Friday, July 4, 2008

A Gift to A Friend



It's interesting how people are drawn together. The Mustang community is HUGE!! I was never aware of the magnitude of it until I became a part of it. I now have friends from all over the country, from all walks of life, who have this one commom interst. Mustangs.



Now if the Mustang community is huge, the SVO community is small. With less than 10,000 cars ever built, and the estimated survivors thought to be in the 4-5000 range, the opportunity to build a community seems small. Actually the opposite is tue. Maybe it's the small numbers, maybe it because the SVO is an underdog.....who knows? Either way, SVO owners are a tight knit group. I've made many friends since I got involved with the SVO, some I speak to occasionally, some I speak to everyday. Many of them I've never met, but we're friends because of our common interest, the SVO.



Anyways, I want to relate the story of a cool event that happened recently which highlights this viewpoint. It's the story of my friend Mike Burson who is also known as 85ttops on http://www.svoca.com/



I met Mike about three years ago when I went to the glass shop where he worked because I was looking for some window sealer for my 84 SVO. I new the factory stuff was called butyl so I asked for that. Mike told me not to use that and to use the newer urethane sealants. I told him I wanted to keep it original so give me the butyl. Mike wanted to have a look at my car so we went out the front and I showed it to him. He said, "the front end looks funny" I said "it's an SVO it came that way" I then proceeded to give him a bit of a history lesson.



Turns out Mike was a total Mustang nut. At the time I think he had five ot them in various states of repair. His pride and joy was his 82 t-top car which had an inline 6cyl and automatic with a red interior. We became good friends and hung out a lot working on our cars at his place through the summer.



Unfortunately, his 82 t-top was totalled by a driver who ran a stop sign not long after this. Mike was pretty devestated so I made a few calls to some friends in L.A. who have large collections of SVO and Turbo 4's, PatinL.A. & Eyelawdoc, to see if they had a car they might be willing to sell to Mike for the price he would get from his insurance payout. Sure enough, Pat and 'doc had a car to match the price and so a deal was done. This is how Mike came to own his famous "Burnt 84". We call it this beacuse it's an 84 SVO that was orignally silver but that recieved a cheap black paintjob which over time has come to look like someone hit it with a flamethrower!!! Mike is on the left in the phot at the top of this entry.



So the work contiuned, 8.8 rear end in his, fuel pump in mine, repairs to mine when I t-boned a Camry, interior work on his, new clutch and a bunch of other stuff in mine.......you get the idea. Bear in mind that all this work was done at Mike's house because I lived in apartment at the time.



Time led us to move away, me to Portland, OR to work in the film business and him to Bullhead City, AZ. We speak on the phone regularly and got to hang out at the Fabulous Ford's Forever show at Knott's Berryfarm this year but I always miss swinging wrenches with him and sharing our love for our cars.



I know he love's his SVO but I also know he's also wanted another t-top car. Suffice to say he was a little bummed when he heard I was buying the car that is actually the subject of this blog. So, when not a week later, another, t-top SVO turned up, something had to be done. It was first posted by a couple of members on the board that they'd seen a rough 85 t-top SVO sitting on the side of the road in Big Bear, CA. The first person to respopnd was Mike and I could picture him sitting at his computer drooling.



Over the course of the follwing few days there was a flurry of e-mails between svoca members from the west coast and beyond. The decision was made that we should buy the car and give it to Mike. A group of us all made doations and a few others made the extra effort to go and broker the deal with the owner and tow the car for Mike. The car is now in Mike's possesion in Arizona and in the conversation's I've had with him since, the words excited or stoked don't really convey the emotions. For my own part, I was just glad to be a part of doing a good thing for a good friend. Anyone else involved, please feel free to add a comment if you like.

For me it's an example of how a community can grow from a shared common interest. A close knit community of friends who go above and beyond the call for each other.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The Back Story


I've never been much for blogs, reading them or writing them, but finally decided I had something of interest to share with the world so here we are.

My name is Chris "Chalky" Chalk and I live in Portland, OR although I am originally from Perth, Western Australia. I'm a Mustang enthusiast and am particularly passionate about the '84-86 SVO. I'm a member of the SVO Club of America, http://www.svoca.com/ , where I post under the screen name chalkys_explorer, and currently own three SVO's. My black (1C-paint code) '84, strangely enough called Blackie, a red (2R) 86 bi-wing delete parts car, Wingless, (it's an SVO thing!!) and my latest aquistion, an originally silver (1E), but currently painted white(9L), 1984 SVO with T-tops.

"Wait a minute, SVO's were never available with t-tops" I hear the afficionado's say. Well to some degree this is true. Now, for those of you who are a little confused about any of this, for example, if you've never heard of an SVO Mustang head on over to http://www.svoca.com/ for a bit of a history lesson. T-top SVO's were never available from the factory. Meaning, t-tops were not a Regular Production Option on the SVO as they were other Mustangs.

Most t-top SVO's, and there are very few that we actually know of, were installed by Ford dealers trying to move these exotic, expensive, misunderstood, turbocharged, tecno four-bangers out of dealerships where they often languished while the cheaper 5.o litre GT's flooded out the doors. Again, read up for more details but it's often been said that dealers didn't sell SVO's, informed consumers bought them. Regardless, all t-top Mustangs were fitted with a kit made and supplied by a company called Cars and Concepts (C&C) in Brighton, MI. Whether it was shipped to C&C after rolling of the Dearborn assembly line, as was the case with any factory ordered Mustang, or was fitted by a dealer of aftermarket supplier, the same kit was used.

There are a few cases of Special Excecutive Orders from within Ford, and these are documented, but to my knowledge none of these cars have the TR/D codes you would find on the buck tag/ door tag of a Mustang that was dealer ordered with a t-top roof.

So, know that I've bored you with the details, lets get to the story at hand......

For those interested in rare production vehicles trawling websites like Auto Trader or cars.com is often a frivolous waste of time, they just aren't there to be found. The real jems are usually found on Craigs'list or ebay. Such was the case with this car. There is a website called http://www.jaxed.com/ that has a function called the Mash. The Mash is great because it allows you to search for a vehicle by year, make and model but it also has a filter. It'll give you a list of all the vehicles of the type you're looking for on Craigs'list nationally and also what's on ebay. Very handy for the FYI guys over on Four Eyed Pride. So you can search for SVO, and so it was that my t-top SVO was found. On Craig'slist in Fresno, CA.

A discussion was started on the svoca webboard about an 83 SVO that had been advertised. There were no '83 SVO's, but if you look at the early 84 models, the build date will be sometime in '83. In my case the door data tag says 11/83. Anyways, it was noted that the car was missing all it's original SVO specific suspension and front end peices, the interior was trashed and the driveline was missing. But it was a t-top car and the price was $800. It was discussed between a few interested parties but the price was the major problem. Securing the VIN from the owner proved that it was indeed a genuine SVO, built on 11/30/1983 with silver (1E) paint and a leather interior and was the 2516th SVO made.

Post's and PM's flew back and forward, no-one had time to go look at the car and no-one had a place to put it or the money to buy it. So it sat for a few weeks. A few weeks later, in the regular Sunday night chat session on svoca, I asked my friend, Pat in L.A., if he'd heard anything more about the car. He said no but suggested that I contact the owner and see what the status of the car was. So I sent an e-mail asking for details of the car.

The reply basically stated: "$300, come and get it or it goes to the crusher this weekend." That was Monday. By Friday I was in Fresno, CA on a 105 degree day buying a $300 basket case. The bonus was that it came with the original matching numbers engine, the trunk was full of the remaining engine parts, it came with a very rare Ford Motorsport valve cover, was virtually dent free and it'd been sitting in the Fresno desert for 11 years so apart from a covering of dust, it was rust free.

Mind you, getting to that stage had meant a frustrating week of calls to the CA & OR DMV's about getting a title for the thing as it had last been registered in CA in 1997!!! Luckily,and with help from fellow svoca members Pat, Eyelawdoc, 85ttops, fastest4d, Meotchh, 1low86svo,Horsewidower, Bendutro and other friends in the Mustang community, thanks Scott & Lois, the transportation and storage issues had all been settled and we were on our way. The titleing issues were sorted by a quick visit to a DMV in a small town, suffice to say I love grey haired old ladies, they're very helpful.


It was picked up the following Thursday by Meotchh and delivered at midnight the following day to 1lowsvo's house in Milwaukie, OR. I happened to be in New York City visiting my parents so I am forever grateful for their help. The following Monday upon my return the car got a thorough dusting of and it first good wash in 11 years. I've never seen so much dust!!! We did a mnor teardown of the interior and cleaned a sizeable rat's nest out from under the rear seat.


So far the discovery's are that the car is in very good overall condition apart from the parts that are missing and those that have been neglected. Overall plans for the car are unsure but I can say it will be returned to it's original silver (1E) colour on it's way to a full restoration.


More to come but I will leave you with a picture of how I found it.