The Story of the Blackbird
It all started a number of years back when my friend Mike and I were working on a '66 T-bird I was restoring for a customer. When weÕd finish each evening, we'd have a couple of beers to celebrate day. The choice of the period was Coors Light and weÕd always be listening aII oldies radio station in the shop so we'd drift back to the days (not really good or old) when we were first learning how to afford the wonderful world of wheels. These happened to be the days when the first thing we did with a car was change the hub caps and get rid of the chrome. It was the days of baby moons, old spinners, lake pipes and yes, fuzzy dice. Well, more and more of the conversations led to the wish that we would be do a car for ourselves and do it the way we had them back when our cars were really expressions of our personality. The biggest drawback to restoring one of my T-birds was always the fact that there was so much chrome and trim that could not be restored and just plain had to be sent out for rechroming or buy new. Everything else we could do ourselves. After doing enough cars for customers, I knew very well that I would not (maybe ever) be able to afford all that chrome and trim.
With a stack of custom car magazines laying around the living room (no wife at that time yet), I would watch TV and read nearly 4 nights a week and of course the next day weÕd chat about the ideas IÕd read about. By the time we shut down and had a couple of beers the ideas took on deep roots and we started wondering what we could try them out on. ÒHey, Mikey! IÕve got a couple of parts cars out in the yard and they are totally dismantled already so we donÕt have to spend time taking them apart, all we have to do is start grinding and sandblasting, welding, filling, sanding and priming, cutting some more and welding some more.Ó YouÕve got the 4 wheel drive and we could pull them out with that and get them into the shop next week.Ó
Well, Mikey thought I was kidding. HA!! The next day we had one in the shop. We had one heck of a time getting it out of the snow banks out in the field but it was now in the shop. And we were on our way to a boyhood dream come true. After a few twelve packs of beer, a few weeks of Old Rock and Roll and much more discussion of the latest techniques in customizing, gleaned from the stacks of magazines piled on the living room table, the ÒBlackbirdÓ was starting to have a theme. The budget demanded using only the worst of parts from my large stash of leftovers that no one would buy or use on their car for restoration. (The logic was that if I could sell it I could use the money for some of the stuff weÕd actually need to purchase, such as paint) Boy, I tell you, all the years of welding my Dad taught me sure came in handy. We built more of the body than what was there to start with. The budget also demanded we eliminate or paint as much chrome as possible because rechroming was something we could not do ourselves. ThatÕs how the rear bumper became part of the rear body structure - - weld and paint - - build new rolled pan for under the rear bumper and while we were back there we cut and welded some ports in the lower rear quarters to duct the exhaust from the mufflers to the outside of the body. I could sell all the good chrome door handles and emblems I could get so this car couldn't have any. Darn, I guess weÕll just have to open the doors with electric solenoids and the tnmk will just get a remote release cable under the dash. Grills for a Ô64 are hard to come by so a black painted tube grill got built into the front bumper, which also got the paint treatment.
The Òpaint treatmentÓ included some black magic from my days of customizing and painting. With a bench full of cans and jars dug out of boxes, each containing a different brand of custom and special effects paints, I started juggling ideas of what to mix together to get the effect we wanted. The end result should look black when not directly lighted. When the sun hits it we wanted it to have a bluish tint or glow and under the halogen street lights we wanted it to change into the purple shades along with some blue and black. Black lacquer was the base. Out came the clear lacquer and in went a few tablespoons (actually a few gobs) of pearl concentrate. Spray pearl is no science, ya gotta look like you donÕt know what you are doing. Mikey was worried - -ÒAre you sure you know what this is gonna look like?Ó - - ÒMikey, go get a couple beersÓ. Maybe a twelver later we had it sprayed. Lotsa coats of lotsa stuff. Lotsa old tricks from ages past before the new paints came out and we admired for over an hour using flashlights and trouble lights and fourescent lights to see it change all the colors we wanted. With no chrome on the lower part of the car, it just wouldnÕt look right to have all that chrome around the roof and belt area so that all got painted to match. The only chrome left was the trim around the side windows themselves and the windshield. Now, we put a lot of effort into making this thing dark. I mean ÒDARKÕ It didnÕt seem right to have that bright glass all over the windows and lights. That stood out horribly when we started assembling. Enter, the window tint. All the windows (except the windshield) got sprayed and then on to the headlights, that worked so we did the parking lights too. The solution for the rear lights was to paint all the aluminum trim around the lights and make a large black smoked plexiglass cover to insert into the rear bumper to cover the whole area and make it blend into the rest of the black car. Turn the lights on and they shine the prettiest pair of bird shadows on that plexiglass. A pair of halogen sealed beams shine through the dark window tint sprayed on them very nicely also. A few of the other goodies are a completely rebuilt engine and trans detailed with black paint and all gold cad plated hardware under the hood.
The interior is all black vinyl including the headliner. To bring this whole thing down to earth the cutting torch took out one coil off each of the front springs and dropped the rear springs by heating them next to each end-eye till they rested on the underbody. The final touch was a set of chrome reversed wheels and low profile 60 series tires.
This baby runs like a dream and handles extremely well. It even cruises the highway to the tune of about 18 miles per gallon (with the foot somewhere down in the carb - -70 MPH). Where ever it sits, Darth Vader canÕt be far away. You can hear his low, hoarse voice every time those glass packs take a breath. And right behind the wheel you will find one of us kids with our few gray hair and an 18 year oldÕs grin from ear to ear.