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Back in my high school days I owned a new 1954 red and black Rambler. I
have many fond memories driving around or cruising around town which was
the big thing back then. I pushed it to the limit many of times and it
never let me down. It was a sad day when I went into the service and had
to sell it. So when I retired in 1998 I set out to locate one just like
it. I started by looking at all the ads and went to every web site I could
find to locate one. I found quite a few Rambler’s for sale but they were
really in rough shape. Finally one day in June of 2000 while I was vacationing
in Utah, I spotted a red and black Rambler sitting in the back yard of a house.
I stopped and asked the owner if it was sale, and he said no at first but as we
talked about the fact that he had no place to keep it out of the weather that it
would just rust away. He had just moved from California to Utah so it came from
a dry state, I told him one year of sitting out in a Utah winter would more than
likely be it’s last and it was a shame to let that happen. The only difference
between this car and the one I had owned was the transmission, this one had a
three speed automatic transmission. The car had been in his family for twenty
years and he used it to drive back and forth to work. The car was in pretty good
shape, it did start right up and had little to no rust. Front windshield had a
crack and the front grill was damaged, but all in all it looked pretty good. So
I kept working on him to sell it and finally we came up with a deal right there
in his driveway. We shook hands and the deal was set. Now I had to have the car
transported to my home state of Florida. I lucked out there because his brother
in law was in that business and he was getting ready to transport two cars to
Orlando Florida. So the next day is was loaded up and on it’s way.
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When the car did arrive in Florida I decided to go with a full restoration
(frame off) keeping it original. Motor (flat head six) and transmission
rebuilt with new pistons, rods, valves, new wire harness, etc. My main
thought was to keep it 100% original. Parts were hard to come buy, but I
had joined the Nash Car Club Of America (NCCA) Nash Car Club Of America (NCCA) which is a must for any Nash owner. This clubs
reaches many other clubs and has a great membership of people who are more than
happy to talk about old cars as well as sharing repair tips and a warehouse of
information. The restoration started in July of 2000 and was finished in September
of 2002. -- John |
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