[paul.blouin]

I have a story. When I needed to get my 62 re-painted, I went to see a painter here in town. I'm in a small Vancouver Island town. The 62 was painted already and ready to be put back together when I was transporting it on a trailer from Winnipeg to Courtenay (the small town). Through the Coastal Mountains, there are many signs stating "Beware of falling rocks". I always thought these signs weird. Well anyways, the '62 got hit by one of these falling rocks. I saw it rolling down the hill. It was a bit smaller then a football. Not much I could do. I had the fender repaired but it now needed paint. Unfortunately, being a metallic color (apaculpo blue), which is hard to match I'm told, and finding a few flaws from the previous painter's job, we decided to repaint the whole car. Now that we were going down that road, the owner decided to show me his 66 Landau. It was lightly modified. It looked great. So I then decided that I no longer wanted to keep my 62 stock. So discs all around, Eldelbrock in the engine compartement, Air ride on all for corners, two tone metallic paint (we call it Champagne and Merlot), two tone leather interior (ox blood and burgundy) and more. So the 66 was the influence for my 62 build.

Now that we got the background out of the way I can now tell the story. I now know the owner of the paint shop (Murray) very well. At one point, he decided to sell his 66. He offered it to me but I couldn't afford it. I was very interested in it. It remained in the local area and we kept tabs on it. Besides, the owner was making payments to Murray every time he came back from the Alberta oil fields. It ended up in a minor accident and the car owner decided to sell and in the deal, it ended up in the hands of one of Murray's acquaintances. He had it repaired about 4 years ago but never drove it. A few months ago, I decided to get myself a daily driver and was looking for something in the 62 to 72 time frame. Murray mentioned that his acquaintance was selling the 66 but was asking more then I wanted to spent. I had my mind set on a really nice 68 Buick Skylark. But I decided to take a look at the 66 T-Bird anyway. I bought it! So that is how I became the owner of the 66 that influenced my 62 build.

But that isn't the end of the story. Because we were talking about the 66 quite a bit before I bought it, Murray told me the story about how he ended up with the 66. Murray grew up in Vancouver. He used to walk by a 66 Landau every day on his way to school. He ended up loving the car. Fast forward to about 10 years ago, he was looking for an old car to buy and was thinking about the 66 he used to walk by every day. He now lives here on the Island. A buddy mentioned that he knew someone that was selling a 66 like Murray described from his past. Murray went to look at it. Murray told the owner that it looked exactly like the car he used to walk by when he lived in Vancouver. The owner replied and told him that he bought it in Vancouver. So after a bit a of back and forth, it was realized by all that this was "the" car Murray walked by as a child. How is that for a small world!

Sorry about the length of my story but thought it needed some background to get the full value.

Last night I went to visit Murray with the 66. It needed some front end work and finally got it on the road yesterday. Murray reminisced and I took pictures. And I now have to fix the leaky gas tank. It's new but it's leaking at the filler tube to tank connection.