Original engine block undamaged other than being weathered. The engine block was found next to the garage door opening along with one head. The other head was mounted on the 396 engine seen directly behind the car along with a single 291 head. At first I passed over the original block thinking it was an early block due to the distributor boss being the early tall version. It was not until I had looked at every other block in the garage and thinking I was not going to get an original block so I was MUCH relieved when I finally looked at that one. Another reason to panic was the garage was 3" deep in standing water!

Wow! What a find! Congrats Rick and Annie!
I can't help but think what goes around comes around and this find is rewards for all that you guys do for our hobby. Looking forward to following your progress.

Very Cool Rick! Sure would look good in Day 2 trim!


Tommy

It is truly funny Damien. My resto tech is a lot like me and we were discussing this very subject just a couple of months ago. He has known me for about 10 years and during the discussion I reacted to his "what goes around comes around" comment stating that though I agree, it would sure be nice if my ship would come in some day. 2 days later I received the call for this car.........

However and in thinking more deeply about that subject days later I realized my ship had already come in almost 2 years ago and maybe I should be much more thankful for that instead of a car. The car is just a bonus but we are sure looking forward to restoring it together. :beers:

P.S. my 54 Bel Air will be going up for sale now as soon as I swap in the 388 stroker motor to help finance this restoration........... ;)

Such a great find that wasn’t as secret as you thought. Johnny and I have talked about this car a few times, even a few months ago.

Your car will clean up and come back to life easily!! I don’t even think that dent can be called “damage”.

I do not understand how the car was not rusty? Dirt floor garage/barn? Standing water at least recently....... I don’t get it? By the condition one would assume it was stored somewhere else.... But others have shared pictures of it in the same place from decades ago.... incredible!

Ryan

The standing water was due to a torrential down pour days before we arrived. Because the garage was down hill and covered in leaves, they all washed into the garage thru the garage door (if you could call it that) and into the garage plugging the drain. We had to go purchase barn boots to work on getting the car out. Once that was done the floor drain was cleaned out and drained itself. Based on the condition of the parts that had been below the water we could tell they had not been like that for very long. Notice the water in this photo and the condition of the garage.

Those pics are amazing. Did you get the original wheels with it?? I noticed they were not on it in the other pics.

Unfortunately, No!! We looked everywhere but could not come up with them. I have a feeling they were put on his 70 Chevelle which was at another location and much of the bolt on parts of that car were stolen including the transmission to the Yenko. I WILL find it one of these days and am already tracking down some leads. I have mixed feelings about the wheels as I really do not like the Rally wheels on this car and would much rather have Atlas style wheels on it. I have a year plus to decide.

By the looks of that garage, anything could have been there and you would have never known!! Good luck tracking stuff down, hopefully it will all come together for you.

We pulled every scrap out of the garage one piece at a time to make sure we missed nothing. Found some neat stuff not pertaining to the car and much to Charley's delight I found several thousands of dollars worth of NOS motorcycle parts as well as other antiques that the seller had put into a junk pile and was going to throw away. Likely $10-15,000 worth of stuff of which he is currently now selling. Even found an NOS kerosene fired clothes iron STILL in its original box from the early 1900's. Pretty cool.