Hey all! Sorry about my long term absence but I am closing in on being able to enjoy my cars again once I get them all under the same roof for the first time in two years. A couple of weeks ago I went down to a little town outside of Winston Salem, North Carolina and purchased a 1980 Pinto Pinchero. She is blue with an automatic, headers, and a 2.3L engine. The conversion was apparently done by a gentleman in Goldsboro, NC who advertised his kits for a brief period of time. The work was done in fiberglass, something I have absolutely zero experience in but I wasn't passing up this car. There is a fuel cell added to the bed by a previous owner rather than buying a new tank. The conversion looks to be fairly competent. The rear seat backs are gone and the passenger rear seat cushion is missing (Gotta get one of those) but she runs pretty strong. There may be some fuse issues as well as there seem to be some inconsistencie s in the lights/turn signals. The "tailgate" has two simple but very effective latches. Humping this thing back through the Smokies on a trailer wasn't terribly difficult behind the big red truck, but I got a lot of looks that made it worthwhile no matter what. This car had been listed on Craigslist for at least a little while.
Incidentally, prior to this I had gone to Omaha to look at an orange 78 Cruising Wagon that, by the appearance in photos and the description, was all that and a bag of chips. The asking price was $4500. This car was not that nice, and having owned several Cruising Wagons and listening to folks here, I put the value about two grand lower than that. His idea of bargaining was to come down $100. He may find someone to pay that, and despite the fact that I have always desperately wanted an original orange Cruising Wagon, this one wasn't it. If anyone else goes to see it, let me know if I'm off base in my valuation. When I get a chance, I'll post pictures of the blue Pinchero.