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RICK’S PASSION -By: Rick Montalto, Member #490
Rick found the car in the Auto Trader about 4 years ago and took a drive down to Lemont with two of his friends to look at the car. Although it was "Love at first sight", Rick didn't buy the car right away. It seems that one of the friends that came along recognized the car from his days of owning a service station in Lombard. The car was set up as a racer and Rick was looking for something a bit more streetable. Rick and his friends left the car and took a drive to Lombard where they looked up the original owner (who by chance builds engines for a living) to get the low down on the car. The prior owner stated that he had bought the car for one of his sons a number of years ago from someone in Wisconsin to set up as a racer. He owns a 69 Camaro and had made an agreement with both sons to pay for half of their cars and set them up if they had the desire to follow in his footsteps (What a Dad!!). Well it seems that the son that owned this car went off to college and fell in love with computers instead, so the car went up for sale. The guy in Lemont bought it as a father and son project but the son got transferred out of state and the car sat in his garage for the next two years until he decided to sell it.
About a week went by after Rick had originally gone to see the car and it was still on his mind. Knowing that it was in good shape he called the seller up and cut a deal too good to pass up. Arriving with a tow truck to bring the car home Rick got a pleasant surprise when the seller brought out 2 Mickey Thompson slicks on rallye wheels and boxes of parts that Rick thought he was going to have to hunt down to make the car street legal again.
During the next 3 years Rick pulled out the 10 point roll cage, replaced the 4.88 rear gear with a 3.73 posi, the 5000 stall converter with a 2800, the Holley 850 double pumper with a Holley 750, the Victor Junior single plane intake with an Edelbrock Performer dual plane, the .621 lift Blue Racer solid lifter cam with a Comp Extreme .593 hydraulic lifter cam, and removed the electric fuel pump and fuel cell from the trunk. The battery was relocated back to the engine compartment and a new trunk floor and gas tank were added. Most recently the headers and 3" side pipes were relocated and the exhaust now exits the rear of the car.
This winter Rick is installing a Custom Auto Sound stereo system with six speakers and doing some dash work on the inside. Additional plans for the winter are to pull the motor to freshen it up and drop the compression so the car will run on pump gas and to swap the current reverse valve body Th400 automatic trans with a friend for a Super T10 4 speed. Although the body and paint are pretty good Rick would like to repaint the car as soon as he can get his kids through college.
You'll notice the painted floor of Rick's garage. Also nice and heated for the winter months.