1961 Pontiac Ventura 2-door hardtop
Bamboo cream with tri-brown interior
389 V-8
8 lug Pontiac wheels with wide whitewall tires
Originally a 2-barrel automatic and later evolved to a tri-power 4 speed
This car originally belonged to a friend of Richard's who lived in Amarillo, Texas. The first time I saw the car it had 14,000 original miles on it and I fell in love with the car. Such a beauty. The owner later contacted Richard and told him he was ready to sell the car and Richard traded him a Blazer for it. We detailed the engine compartment on it. The rest of the car didn't need anything. It was in the original paint, original interior. I think the steering wheel caught my attention the first time I saw it. Those wheels were made from a translucent plastic that eventually would crack and crumble away. This one was perfect.
Richard's friend called him and said he really wanted the car back, but he wanted some changes made to the car to suit him. He wanted a tripower setup installed and a manual transmission. So we found all the parts we needed and built it to his specs and sold it back to him.
A few years later he contacted us again when he was having some health issues and said he needed to go ahead and sell the car so we bought it back. We took the car to an auction in Scottsdale. Although we didn't sell the car at auction we had a lot of people who said to call them to make a deal in the future. Before we left Arizona we got a call from an airline pilot who said he wanted the car. So we took the car back to Austin and shortly after received a deposit on it. The purchaser said it would be a few months before he could come pick it up and pay the balance. So we trusted him. After several months he called and said his wife had changed his mind and to return his deposit. Of course we refused. We had passed up the opportunityto sell it to others and stored the car while we waited for him to pick it up. He said he would sue us in small claims court. He did sue but the judge agreed with us and told us we should sue him for more than the deposit. We didn't want to pursue that. One ad in Hemmings and we had a new buyer who was thrilled to get the car. He picked it up just in time to take to a Pontiac meet.
