The original goal for this car was to create a tribute car to the Winston Cup era, thus the custom red & white, Dale Earnhardt paint design. I had intentions of using it as a pace car at our local asphalt speedway. It was going to have the the number #34 (in Richard Petty-style numbers-reversed) on the doors in gold metallic (a la David Pearson) to reflect the 34 years of RJ Reynolds support of Winston Cup racing, a list of Winston Cup Champions listed on the rear deck lid, and the whole complement of decals from the era on the quarter panels. The original car I bought in 2012 was a 1975 Laguna and I was using a series of articles from Popular Hot Rodding magazine entitled, "Project Talladega" as my guide to the restoration. Before I drove the car cross-country, I had the front end completely rebuilt, a new steering box and rag joint, posi-rear-end, 2" drop springs and a unch of other little stuff installed. But once I got it home and dug beneath the surface of its good looks, it had too much rust in the body to make the cost make sense to fix it all.
After an unfortunate divorce, I lost my shop space and had to pay others to continue building the dream. I subsequently purchased a VERY clean, one-owner, 1977 Malibu with 82,595 miles on it to use as a new foundation for the restoration. I had all of the new parts previously installed on the '75 swapped over to the '77. That included having the nose piece and rear tail-end swapped over to continue with the Laguna profile. In essence, the car is a '77 Malibu with '75 Laguna body parts on it. I then had a custom built, 485HP engine built for it by Proformance Unlimited in NJ and paired it with a PT700R4SX automatic transmission from Phoenix Transmission and new drive shaft as per the Pop Hot Rodding magazine articles. There were many other upgrades such as electric fans, new radiator, vacuum pump (to boost brake pedal due to engine cam), dual exhaust & headers with double-hump cross-member & electric dump switch to open headers, Flaming River steering column, new carpeting and sound proofing and many other bits too numerous to mention. Needless to say, I spent many more thousands of dollars than I should have. It just got a whole new set of tires and wheelsBut this was a labor of love and I knew then and I know now I will not recoup anything close to what went into this car. My ideal goal is to see it go to another Laguna fan who might finish the final details to bring to the finish line.
So what does it need? The biggest line items would include:
Look over the pictures and video and let me know if you would like me to post other specific pictures. The car had very little rust to deal with before painting and the areas around the windows (most common leak areas) were all cleaned up and verified as solid before installing the new windshield and re-setting the back glass. It's a fun car to drive and it will be even better once the little niggles are sorted out.
