Juanita

My husband, Roger, and I have always been car people.  When I met him he had a Firebird like the one from Smokey and the Bandit.  He even has a Firebird tattoo.  A few years ago we bought a 1962 Ford Fairlane 500 with the intentions to restore it and cruise.  We named him Charlie.  Unfortunately, Charlie never quite fit in and we never got around to doing anything with him. Finally we decided that we needed to get rid of Charlie and look for a new project.

Roger peruses Craigslist like it's his bible.  Finally, he found a car he loved.  He went over to the dealer on a Friday and the car came home 3 hours later.  Here it is being delivered on August 7th, 2012.  It's a 1963 Chrysler Imperial Crown.

 

 Her name is Juanita.  At the time, we didn't realize how much time and money she would take to get going but for us, she is worth it.  Luckily, my parents built a shop when they bought their house and it's a great place to work on cars so Juanita took a trip an hour north to the shop.  Roger worked on her for a long time until he finally found out that the motor was junk.  It was a real heartache but we decided to just buy a new motor and have the transmission rebuilt.  Our goal was to have the car done for Car Shows in late May but that wasn't able to happen.

When she was finally ready for a show, I was unable to go but Roger went and had a great time.  To top it all off, he won a Sponsor pick.  It was a really great confidence booster and made him really proud of all the work he had put it.

I will say, I was a bit jealous of all the attention Juanita was getting.  She was like the Mistress in our marriage.

See what I mean?

Another great part about Car Shows for us is that we get to spend time with Roger's parents.  Above is a photos of their Ford Falcon Futura along with Juanita at a show in Roger's hometown or Rainier.

It also give us the chance to meet new people from different Car Clubs around the area.  The photos above are from the Rus-T Rodz Car Club and Unique Tin shows.

This show was the Support Local Veterans Show at Home Depot.  We parked between the President of our Car Club and Roger's parents.  (I am the Secretary of our club.)

We won another Sponsor Pick at that show.

Finally, we took a long trip to Yachats, Oregon.  This show was my favorite.  It was right on the ocean.

We also won a Sponsor Pick at this show.

All in all, the hard work, money and time apart was worth it.  It has been a great summer.  I even have a tan!