This has the air-cooled Powerglide and was shipped to the West Coast via vertitilt.
It has the original metal air cleaner and the canted coolant recovery bottle, though of course the original battery with offset filler caps is gone(in fact there's now just a large hole where the battery tray once was, which I'd have a hard time to replace).
It has a straight body. Engine has steel sleeves but needs a valve job and I know I'd need to get a camshaft removal tool to get that fixed. If it had a manual tranny I'd definitely try to restore to as original as possible
My feeling is that down the road it will have more collectable value if kept as original as possible given that so many have been modified to drag cars. It's a real dog with the Powerglide and I would go as far as a 4-speed auto if there's one that would bolt to the engine, but that's it.
My son wants to put a V6 and auto into it. In that case te battery would wind in in the rear and the missing battery tray would not be as much of a problem. Whichever way we go, it will remain a street car.
What's your advice?
Thanks in advance,
Ray Mac.