Allen & Sue Shade

TOPGON 1964 FALCON FUTURA CONVERTIBLE

As all good stories start, it just followed me home honey, can I keep it? I had gone to my friends home (Doug Nelson) one day to see his new car (A Corvette). I asked him, what he was going to do with the basket case Falcon, he had sitting in his driveway. When I say a basket case, I mean no top, engine did ran (but barely), the clutch was shot, the radiator leaked, the tires were bold, the seats were just bare frames. He said sale it to you of course. The car was in pretty bad shape, but it was a convertible and a V-8 4 speed car. As Paul Harvey would have said “Here’s the rest of the story”. On the car trailer it went for the ride home to Woodland.

Pulling into my driveway, I could see by the look on my wife’s face, she wasn’t as thrilled as I was. I told her it was just a diamond in the rough and with just a few $ it would shine like a new car. Little did I know that a few dollars meant more than one trip to the Bank?

The first thing on the agenda was to stare at it for a long time and picture it as a new car in all its glory. Than reality began setting in. What did Doug sale me? I thought he was my friend. Oh will the more I looked at the car the more I understood what owning a classic car meant. It had to be a love of labor, too bring something back from the brink of becoming a Toyota, and too become a true classic as the Falcon is.

The next few years meant spending a lot of time in my garage removing parts and remembering where I put them. My friend, Kent Kerney, who is a bodyman, began his magic on the body. At sometime in the cars life it must had been driven by a blind person. What wasn’t dented was either bent or had a big hole in it. After many months (like a year or two) the body was ready for paint. During that time I discovered the engine had a crack and could not repaired. So the hunt for another 260 V-8 engine began. I found a wrecked 1964 Sprint for up in Tacoma that also had a 4 speed. So a road trip with my car trailer intow was made to Tacoma.

With the engine off to the rebuild shop it was time to attach the interior. So off to my local Falcon candy store with check book in hand I went. Luckily at this stage in the restoration, my wife was in Tacoma, taking care of her mother who was ill. So putting all my shiny new parts in our living room, for me to admirer, seemed like a good ideal. This moment in time didn’t last long. When she came home, she said that’s what my shop was for, so out they went.

The first trip we made in our convertible was to Reno for the HOT August Night Show. The timing was just right because it was our 25th wedding anniversary. We got remarried there and spent our second honeymoon looking at all the nice cars. The car has made many trips too California, since its rebirth, for the Falcon Club of America Regional meets. We have driven it to the FCA National meets in Colorado, California and just this last summer (2007) to Minnesota.

I want to thank my wife for allowing me to put my car parts in her dishwasher and my dirty shop rags in her washer. Through the Columbia River Falcon/Comet Car Club we have made many new friends and hope to continue making friends.

PS: My license plate is TOPGUN