j2k4
08-30-2016, 11:54 AM
This ends up being a lot longer story than I would have intended, but here we go...
Back in the early '80s, I worked auto parts...a guy came in wanting to know if I could get a Vertex mag rebuilt - I put the wheels in motion (had to farm it out to a local shop) - at some point I asked him what he was doing with it; he said it was on a car he owned.
It was called a Vetta Ventura; he told me the sheet metal was hand beaten in Malta and shipped to the US as a body-in-white by Intermeccanica Italia and equipped stateside with GM running gear - this car had a 389 Pontiac tri-power, with custom headers, the Vertex, and a turbo 400.
All the rolling gear had come from a Corvette.
He invited me to check it out, which I did - took this picture:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr214/1backforty8/VettaVenturaRB_zps953225cd.jpg (http://s485.photobucket.com/user/1backforty8/media/VettaVenturaRB_zps953225cd.jpg.html)
He said it was pretty rare, one of two convertibles in a production run of 11 cars.
At some point it the marque became the 'Apollo', driven, IIRC, by a couple of Texans who tried to make a go of it - another 70-odd cars were made, all coupes, and he had one of those, too - it was silver, had a 300-inch aluminum Buick V8 and a T-10.
A bit of back-story here - we became good friends, and I asked him how he'd ended-up in the UP of Michigan.
He'd been a roadie for Sly Stone, and later worked with Punch Andrews and Bob Seger as a road manager of sorts - at some point he'd gotten busted at an airport with a suitcase full of pot and pills, served a stretch in prison, royally pissing-off his Detroit-cop step-Dad, who'd retired to the UP with his Mom.
He'd gotten out and come to the UP to care for them, as they were getting on in years.
He'd bought the Apollo to restore and give to his step-Dad to sort of set the seal on their rapprochement - I got to know his step-Dad pretty well, too, but as we were picking away at the Apollo, his Pops developed stomach cancer and passed before the project really got rolling.
The Apollo was a runner, in any case, and so we turned our attention to the Vetta, which needed serious work.
It had a ladder-frame with some rot, the headers were Swiss cheese, and the windshield was cracked - the body was pretty fine, though.
Anyway, more history - a windshield would have to be custom-made, because it was peculiar to the convertible, and there were only two made, so that went on the back-burner.
I had another buddy who was a fantastic body-man, so we arranged to put the car in his garage to work on, because it had all the required amenities.
At some point I commented on the fender flares; he told me that when they were trying to get the project off the ground, they'd taken one of convertibles to doll-up for the manufacturer's shows they'd planned to attend.
He didn't know if the fact it had the flares indicated anything, but mentioned as well that the car had been painted a candy green.
We commenced work on the car, starting by removing the interior - we pulled the rugs and found candy-green paint, which kind of put us on a slightly different footing.
Anyway, we were pretty enthused at the prospect at that point, but investigating in the pre-computer age was a slog - the only thing we'd been able to find out was that the flares were the other feature added for the show-car.
I found another buddy to fab some headers using the old ones as a pattern; when I took delivery of them I commenced to doing the clean-up, port-matching and stuff.
I'd just finished them and brought them to the shop, only to find the place locked-up tight.
After about a week, my body-man buddy called me and said he'd "been told" my involvement was no longer desired by the guy who owned to car.
People stopped answering the phone, etc., couldn't get to the bottom of things, and I was left at loose ends.
Fast forward a few years - I relocate to where I am currently; my marriage fell apart - my ex was a huge slut, I was a trusting dope, and we'd moved to her home turf.
I found out that one of the reasons she was so eager to move here was she'd been screwing all my friends, including the guy who owned the Vetta as well as the guy whose garage housed the car.
At some point I heard the guy who owned the car had died - I heard this from my daughter, who found out from her Mom, because she'd apparently never stopped screwing the guy.
Another fast forward, another few years.
I've told this story to a few people, and in doing so realized I'd never done any PC research to find out more.
The buddy who pointed me at my Stealth had a book called Modern Classics, which had included a couple of pages recounting the story of the Apollo, but when I went online, the very first thing I found was a photo of a page from an auto magazine that the guy who owned the cars had shown me, where the production numbers and stuff were recounted.
More research revealed another bit of info, contained in the last paragraph in this link:
http://www.highline-autos.com/great_garage/6/Jerry-McGlothin-Italian-Beauties-American-Brawn
I read that and just about shit.
I knew he had a son, but I never knew he had a daughter; in any case, I found a reference to the cars in a "barn-finds" thread where Jerry McGlothin had posted - I had no contact info for him, but I replied to the thread, hoping I might hear something.
I never did, but...another fast-forward:
Last week, I'd just gotten a call from my wife, telling me the vet couldn't put my cat down on Monday, I'd have to wait until Tuesday - I was more than a little put out by the news, as he was suffering greatly - I'd just hung up the phone, and, looking to my left, down the plant driveway across the Falls River bridge, I see a familiar shape coming my way.
I can't see as well as I used to, and as the car got closer and the shape became more familiar, I grabbed my binoculars to be sure - it was, I kid you not, THE Vetta Ventura I knew, looking PERFECT.
I couldn't believe it was there, my eyes weren't deceiving me - it was essentially going to drive right into my lap...but it turned into a parking lot just on the other side of the bridge, turned around - at this point it was about 80 feet from me - and drove away.
There was no mistaking the car, none at all.
It would have been maybe 3-4 years since I'd read McGlothin was beginning his resto on the car, so it could have been him, right?
Blows me away, and I have no clue what to do about it - it's ultra-strange, because while I'd included my email address in my thread-reply, I live basically at the end of the Earth, here.
No reason for him to be here at all - he wouldn't know where to find me, not during my work-day, but for all of this to be a coincidence....I've never been so flummoxed about anything in my life.
Back in the early '80s, I worked auto parts...a guy came in wanting to know if I could get a Vertex mag rebuilt - I put the wheels in motion (had to farm it out to a local shop) - at some point I asked him what he was doing with it; he said it was on a car he owned.
It was called a Vetta Ventura; he told me the sheet metal was hand beaten in Malta and shipped to the US as a body-in-white by Intermeccanica Italia and equipped stateside with GM running gear - this car had a 389 Pontiac tri-power, with custom headers, the Vertex, and a turbo 400.
All the rolling gear had come from a Corvette.
He invited me to check it out, which I did - took this picture:
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr214/1backforty8/VettaVenturaRB_zps953225cd.jpg (http://s485.photobucket.com/user/1backforty8/media/VettaVenturaRB_zps953225cd.jpg.html)
He said it was pretty rare, one of two convertibles in a production run of 11 cars.
At some point it the marque became the 'Apollo', driven, IIRC, by a couple of Texans who tried to make a go of it - another 70-odd cars were made, all coupes, and he had one of those, too - it was silver, had a 300-inch aluminum Buick V8 and a T-10.
A bit of back-story here - we became good friends, and I asked him how he'd ended-up in the UP of Michigan.
He'd been a roadie for Sly Stone, and later worked with Punch Andrews and Bob Seger as a road manager of sorts - at some point he'd gotten busted at an airport with a suitcase full of pot and pills, served a stretch in prison, royally pissing-off his Detroit-cop step-Dad, who'd retired to the UP with his Mom.
He'd gotten out and come to the UP to care for them, as they were getting on in years.
He'd bought the Apollo to restore and give to his step-Dad to sort of set the seal on their rapprochement - I got to know his step-Dad pretty well, too, but as we were picking away at the Apollo, his Pops developed stomach cancer and passed before the project really got rolling.
The Apollo was a runner, in any case, and so we turned our attention to the Vetta, which needed serious work.
It had a ladder-frame with some rot, the headers were Swiss cheese, and the windshield was cracked - the body was pretty fine, though.
Anyway, more history - a windshield would have to be custom-made, because it was peculiar to the convertible, and there were only two made, so that went on the back-burner.
I had another buddy who was a fantastic body-man, so we arranged to put the car in his garage to work on, because it had all the required amenities.
At some point I commented on the fender flares; he told me that when they were trying to get the project off the ground, they'd taken one of convertibles to doll-up for the manufacturer's shows they'd planned to attend.
He didn't know if the fact it had the flares indicated anything, but mentioned as well that the car had been painted a candy green.
We commenced work on the car, starting by removing the interior - we pulled the rugs and found candy-green paint, which kind of put us on a slightly different footing.
Anyway, we were pretty enthused at the prospect at that point, but investigating in the pre-computer age was a slog - the only thing we'd been able to find out was that the flares were the other feature added for the show-car.
I found another buddy to fab some headers using the old ones as a pattern; when I took delivery of them I commenced to doing the clean-up, port-matching and stuff.
I'd just finished them and brought them to the shop, only to find the place locked-up tight.
After about a week, my body-man buddy called me and said he'd "been told" my involvement was no longer desired by the guy who owned to car.
People stopped answering the phone, etc., couldn't get to the bottom of things, and I was left at loose ends.
Fast forward a few years - I relocate to where I am currently; my marriage fell apart - my ex was a huge slut, I was a trusting dope, and we'd moved to her home turf.
I found out that one of the reasons she was so eager to move here was she'd been screwing all my friends, including the guy who owned the Vetta as well as the guy whose garage housed the car.
At some point I heard the guy who owned the car had died - I heard this from my daughter, who found out from her Mom, because she'd apparently never stopped screwing the guy.
Another fast forward, another few years.
I've told this story to a few people, and in doing so realized I'd never done any PC research to find out more.
The buddy who pointed me at my Stealth had a book called Modern Classics, which had included a couple of pages recounting the story of the Apollo, but when I went online, the very first thing I found was a photo of a page from an auto magazine that the guy who owned the cars had shown me, where the production numbers and stuff were recounted.
More research revealed another bit of info, contained in the last paragraph in this link:
http://www.highline-autos.com/great_garage/6/Jerry-McGlothin-Italian-Beauties-American-Brawn
I read that and just about shit.
I knew he had a son, but I never knew he had a daughter; in any case, I found a reference to the cars in a "barn-finds" thread where Jerry McGlothin had posted - I had no contact info for him, but I replied to the thread, hoping I might hear something.
I never did, but...another fast-forward:
Last week, I'd just gotten a call from my wife, telling me the vet couldn't put my cat down on Monday, I'd have to wait until Tuesday - I was more than a little put out by the news, as he was suffering greatly - I'd just hung up the phone, and, looking to my left, down the plant driveway across the Falls River bridge, I see a familiar shape coming my way.
I can't see as well as I used to, and as the car got closer and the shape became more familiar, I grabbed my binoculars to be sure - it was, I kid you not, THE Vetta Ventura I knew, looking PERFECT.
I couldn't believe it was there, my eyes weren't deceiving me - it was essentially going to drive right into my lap...but it turned into a parking lot just on the other side of the bridge, turned around - at this point it was about 80 feet from me - and drove away.
There was no mistaking the car, none at all.
It would have been maybe 3-4 years since I'd read McGlothin was beginning his resto on the car, so it could have been him, right?
Blows me away, and I have no clue what to do about it - it's ultra-strange, because while I'd included my email address in my thread-reply, I live basically at the end of the Earth, here.
No reason for him to be here at all - he wouldn't know where to find me, not during my work-day, but for all of this to be a coincidence....I've never been so flummoxed about anything in my life.