My interest in SVOs started back in 1994 when I met Lee Clary at the Dragstrip with his Evolution 2.3 SVO, I saw a lot of potential with these cars and immediately fell in love with the SVO. It wasn't until 1997 that I would come to own my first SVO. I was visiting a friend and while leaving her house passed a gas station and something caught my eye and spun my head around like something from the Exorcist movie. It was an abandoned SVO sitting at a gas station with 4 flat tires, 4 badly scuffed wheels, rotted exhaust, missing front nose and lights, missing taillight lenses and the interior was pretty much piled in the car. The car had 65,000 miles on it and of course did not run. I practically begged for 6 weeks to buy the car or to get the owners info and was only told "it was left here and the owner has not been reachable"...finally on the 7th week of stopping by I was told "we called to have it junked last week but they have not picked it up yet". I talked them into letting me haul it off and promptly called a friend with a tow truck. The only thing it cost me was the $75 tow fee. I went through the title search and lien process and got my title to my new SVO and began working on it and locating parts. Lee Clary was extremely helpful with a used bumper cover and I bought an NOS headlight mounting panel(at the time one of the last 3 in existence in the Ford system). Progress was slow since I had a number of other projects at the time(and still do!) until my Lincoln was badly vandalized while on vacation and I desperately needed something to drive....so the SVO went on the road! I In December of '98 while driving down to visit my father at his
house, the most feared creature to any driver LEAPED in front of me from out of nowhere!
it was a full grown adult Deer which proceeded to make full contact with the front left
corner of my SVO(so much for that NOS headlight mounting panel and lights!). This was the
second deer I had hit in my life...on the same road less than 1/4 mile from the first and
both were with a red Mustang(the first was my '85 Cobra). At this point the SVO ceased
being a daily driver and went into storage until the spring when I could perform a
restoration. The car went together amazingly fast with its body shop stay minimized to 2 weeks(start to finish) of course it helped that the car was delivered as a shell and that I was re-assembling everything. New leather interior from E&G Classics was installed and all the details were taken care of down to every weather-strip. Due to my bad luck with red Mustangs and deer, I decided to do a color change on the car but still retain a stock appearance. I wanted to be different so I chose the Teal color from the '93 Cobra. The car spent most of '99 as a weekend cruiser and occasional driver but has recently become a daily driver again due to rising fuel prices. More modifications are coming soon and I had almost forgotten how much fun the SVO is to drive everyday...more reason to drive it and not keep it as furniture!
Last update September 11, 2008 |
went
through all the usual bugs fixing things here and there and the car proved to be an
excellent daily driver. In the spring of '98 I was rear ended by a '65 Mustang coupe(of
all things!) while driving in Northeastern Maryland which totaled the '65 but only damaged
my bumper cover, taillights and tail light panel. The damage was repaired and it continued
service as a daily driver.
