1964 Ford ragtop upgraded to 500 XL model
Source: Kansas.com (Original Article)
arryle Barth had visions of driving the backroads of Kansas with his wife, Kaye, the top down on their low-mileage 1989 Cadillac Allante convertible, soaking up the sun and the fresh air.
Then one day, a sudden hailstorm caught the Caddy out in the open. “I stood there and watched that hail storm pound the Allante right into the driveway,” Barth recalled.
But he decided the dream could still come true, in the form of a well-used 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 convertible he had bought several years earlier in Chicago. Not only would he restore the Ford ragtop, he decided he would clone it into the more luxurious Galaxie 500 XL model.
“Changing that interior was a real challenge,” Barth said. Fortunately, he found someone who had stored an XL interior in an attic for years and was willing to part with it. His base-model Galaxie came with a worn-out red bench seat arrangement and steering column shifter, not with the nifty white bucket seats and console-mounted floor shift of the XL model.
“There was the question of where do you put that console,” he said, describing how there were no mounting holes to line up the new parts. “You have to make all new bracketry and you have to think backwards because the floor shift transmission shifts backwards of what the original shifted.” He had to build the rear seat kick panels himself.
Barth said it took over a year of intensive eBay shopping to find the right back seat for the convertible, and then it cost him $600. The new-old-stock back bumper, another almost impossible find, set him back $1,100. “That guy was so excited to sell that bumper, he delivered it personally (from Michigan). I was so excited, I bought him breakfast,” Barth said.
Someone had already swapped out the 289 V-8 in his car for a later model 302, which makes a respectable 15 mpg, he said. The car has power steering, but not power brakes and he has an air conditioner and a new Frequent Flyer Card top that are awaiting installation.
“I do …continue reading