Albuquerque, New Mexico, appears in many minds as one of those places where you would be driving down the road and find abandoned cars in peoples' yards just waiting to become that next project car. Well, in all actuality, the Duke City's all that, as Marcos Herrera found to be the case, but it was a search through his local for-sale ads that led him to this 1966 Chevy Impala SS convertible. His find was actually accidental, because the car that he was there to look at was a 1963 Impala with no motor or tranny. After noticing the 1966, Marcos inquired about it and was told that it too was for sale for $600.
On opening the trunk, a chicken flew out. The car was a mess realistically, but Marcos, being a body and paint man by trade, knew what was possible. Marcos said to himself that if the car started and ran that he would buy it. A battery was thrown in and, with the turn of the key, the car fired up and ran. The next day, Marcos returned with the money, four bald tires to replace the cinder blocks that it had been sitting on for years and drove the car home to begin his six-year odyssey.
The arrival of the vehicle at home brought some long stares and plenty of laughs from Marcos' friends and family. There's something about a car with five different color panels, missing moldings and looking like something that a train hit that doesn't seem very convincing when you start talking about how nice the car is gonna be when it's done.
Hard work, sweat and tears are just what the doctor ordered for this car and all of them were put in to get the body in shape for paint. Marcos took a hand grinder to the entire body, taking it down to the bare metal, and dived head first into the body work and paint. Since the car's purchase in '98, you can see that it's been through some major changes, largely thanks to Marcos' talented hands.
This hands-on attitude is something that Marcos is a big advocate of, telling us, "I just want the younger generation to know that it's better to take the time to build your own car instead of taking it to a shop. It means more if you build it yourself and you learn something in the process." Marcos continues to learn as he takes his car to the next level and we'll be watching him laugh all of the way there.
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