Glen Burnie, Mary-
land not too long after the original had
been stolen from my car. He brought it
over and we took it apart, and the date
on the inside was remarkably close to
the production date of my car. So close,
in fact, that I suspected it was the
original tach. The owner told me he
wanted it to go to a good home and he
had it listed for $250. Then he turned
to me and said, “
This is the best home
for it
.” He gave it to me. I sent to out
to MoMa Manufacturing in New Mex-
ico and Margaret and her crew, who
seem to have all of the original Faria
parts, restored it perfectly.
Fred Ballard rebuilt the original
fuel pump and I found a date-coded
Ford four-barrel for a 289 Hi-Po auto-
matic transmission on the internet,
again at a high price, but the guy who
had it said, “
If you don’t buy it, some-
body else will and you will kick your-
self
.” I bought it and have never seen
another one even close to this carbure-
tor’s date. I started searching for the
original engine block that one I had in-
stalled in 6S1855. I found the car for
sale in California and I asked them to
check the block to see if it was the
same one. It wasn’t. I began searching
back through the owners and I am still
in the hunt for it. The car was pur-
chased by hot rodder George Poteet
and I called him about purchasing the
block. We talked about Bonneville and
he told me he had a car that I could
drive there if I wanted to. If I could
come to Bonneville he would make it
happen. I couldn’t get away from work
at that time but I am glad to have had
the offer. Maybe one day it may hap-
pen.
The first show I took the car to
was at a local beach. It was where I
had my first job and it now hosted a
spring car show each year. The car was
running but not completely finished:
the stripes weren’t on it yet and the
window moldings were still off. I prob-
ably shouldn’t have taken it there but
I couldn’t wait. When I arrived (it was
only about a half-mile trip from where
it was being worked on) I parked it in
the field. A lot of local people were at
the show and some came up to me and
told me about another Hertz car that
used to sit in a driveway, covered in
dirt, and how it was horrible that
someone would let the car deteriorate
like that. When I told them this was
that car they couldn’t believe it.
I also ran into some old friends, in-
cluding Jimmy Caldwell. He looked
the car over and asked if I wanted to
give him a chance to win his $100 back
and we both had a good laugh about
that. Sadly, Jimmy passed away the
following week from a heart attack,
but I hope that the good time we had
that afternoon made it a great day for
him. The car won a trophy from State
Farm as the sponsor’s choice. It was
awarded by my insurance man and I
had always kept the car insured and
registered even when it was apart. I
always knew it would get done – I just
didn’t think it would take this long.
Since then, 6S1431 has been on
the road and it has been to many
shows and cruises. I tell people about
loading seven people in it and riding
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Summer 2016 77