| John & Nina Zapf - Charter Members |
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John & Nina Zapf have been Brandywine Cruisers since very near the beginning - being charter members. For most of the years John has been Vice President and serves as Show Coordinator for the annual Auto-Fest event benefiting the Boys & Girls Club of Hancock County.
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John's - 1964 Plymouth - In the Beginning....
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| In The Beginning.... |
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I purchased my 1964 Plymouth in the summer of 1987. It was sitting on one of those car lots in Indy that any normal person just knows he should drive on by as fast as possible. But, no not me! Hadda have it! And, it was one of those areas in Indy where you should be just looking straight forward. So assuming I was doing that I don’t know how I even saw it, huddled in amongst all the other stuff there. I guess it just sorta jumped up and said “take me home and heal me!" So I did.
I was told it was “left” there by a guy who had used it for a truck, knocking out the back window so he could haul drywall. There was a plastic piece inserted in the window hole to keep the elements out.
Actually, the car didn’t look all that bad. Even if you got fairly close. Poking around on the lower body parts revealed, however, a most talented and masterful job had been done to “plug” up the massive “air vents” that had sprouted over the years from the nasty Indiana winter salt seasons of many years. This baby was full of pop-riveted roof flashing, smoothed slick with mucho bondo. It dog-tracked down the road so badly that in order to see where you were going you really needed to look out the driver’s side vent window to see where you were going. And, the ol’ 318 was a knockin’ to boot. Just a bit, though.
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The first thing I did was get the springs replaced with Super Stock units and mount them inwards on the frame rails for more tire clearance. (Ya see, I had a plan.) Then I gave the blue paint a good shining – as good as that old paint would shine, any way! Now I was ready to roll.
Off I went to my first of what would prove to be many car shows, this one at Bill’s Drive-Inn in New Castle. Guess what – it rained.
Over the next year my good buddy Bob Nicely helped me build the engine (actually he did most of it). I drove it like that for a while and then I got some body work done on it and drove it until the fall of 1994. It was time to do a complete “de-bondo” and pull out the roofing material.
To get the body done right I took it to Tony Spears who, over the next year cut, massaged, replaced, sanded and painted it back to perfection. Then over that winter I put it all back together. Finally, in the spring of 1996 the Plymouth was ready to roll. New fenders, hood, quarter panels and lots of other bodywork was done! And, with some small modifications here and there, I’ve been driving it this way ever since.
It has a 440 block with Maxwedge top end, Competition Cams camshaft, a 727 manual shift tranny, 8-3/4 rear with 391 gears, and plenty of other goodies.
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| Progress...... |
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