I’m back, but have taken a few detours that bear mention, as they are part of my Epic story.

When I quit the insurance company, I spent some quality time working on the house. As mentioned earlier, I had bought the house with the full intention of the property being capable of containing my cars. I also knew that the foundation was settling on one corner and had gotten worse over the winter. I took my unemployed status and put it to good use digging out the foundation and shoring it up. I rented a small tractor and used it to clear-cut and level the entire side yard. The concrete guys laid out a form for a driveway and 3-car pad to be laid when the extra cement for the foundation was poured.

I then erected a roof to protect the cars and built a fence to keep them hidden from view. The day that all 3 cars were safely tucked away on the side yard, a collective cheer went up from the neighbors, who were all glad to see the fleet absent from in front of my house where they had been for some time. My house is now clean and the only appearances to give my Imperial ownership away are the eagles installed on the bottom of the driveway and as door handles on the gates. Oh, and I did put a wheel on the side of the house with a 1964 hubcap and am using it as a garden hose holder.

Just inside the gate I mounted all of the emblems that I’ve managed to find over the years.

A clean driveway & happy neighbors

Only a hint of what lies behind...

Plenty of room for my treasures

There’s more work to be done on the side yard, as I want to pave further back, but am out of money for now, so that’ll have to wait.

New Acquisition #1

My "new" 1964 Crown

In February 2004, my neighbor, Lee was out in the community when he spotted an Imperial for sale. I was pretty impressed that he spotted it because he isn’t focused on Imperials the way that I am, and it wasn’t in a very obvious place, but when we went ofer to look at it, I got really excited. You can see more here.

That took time and money away from the 1960, and I have already been out to the garage to explain, so there’s no need to bring it up if you meet my car in person.

New Acquisition #2

My 1970 LeBaron

In March 2004, I started looking for "alternate income streams" while I was looking for work. One thing that occurred to me was that Doc Bullock had something that I was pretty familiar with, so I asked him and we struck up a deal.

For those that don’t know, Doc Bullock has transcended to something of a real urban legend amongst longtime Imperial people.

Back in the 1970's, Imperials were dropping like flies, with all manner of really nice cars being sold for nothing as people fled big cars while the oil embargo was going on or fresh in their memories.

Doc bought them. And bought them. And bought them, finally winding up with 125 or so cars at his peak. Doc is a retired pediatrician, a Depression-era man, and is positively averse to throwing things away that still have potential. If you are not already aware, the components on Imperials are pretty rugged, and few fail easily.

So Doc’s out there buying up cars and he tended to favor the LeBarons and Convertibles. He liked the LeBarons because they were almost always fully optioned cars.

During the 1970’s and 1980’s, there was a powerful and large Imperial club in the SF Bay Area called the Northern California Imperial Owners Club. This club had regular meets and tours to places like Yosemite that drew quite a few cars and were quite a sight on the road while they were a going concern. At this point, the club has been winnowed in size due to the aging of its membership, and has been somewhat folded into the Sacramento chapter. The NCIOC put out a pretty good newsletter and was a good network to be in. Doc was a member, and since he had plenty of cars, turned into wuite the person to go see if you needed a part for your Imperial.

He is very generous and has amassed service manuals, interchange guides, and parts lists for most year Imperials and is always ready with advice and help. He was also very generous in pulling needed parts off of his cars for people. The deal was that you went down to his house, knocked on the door, and inquired about parts for sale, and you’d walk away with the part, plenty of advice about how to install it, and a fair price.

That was Doc’s place.

This is the place that has made it into legend and was instantly recognized when I described it to several east-coasters -- "You mean that that guy really exists? -I’d heard about him but never really believed it..."

Sometime in the late 1980’s Doc wanted to do an extension on his house. The city, who had long been fielding complaints about Doc’s "operation" with all of these cars pounced and told him that he could not have the permit and the cars. One had to be done without. This was due to neighbors complaining about the potential of a child getting locked in a trunk or whatever, and is an awful case of the government impinging upon a person’s pursuit of happiness, but I digress...

Anyway, Doc wanted that extension pretty badly, so he hired 4 non-native "artisans" that had family residing in the southern part of the continent. They spent a year dismantling these 100+ cars. His wife didn’t think much of fins, so the majority of the cars were 1964-1968 with some bleed out into the surrounding years.

All of the parts were put into the stable that was on his property, which is quite large and especially impressive if you know the area, as it has all been subdivided and built up over the years, but Doc has a large spread with plenty of space.

The barn contains everything that isn’t body panel on a car. Interior, exterior trim, mechanical bits, rubber. You name it and it’s there. There is a shelf of nothing but door panels. Another one has nothing but door sills. I am slowly working my way through the place and am listing things on Ebay (my ID is imperialist60 if you want to see what’s going on). There are some truly incredible things that you’d never find otherwise that I’m getting to unearth in an archaeological sort of way.

One of Doc’s few remaining cars was the 1970 that I bought from him, and I mention this as it is yet another distraction that has kept me from my 1960. There’s only one Doc Bullock, and I have plenty of time to get through the 1960, so I pounced when I saw the opportunity. You can see images of the 1970 here.

Doc also has a 1916 Ford Model T that I negotiated for as I sold the stash of Model T parts, so I’m getting quite a set of cars now and will soon have to stop acquiring and start improving what I already have, but that is the story of my recent expansions and improvements, even if they are not direct advancements on the 1960 project.