Nip to US, buy old car, drive it to port. Fly home. Simples?

I don't know, but it's nice to have you back, I always enjoyed your comings and goings with massive Yank barges.

What's Akku up to? My guess is buying some insane American land yacht.

So a little while ago work said "yo Akku, we need y'all to be in San Diego for a company event"

And my first thought was "will we have time to go to the Zoo?"

My second thought was "I'll buy some old car and drive it across the US and ship it home"

My third thought was that "all the way across the USA is probably a bit much for the vacation time I can manage, so lets just drive up the Pacific Coast Highway and ship it from the West Coast"

Now, plenty people have suggested this over the years and I've always said "meh, insurance, title, registration, all that... its kinda hard to make it happen legally"

But I asked a few folk I know stateside to assist and, well, a plan formed.

First I needed a car.

I looked at Craigslist, eBay and Marketplace ads for all kinds of tut and chod before settling for my chariot of choice.

Those who know my enthusiasm for full-sized Fords will but utterly unsurprised I went for a '75 Ford LTD. But not just any old '75 Ford LTD. This baby has the works. 460 big block, 4 barrel, dual exhaust and Traction-Loc 9" rear end. Nice. Other than AC and a few other neat things like cruise and intermittant wipe this car is pretty bare spec. crank windows, fixed column, manual seats, etc. just how I like 'em and best of all there is a load of paperwork with the car including the build sheet and a Marti Report all of which confirms the supplying dealer and first owner - Ford Motor Company, Engineering Department. Nice! The seller describes it as a "test mule" but I think it was probably a pool car because it is listed as a fleet vehicle on the paperwork.



The fetching shade of pale green/bright yellow with avocado green metallic vinyl interior was just the cherry on top.



The front seat has been retrimmed in velour at some point, its a good job, to the original pattern, but I'll have to go back to vinyl for the full avocado effect



The car had spent a lot of its life in Washington, which is a wet state but not in the rust belt. The western desert area is quite dry. The seller seemed helpful. He even put the car up on a ramp and got underside photos when I explained I was "out of town". The car seemed to be in good, rust free condition, it ran and it had a title so I negotiated with the seller and bought the car. Yeah, I just PayPal'd the agreed price to a random guy off Facebook Marketplace. What could possibly go wrong?



It was in Phoenix, Arizona. Not ideally located for San Diego but plans were afoot.

I have a mate in Palm Springs who has a classic car restoration business. I made a good friend in Phoenix through him who was a God send for dealing with the burocracy round the registration & title. Chuck in Palm Springs put me on to a guy called Pat who went to collect the car from Phoenix, trailered it over to Chuck's place for storage until I got there and for some "minor" recommissioning as the car had been off the road.

Game was on!

You know I've bookmarked this already...

Am I right in saying that these engines are held back quite a bit by the cam timing?
Did this get rectified when switching the chain?
Can't wait for the next installation 😁

Yes and Yes

As part of the federal smog and CAFE nonsence in the mid 1970s the cam timing is retarded on all the American market V8s, and on a number of imported cars as well. Its a cheap and dirty way to achieve, well, almost nothing TBH. Other than reducing power output and dulling the throttle response. The timing chain used was a nice quality roller timing set with steel gears. This was installed with the cam "straight up" to advance the timing back to pre-smog era spec. Don't tell the California Smog Nazis though!

The car isn't running all it should be at all as yet. The vacuum advance is capped off and the exhaust manifolds are both cracked and its little more than will power holding the dual system together...

But the timing does seem to allow the motor to rev free-er than it did previously

American Road Trip? Tick.

Huge US barge? Tick.

Ridiculously oversized engine? Big tick.

70s colour scheme? Tick.

Everything about this thread is ridiculously awesome. I am all IN. Chips, car keys, V5s, the lot.

Brilliant.

I'm following this for sure.
Road trips in old motors... hell yeah. And it's a beauty!

The World needs more of this, absolutely brilliant!

Bloody brilliant car you have, craigrk and I were looking at buying one for our next trip, but the old guy was a touch rich on his price.

And well done for your kindness offering akku the dash.

I like green cars.