If you read the first part of this series, you would have seen various pictures of the 300C minus any hubcaps. So, did I have to go on the hunt for a set of hubcaps when I got home? NO! The truth is that Don Rook probably had the largest or one of the largest Chrysler 300 hubcap collections anywhere. At one end of one of his buildings on a grassy area, he had the various hubcaps sorted by type, standing on end like dominoes, in row after row. I was allowed to sort through a dozen or so 300 C hubcaps to find the best ones.

When I arrived home with the C, I immediately started in on probably the happiest year I ever spent on car restorations. I opted to break down my efforts into two segments. I wanted to make the car mostly presentable and reliable. The deadline for the summer’s activities would be the upcoming Coldwater Fall Meet (September 1994) so there would be no big projects in this phase.

The first step was the broken transmission to George. I also took the polisher and some 3M Finesse-it to the paint. Don had replaced the original paint that I saw in Iowa with a single stage urethane that polished up beautifully. Mud daubers were everywhere; under the car and in the engine bay. I figured that after a comprehensive campaign, I finally popped the last one. I considered that the car should at least have a left side, external rear view mirror. I was able to purchase an NOS unit which came with a mounting template. There were no hood letters and not even the slots to mount them in. Someone in the club at that time was remaking the letters. I bought a set, took measurements from another C and installed them with two-sided trim tape. I changed out the badly worn carpet and stripped out the old saggy dash pad. The replacement came from Just Dashes. At that time Just Dashes had a fiberglass buck that they padded and covered, so outwardly it looked like the original. All I had to do was strip the old one out and epoxy the replacement in position. For this part of the resto, I purchased many parts from Gary Goers. I found him to be very helpful and his response was quick. A complete trunk kit was one of the items I purchased.

I did a rebuild on the carbs, changed all the belts and hoses, install a Pertronix module in the distributor, new spark plugs and wires and reinstalled the rebuilt transmission. With a blanket over the old front seat, we were good to attend a most enjoyable meet in Coldwater, Mich.

With Gil and Carol’s 25^th Anniversary Spring Meet in Tallahassee on the horizon (May 1995), I put the petal to the metal. I think the engine was out of the car within a week after Coldwater. The plan was to have the cylinder heads rebuilt to make them oblivious to non leaded fuel. Besides the engine activities, the engine bay was going to be cleaned up and painted. To make life easy, I pulled the grille radiator, brake ducts and the rad support and pulled the engine and transmission together. After separating them, I started to strip the engine. It wasn’t until the intake manifold came off that I discovered the last mud dauber. The odometer was showing 66,000 miles and I could believe it. After the cylinder heads came off, I discovered zero ring ridge. Nowhere in the cylinders at all. I cleaned all of the old oil and sludge deposits out of the engine. The worst part of the engine were the badly corroded frost plugs. They were replaced by marine grade brass plugs. At the machine shop, the heads received hardened valve seats and bronze wall guides. The only other engine parts that I replaced was the timing gears and chain, just because. I cleaned the originals up, clear coated them and hung them on my family room wall, where they still are. The rest of the engine bay clean up was cosmetics, paint, new fasteners etc. My painter, Randy, took care of the engine bay and the bottom of the hood. There were new seat covers from Legendary, re-chromed bumpers and some re-chromed pot metal pieces. The taillight and back up lenses were original, but they were orange and yellow respectively. A few minutes of polishing with the Finesse-it made them new again.

Spring arrived and I was very proud of that car. Not just the way it looked, but the way it drove. You can see in the late fifties why these cars were unmatched for power and a surefooted secure ride. We planned to drive to Tallahassee in the company with the Langdons. Ken had bought my K convert. They had a favorite restaurant in the Lexington, KY area so we planned to stop. The restaurant was quite posh and about halfway through our meal, a nice young lady approached us. She informed us that she was the restaurant manager and she asked us if we had those old cars out in the parking lot. Once we admitted that we did, she clapped her hands and in a charming southern drawl said, “Look at that. Look at that. I told my entire staff, Batman done came right here to our restaurant!” Batman would have been dam lucky to drive that 300C!