I wanted to upgrade things that were weak in the past ,so the first upgrade was the brakes. I installed a power booster from another 66 car then I replaced the front spindles with ones from a 69 Grand Prix. That allowed me to now have front disk brakes. The 4 wheel drums with a single master cylinder and no power was pretty scary at times. Next was the drive line. The car was fun to drive with a 4 speed, but not very reliable. I was always breaking something. So I got a turbo 400 automatic with a 3000 RPM stall converter. Next was the motor. The 389 had seen all of its better days so I retired the motor for a 455. I had some problems earlier with life expectancy of cast pistons so I chose to go with forged. The block was bored .030 over, zero decked then fitted with JE forged flat tops. During the motor build up some friends of mine found an ad in the paper for some 455 HO heads. What a perfect topper for my combination. I got the heads, fixed them up and now I was ready to fly. Induction is handled by a Holley 850 double pumper that sits atop a Holley street dominator single plane intake. Out back is a 10 bolt posi-track with 3.30 gears. Exhaust exits through tri-y headers and flowmasters, all 2 1/2" pipe. Now it was time for the body work. The car was fairy straight at a distance but when you got up close it was really peppered with door dings many other small dents. I used a body hammer and dollies to massage away all the bad stuff. I got the idea to to make the front end tilt open and once I started that there was no going back. Through much trial and error I got the mechanics to work out and retain all the steel. It's a real eye catcher and makes this car unique. I looked at many colors before deciding on the Imron Patriot blue. That color really lights up in the sun, and blue is so much nicer than the aqua color it was. I spent a lot of time on the sanding and priming detail. I must have sprayed and sanded off 2 gallons of primer. I used a good old rubber sanding block and a steady supply of water to get a super shine. The project would probably have taken 3 or 4 months for somebody with access to big bucks, but I was poor. Because my Dad was such a cool guy I was very lucky to have access to HIS building. There I had room to work and an air compressor. Most of the other tools needed I either made or picked up along the way.