Boys of Summer

By Frank Adkins

t was the summer of 1977. America’s Bicentennial had passed, Jimmy Carter was in the White House, and Heart’s Barracuda played endlessly on the radio. My buddy Kevin

Pampuch and I were 12 years old, and we spent much of the summer riding our strippeddown bicycles on the trails through the fields and woods near our neighborhood, which sat mid-way between Newark and Wilmington just off Kirkwood Highway. It would be another year before we would graduate to dirt bikes and go-karts.

One day, while exploring the trails behind St. Mark’s church and high school, we discovered an old Chevy that had been abandoned in the woods years earlier. The body was peppered with bullet holes and the windows had been blown out. Somebody had removed the engine and transmission, presumably before dumping the carcass in the woods. The caved-in roof had a gaping rust hole; time and the elements had ravaged the seats, reducing them to bare, rusty springs. I studied the grille, and when I got home, I consulted the Chilton repair manual that my father had purchased to help him service our ’63 Corvair. The Chilton manual covered domestic models from 1953-1963, and I determined that “our” Chevy was a 1953 model.

The fact that we had little automotive knowledge and even less money did nothing to dampen our enthusiasm. We had each built dozens of plastic model kits, and we were adept at modifying these cars to suit our own tastes. Leftover parts from various kits found their way onto other cars; stock pre-war Ford bodies became dirt track racers while ‘50s classics became “gasser” drag race cars with blowers and multiple carburetors protruding from crudely-hacked holes in their hoods. Of course, we had to buy these models, as well as the paint and glue needed to assemble them. We each had sufficient mechanical aptitude to keep our lawnmowers running so we could earn the money we needed to buy these model kits and the related supplies. We also honed our mechanical skills and spent a fair portion of our grass cutting money keeping our bicycles going despite the abuse we lavished upon them. Of course, we weren’t naïve to the fact that we had a lot to learn, but we remained steadfast in our belief that, between the two of us, we had a sufficient knowledge base to take on a project like the Chevy. It was our plan that by the time we obtained our driver’s licenses, we would have an operable car to share.

Today, Kevin and I would each consider this car too far gone to revive. Truth be told, it wouldn’t have even been a good parts car, for I don’t recall any of its pieces being in a condition suitable to repair a road-going example. Furthermore, we had no idea who the legal owner was or how to obtain the necessary paperwork to own and register it. But none of that mattered. We would tackle what we could now, and we would figure out the rest as we went along. Our determination and hard work, combined with a few lucky breaks that were sure to come our way, would enable us to see this project through.

Parts procurement was one of our first considerations. We knew where an engine had been discarded in a creek nearby. We didn’t know what kind of engine it was or what was wrong with it, nor did we know how we would retrieve it, but we figured it was a starting point. We also found what we thought would be a suitable transmission in a similar condition, though I’m not sure if it occurred to us that it probably wouldn’t bolt up to the engine. Our first objective, however, was to replace the roof. We reasoned that until we made the car weather-tight, the mechanicals were moot.

A 18-year-old Frank Adkins and a photo from later in life, both with his prized 1968 Dodge Dart. At right, Kevin Pampuch’s ‘69 Chevy Camaro.

Fortunately, nearby sat the roof and a few other body panels from a Mercury Montclair. I recognized these sheet metal bits as such, for there was another Montclair parked in the apartment complex near Kevin’s house. We measured the Montclair roof and deemed it close enough in size to fit the Chevy. I didn’t know how we would come up with a windshield or any of the other windows that would fit both the Chevy body and the Montclair roof, but Kevin said he thought we could make windows out of Plexiglas. To me, his idea sounded like a surefire solution.

On a hot and humid morning, Kevin and I each borrowed our fathers’ hacksaws without their knowledge, and we met at the Chevy. With dogged determination, we hacked through the A-pillars, B-pillars, and C-pillars. This task was made more difficult by the tree that had grown against the left side of the car at the rear-most roof pillar. Even so, later that afternoon, we grasped the roof and flipped it over the back of the car. We watched as it fell into the ravine aft of the rear bumper.

I do not remember test-fitting the Montclair roof on the Chevy. It is possible that we did, but more than four decades later I would say it is likely that our barely-pubescent bodies Kevin Pampuch with his old-school hot rod. lacked the strength necessary to lift the roof and position it atop the Chevy body. I also don’t remember how we had planned to attach the roof to the body. What I do remember is that we had a difference of opinion. I was intent on realizing our initial plan. Kevin, however, was more grounded than I was. He had begun to accept the reality of our plight, and he realized that we would probably never get the car roadworthy. Recently, he reminded me that we thought the rear of the car had sunken into the ground. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that the rear axle was missing. How would we put wheels on it? How would we move it from the edge of the ravine? We certainly couldn’t raise it with a bumper jack. At once, our progress ground to a halt.

Kevin and I each acquired our first cars when we were 15. Mine was the ’64 Dodge Dart that had belonged to my great-aunt Betty, while his was the ’69 Camaro that his grandparents had bought new. I removed the ailing push-button automatic transmission from my car, and I replaced it with a floor-shifted three-speed manual transmission from a Duster prior to my 16th birthday. A few months later, Kevin and I removed the Powerglide automatic transmission from his Camaro and replaced it with a Muncie M-21 four-speed. After high school, Kevin went to college in Virginia while I commuted to an automotive school in Pennsylvania. Our careers took us in different directions, though our personal lives have had many parallels. They included marriage, divorce, family, college, homeownership, and a plethora of other milestones at differing points on our individual highways of life. Although we saw each other infrequently, through the years he and I have both owned and/or built numerous vehicles. Our skillsets overlap, but there are major differences. Kevin is a fantastic welder, fabricator, and machinist. I enjoy building engines, transmissions, suspensions, and electrical systems. One of Kevin’s current “toys” is an old-school hotrod that he built from a carefully selected assortment of early 1930s Ford parts. I have always been drawn to the ‘60s and ‘70s Chrysler vehicles. I usually modify them to maintain nearly stock appearances while improving their performance, road manners, and reliability. But what Kevin and I have in common is that we have spent our lives immersed in the automotive culture. We are no less enthusiastic about cars now than we were on the day we discovered that old Chevy. Our lust for automobiles has infiltrated most other areas of our lives too. Our homes include garage and shop space, we attend various cruises, swap meets, and racing events regularly, and most of our friendships have come about through our automotive connections. Of course, we are still friends today. As a teen, I lamented that we gave up on that old Chevy. But even though it didn’t transport us through our high school years, I know now that it served a far greater purpose. It launched two 12-year-old kids into lifetime obsessions with automobiles, and it gave us each a glimpse of what awaited us in the decades ahead.