Today I am thinking about my father on fathers day.
Sid Plofsky passed away a little over 10 years ago, but he would have loved being a part of this project and especially seeing his grandchildren being a big part of the business he created. As I work with my brother and nephews, I can't help but be drawn into many memories around the business and my father. I won't bore you with many memories but one stands out as I was working on the project this past week alone one morning, this memory surfaced.
Almost 20 years ago in the late 90's my folks were planning on visiting CA for an extended stay. I had the idea that during the month stay, I would take off 2-3 weeks of it and maybe for the last time, my father being in his late sixties at the time, we would go out and purchase my dream muscle car and restore it. The idea was to look for it, purchase it and get it ready for the paint shop in the 4 weeks. I figured it would be long days but that he would really enjoy the project but more importantly just working on it with his son. I also thought it might be the last big project we could work on. We were on the hunt for a 1963-64 Chevy Impala convertible.
On paper the plan seemed reasonable, but in reality it was flawed from the start. Having done no real pre-work and at the time finding project cars on the internet wasn't like it is today, we started with a local edition of the classifieds and a copy of weekly that had all sorts of cars and truck advertised for sale. This is where the plan started to fall apart. In the reasonable 200 mile radius there were few if any Impalas to chose from, so we went to plan B and changed our target to any 60's cool car. We hit as many U sell it and parking lot auto dealers looking for something unique, not too expensive, had a workable list for 3 weeks and we could get the parts for in time to complete. I also forgot to mention that during this time we also had a few tourist things to do since this was my parents second trip out to see me in CA and the first was just a weekend in San Francisco, so the list was fairly long - 17 mile drive, a beach party at a friends house, Napa Valley - you get the picture some of these were whole day events.
I'll cut to the chase, we never did get around to pulling the trigger on a vehicle to restore. I remember about a 2 weeks of trying and coming close on a 1964 Ford Thunderbird
and a 1967 Pontiac Bonneville.
Both of course were not a bargain, again a flaw in the plan and they never really captured the dream of an Impala convertible. But all was not lost and in fact looking back the results were much better. The days I got to spend with my father driving around to check out the potential cars, working up the punch list of things to get done, figuring out how much money we would be dumping into the car and it's potential resale value were all are great memories and what they call quality time. Once we figured out we couldn't make it happen, we went on to do a few projects on my house at the time and ticked off a number of tourist items. All in all a great memory and everytime I see a 1960's Impala, Thunderbird, or Bonneville I am reminded of that time.
Also here is a picture of all the grandkids with their Bubbi
(Grandmother)
On paper the plan seemed reasonable, but in reality it was flawed from the start. Having done no real pre-work and at the time finding project cars on the internet wasn't like it is today, we started with a local edition of the classifieds and a copy of weekly that had all sorts of cars and truck advertised for sale. This is where the plan started to fall apart. In the reasonable 200 mile radius there were few if any Impalas to chose from, so we went to plan B and changed our target to any 60's cool car. We hit as many U sell it and parking lot auto dealers looking for something unique, not too expensive, had a workable list for 3 weeks and we could get the parts for in time to complete. I also forgot to mention that during this time we also had a few tourist things to do since this was my parents second trip out to see me in CA and the first was just a weekend in San Francisco, so the list was fairly long - 17 mile drive, a beach party at a friends house, Napa Valley - you get the picture some of these were whole day events.
I'll cut to the chase, we never did get around to pulling the trigger on a vehicle to restore. I remember about a 2 weeks of trying and coming close on a 1964 Ford Thunderbird
and a 1967 Pontiac Bonneville.
Both of course were not a bargain, again a flaw in the plan and they never really captured the dream of an Impala convertible. But all was not lost and in fact looking back the results were much better. The days I got to spend with my father driving around to check out the potential cars, working up the punch list of things to get done, figuring out how much money we would be dumping into the car and it's potential resale value were all are great memories and what they call quality time. Once we figured out we couldn't make it happen, we went on to do a few projects on my house at the time and ticked off a number of tourist items. All in all a great memory and everytime I see a 1960's Impala, Thunderbird, or Bonneville I am reminded of that time.
Also here is a picture of all the grandkids with their Bubbi
(Grandmother)
