Wish you all could have seen all the cool places I saw
while visiting Minnesota. Special thanks to "MoPar
Mel" Bohnenkamp of the FL list for his hospitality.
French Lake Auto Parts is one of the biggest auto part
recyclers I have ever seen. Imperials include a couple
of '69 4dr HTs which looked like nice cars before
their 440s were removed (grrr), a '66 Crown Coupe with
a solid body but still in need of a full resto, and
numerous others from '51 to '82 (FL is well
represented here). I was also surprised to see a '50
DeSoto Sportsman, a '50 Dodge Coronet Diplomat and a
'51 Plymouth Belvedere, all of which represent the
earliest example of 2dr hardtop for their given makes
and all of which looked very restorable indeed. Plenty
of cool Forward Look stuff as well, including a rough
'57 Belvedere convert (Mel, it's no worse than some
you already have waiting for resto), and many others
including numerous 2dr hardtops that look like they
could be brought back.
Windy Hills Auto Wrecking was very cool. They've tried
their best to put like next to like, so there was this
row of '60 and '61 Chryslers, a row of '57-'58
Plymouths (anybody needing the rare station wagon
taillight lenses for these, they have 'em), and so on.
Lotsa MoPars, '41 and newer (and possibly older as
well, we didn't check everything out). One downer
about Windy Hills is that because they are so
organized, many of their cars have been picked clean,
but if you're in the Midwest and in need of sheetmetal
you'll probably find what you need here.
For total Forward Look immersion, it's hard to beat
"MoPar Mel" Bohnenkamp's yard. Numerous Imperials and
other things being parted out, including a '61 DeSoto
4drHT and a '58 Regal Lancer. (All who were flaming
Mel about his parting out the '60 Phoenix with 25K,
blame the previous owner for not washing off the salt
before it ate the car alive instead...) Many cool cars
for sale as complete projects. I had some big
fantasies about the '56 Coronet D-500 2dr sedan with
the stick (only a single carb, but hey...) It was also
cool to see the gorgeous '58 Belvedere convert Mel is
in the midst of restoring (he's actually doing it as a
red Fury replica, kind of a Christine convert clone,
per the new owner's instructions).
Going back home with no small sense of satisfaction,
and a newfound respect for the Midwestern practice of
stashing nice cars when winter comes, leaving the snow
to the disposable beater cars...
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