Congrat's! Good to hear...
Did sorta the same thing with a 66' Pontiac Lemans back in the day. A few buddies and I bought the car for another buddy for a graduation present. He was pretty broke, living with a split up family and always wanted a GTO. Real hard life the guy had been living thus far. Needless to say, being broke teenagers ourselves, a GTO was not in the works, but we did scrap together $500 bucks for the lemans.
Found the car off a gravel road in the Nicolet National Forest. With out a doubt, in the middle of nowhere. Lady that owned the car had it sitting in her front yard on birch logs, under a couple of old balsam pines. She took it from her husband in the divorce 13 years earlier, just to be a B*tch...Proudly admitted it while chuckeling back in her torn up "buck slayer" shirt and 3 dollar Wal Mart sweat pants with 16 multi colored patches on them. Poor car had been sitting there with her since.
After 6 cans of Raid from a local bait shop, 37 bee stings and a whole lotta "lets get the hell out of here", we hauled it away. Dumped/changed all the fluids in the 326, changed the battery, wires and plugs. Wouldn't turn at all. Crunch time with the buddy coming over in 15 minutes, found out one of the wires running down to the starter solenoid was broken inside the wire insulation. Canabalized an old johnson boat motor for some new wire, hooked it up and Verrroooomm!!
Buddy showed up about 2 minutes later and went completely nuts when he found out it was for him. We were giving him flak for looking like "miss america" that just won the pageant. He thought that was pretty funny and is what he named the car. Seeing him roll down the road, mice pouring out every panel like a flood was coming, hearing the rumble of that 326 finally having air in her lungs and watching those dim pontiac tailights disapear down his road was truely priceless...
The guy is pretty well off now. Works as a Chemical Engineer for Citgo in Green Bay, has a big house, big yard and a big garage filled with a fancy boat, 4 wheelers and an Acura and an Infinity, but over in the corner sits a Sea Green 66' Lemans. Car was proffessionally restored to perfection about 8 years ago, but when you pop the hood the car still has the same chunk of johnson outboard wire running down to the starter solenoid.
Sorry to go spouting off a long story, but your story brought that one back I haven't thought about in a while. I thinks it's pretty amazing these old cars can be left for dead, abused or forgotten about and someone comes along and takes a little time, effort and love and she's back on the road where she belongs...
