As MMC starts to peel the proverbial onion layers back, the issues start to fester like the start of a virus, when you feel the slight aches around your neck.
I received an email from John that I really would have rather deleted. The email contained pictures of the quarter panels and wheel housing that show the extent of the rust issues and their attempt to try and fix them with new sheet metal. The front quarter panels ended up being non-reparable. This meant that we had to go out and look for some replacement panels to purchase. This is not an easy task, as many of you are aware that ’68 Olds 4-4-2 is a year one car – nothing like it prior and nothing like it after. This made finding parts for a convertible, where only a little over 5,000 were built in 1968, super difficult.
As MMC starts to peel the proverbial onion layers back, the issues start to fester like the start of a virus, when you feel the slight aches around your neck.
Just to note, around this time, the collector car market was getting hot and more and more American companies were starting to make replacement parts of much higher quality for many muscle cars. There were a lot of available body parts for the Olds Cutlass and 4-4-2, just not for the 1968, particularly a convertible. So we had to make lots of cold calls and research on the Internet for parts. Many places charged an unreasonable amount for the purchases and due to the distance, no one could check them out and there was no recourse once you made the purchase – it’s yours; like it or not!
Here is the original email from John:
