so here we are in San Diego it's Sunday morning we didn't have any leads for
this morning so we got on Craigslist and now we're heading towards a gentlemen
who on Craigslist had a whole bunch of cars Cougars, Montegos, and Torinos
Ford products come and join us we'll see what we can find in this guy's yard
this is interesting a couple of mercury Marauders some with factory style wheels
I see over here's got some Cougars on the garage and they're only one like a
66 67 68 and a later one probably a 69 next to it and orange trees which is
appropriate for Southern California are you Alex all right this morning it's a
Sunday morning and it's not a good day to go barn-find hunting so we had the
idea of trying to go where everybody else goes these days Craigslist and we
found a guy Alex...mmm [Alex] - Tecessian That had a whole bunch of Fords and
Mercury's advertised I said well let's give him a call we'll wait until nine
o'clock well here we are just after 10 o'clock on Sunday morning and and we're
surrounded by what I'm told are dozens of old Fords so are you are you a cougar
enthusiast? I see a few of them around. Cougars Cougars everywhere I try to
you know most of them are a little more usual looks that's actually that's a GT
390 car right there I called a guy up from a payphone it was
advertised as like 68 cougar thousand bucks or something like that I'm gonna
call him and the guy didn't bother to put in the Ad he probably inundated
Blah oh yeah the 390 GT motor sitting on the
trunk he didn't tell him he didn't know where in the ad that he put in there it
was a GT which makes it you know instead of you know that's like all right so I
mean these cars a pretty pretty solid I'd would always I would pick from the best
of the best I mean for every car you see here and there I probably turned down you
know, ten, you know. [Tom] Is that a Cale Yarborough car? [Alex] Yep, it is [Tom] Huh, wow I didn't
even have a Dan Gurney car as well yeah the blue roof yeah yeah yeah okay but
these cars I mean they were they were not hot rods they were just mostly
automatics weren't they mmm mostly the original trim package I guess well these
these you get with either the 351 or the four is that right - 428 and this is a
351 car and this is the W nose they actually made a a long nose yeah those
were all 350 351 cars oddly enough you know mm-hmm American Mustang Association
where so everything you've gots for sale
that's cool ah no I'm a cyclone nut so this one's a keeper that's a keeper
this Oh 69 convertible six a convertible I've kind of done up as they eliminate
her clone that should never they never made an Eliminator horrible stuff so you
you put a top paint job that currently this car was a mess matter of fact I
bought it on one trip when my Aussie buddy was here like probably five or six
years ago it was like an Orange County or something this thing was a bowl full
of ugly has like some like 80s inky wheels on it with tire that were flap I
mean might even my Aussie buddy who knows cars he's like Mike what do you
when you buying this piece of crap for you know I'm like well because it
eventually I can know it look like it can look like this I've read and Tara
I'm just thinking clean up really sweet I did I don't do like Saturday saturday
Barrett shock me at barrett-jackson restorations on it but I try to do
pretty easily yep and what motors in here ah Windsor
just a true Belle Windsor yeah that's since it was just a two-barrel wins your
car nothing special I figure I could take some liberties with it and put some
Eliminator stuff on it and yeah you know I haven't done it if it was a rare car
but so it's a 69 there's a 68 68 and this is a factory four-speed car
oh really rare so you got some really nice car that won these two yeah now the
guy said the other day said now in California you can grow pot in your
backyard but you can't have an old car doesn't run is it that's not definite
your first Mustang that that's the first bet the first car first this is the car
this is the car your very first very first car so it's go 3 speed 3 speed is
that a v8 car yeah yeah why I'm looking to roll the rear quarter panels in there
all I mean there was this metal there you know where I come from it's not
necessarily the case how far is Ramone from here a little
location number 2
word Alexes second location in Ramona California
apparently it's tough in the state of California to have this many cars in a
non-business setting but he told me this is the welcome mat right here it's a 69
Torino I guess maybe 68 and it's a it's a factory Cobra jet car you see back
here it has the Cobra logo so this was a 428 car which would have been I'm not
sure what the horsepower is but probably in the area of like 335 or something
that it I'm in the middle of the desert here so I don't have books in front of
me this has an automatic on the column or it did I don't know if was a bucket
seat car or a bench seat car here's a cougar a 67 390 four-speed car now this
has bucket seats most Cougars had bucket seats because they were sports cars but
he does have a couple of Cougars with bench seats on which would probably not
be as fun or desirable but they're certainly rarer so there's a 390
four-barrel and this has manual steering power brakes a four-barrel and because
these cars are pretty much Southern California cars the cars he buys are all
kind of local rust is is not much of an issue at all these so you know if you
were into rolling up your sleeves and restoring a car you could do that with
any number of his cars and not have to worry about much rust repair because
they're they're solid I mean you could Sam bless his car and be in pretty good
shape so Alex said we could just make ourselves at home here he's taking care
of some other business right now and wow she's well this this is what happens
when a hobby gets out of control and you have a spare acre of land huh
well I see when Sheryl Mercury Montego Cougar Mercury station wagon a comment I
mean cougar cougar cougar is a maverick Wow
and more 390 cars than I've seen in one location for a long time so I'm not an
expert of this but this is a 390 GT if a Ford Mustang was a GT that would mean it
was a stick shift if it was a GTA it would be an automatic but I guess the
same policy hasn't applied to Mercury's because this is a GT 390 but it's got an
automatic with a floor console actually this is one of the cars we saw on the
Craigslist post it's a Mercury Montego convertible the back window I guess the
zipper is torn out but the top is up that looks like material still there I
don't know what he's got under the hood so is this a three or two or four-barrel
automatic what car here do you think I got the highest value or potential for
you know a great restoration you know a car you know I mean like a lot of
Builder cars that probably donor bodies for more valuable stuff special here but
this car actually guy from Finland I met last month or two I came here and he
gave me deposit on the car so end of end of this month he's coming back into town
this cars going to Finland no kidding yeah so there's a 302 car all the the
base motor 69 in later Cougars the base motor was a 351 you want them in 69
there were all windsors and 70 the Cleveland came out but it's still like
earlier cars like this one tended to be Windsor's and as production ramped up
there were almost all Cleveland's and all four barrels and 70 were Cleveland's
okay now I noticed the cars that you have covers on are Kerberos is that
fight clone convertible yeah that's actually well it's a it's a it's
actually a comet convertible it's not quite a they did make cycle and
convertibles that year but section a cycling I see the scoop on there we're
to throw a deck car uh I someone put that now that that's a cyclone hood okay
okay but someone put a cyclone hood on a comment actually why someone bought a
390 four-speed car didn't go the whole one more step and actually get a cyclone
yeah don't ask me but it's actually vind as a four-speed 390 comet convertible in
a really rare car yeah yeah yeah not a super big dollar car but that's a for
speaker for speed for speeds in the trunk yeah no water in it now no motor
but I mean I've probably got about a dozen s-code motors here there and
everywhere that a glass hood yep cyclone hell yeah so the Cyclones came
with glass witness I closed the cyclone GTS did they also made a psyche just a
regular cyclone with the 29 car but I think I actually made more GTS and they
did regular cyclones so who made the hood or so it's got steel bracing it's
just yeah it's a fort hood yeah these are truly barn flying cars there's no
boring around I know I'm sitting outside but they might as well be in a barn
because in Southern California very little rain very dry climate so they can
last outside for a long time but they're all interesting and these would be great
starting points for a restoration there's a 65 Fairlane 500 two-door
hardtop and that's a 289 four-speed car so that's an unusual car here is a 63
Mercury two-door hardtop v8 four-speed car
there's the four-speed shifter right there the shift knob still on it a real
rare car and here's a 68 Ford Torino fastback 390 factory four-speed car I
mean in a row get three unusual cars all from the same manufacturer over here in
the weeds 68 Ford Torino 390 four-speed car
he's got the hood scoop it's got hood pins I guess they were added in but this
thing is all together still and because it's been out here in the dry climate
you know it's got some surface rust but this is a solid car with solid floors
and it's complete he won't strip this one out so whoever bought this car would
not have a very difficult time restoring it because it's solid and it's complete
okay so this is a cougar it's a 351 car so it's got the hood
scoop and this one actually is functional there's actually a hole in
that hood underneath there most Cougars had replica hood scoops there was no
hole to feed cool air into the carburetor it's automatic it's got the
fiberglass scoop in the front and the fiberglass spoiler in the back these
also had were available with a 428 Cobra Jet and when my friend from high school
Xavier Lucena he had won a 428 Cobra Jet and when he went in the service he said
Tom would you sell this for me and I took it out for a spin before it's sold
and boy what a rapid rapid car that was oh and here's another one this this we
got a look at there's a 68 Ford Torino Ranchero and this is a factory 390
engine still in the car and a factory 4-speed transmission still in the car
console buckets thankfully he didn't part this car out because it's it's
complete and it seems to be pretty solid you know I seem to see more rancheros
and El Caminos in California than I see anywhere around the country it was
probably a market that this car was designed to and son-of-a-gun there's
still around 50 years later surfers contractors it's just it it it is what
it was meant to be it was a car and it was a truck some people hate them I
think they're pretty cool this didn't turn out to be a bad Sunday morning
visit and all the barn funding I've done in my life barn find books on five
hundred videos Sunday morning is the toughest time to find cars because
people go to church they wake up late they go to brunch they want to read they
want to visit and knocking on their door is not a good thing I want to do on a
Sunday morning but we had the idea this morning of looking up Craigslist and
finding out what in the San Diego market might be available and we see this guy
Alex with pictures of cars lots of Mercury's we call him up I said can we
come over and he said sure come on over so it was a good Sunday morning
happy
you