The day had started. The recurring routine, which had become such a regular habit by now. A quick shower to wake up body and mind. A power breakfast. Putting on a simple shirt and a pair of shorts to have some pockets to bring everything needed. A twenty minute drive to the garage some way outside the city border. Switching on the lights in the large Mountain Dew display refrigerator and the office. Feeding and petting Salmon, the fluffy feral Maine Coon garage-cat. Checking messages on the office computer, reacting to the ones requiring a reaction, and replying to comments left on the latest video on the Youtube channel. By a bit after nine o'clock, the day had fully begun.
It was a pleasantly regular routine for the vanilla-yellow mousette Michelle Frelang. Such a calm and regular routine that had helped her to get over the crazy turmoil that had flipped her life completely upside down only a couple of years ago. The utterly crazy news that she'd had an uncle, aunt and cousin she had never known about. In a country she had never even heard about, with a name that sounded totally made up. Minnaluna? That was just too weird. The just as utterly crazy news that this cousin had died in a stupidly dumb accident. The utterly crazy news brought to her by the prestigious notary office from the large city of South Plains, where this cousin had lived, and who had searched heaven and earth to find her in their effort to locate any next of kin. The even way beyond utterly crazy inheritance of a fully furnished family home, plus a professionally refurbished garage outfitted with the most expensive, top of the line name-brand equipment - a total worth of millions. It was enough to throw anyone for a loop.
But everything had settled down eventually. The move from Wisconsin had been smooth and relatively swift - despite the week-long ferry trip it took to get to Minnaluna. The house had been moved into. The neglected garage had been re-refurbished and beautified, and expanded as well. A Youtube channel had been created by advice from the notary office, to showcase her talents and capabilities and get her name out there. New contacts and new friends had been made, even a lover had entered her life. And after a year-long sabbatical to recuperate from the utter craziness, the garage had been opened for business. Its main focus being high-end restorations of classic cars, but regular customers were always welcome for an oil change or brake job as well.
And weird and funny things kept popping up from time to time. Only a couple weeks ago; while just doing some maintenance on her fleet vehicles, Missy had been interrupted by the arrival of a tow truck pulling a classic Chevrolet Chevelle into her yard, the driver of which had evaded for a deer in the rain, lost control, and ran over a bit of post left over from an old warning sign which had done strange but significant damage to the front end of the car. The owner of the car had mentioned he had picked it up as an unfinished project he got running and driving to just play around with a bit, that his wife hated the ugly thing, and that the cost of the repairs needed exceeded what the car was worth to him so he had offered it to Missy. Seeing potential for a fun little series of videos for her Youtube channel, the vanilla-colored mousette had taken the car.
With a customer project finished, the time for the new series was now. After completing her daily routine, Missy got to work. The damaged car was still sitting in front of the small workshop in the neighboring yard, which had been a long-defunct farm Missy had bought as she needed space for the expansion of the garage. She took her cameras, lights and tripods over to the secondary yard, set them up, checked them, adjusted one of the lights, switched on the main camera and started shooting her footage the way she always started a video for her channel, by looking sideways into the camera from very close by as if to check it was running.
"Alright, we live? We-e-e're live. Hey ho all you wonderful people out there in Youtube land! Missy here from Mousie Motorworks, bringing you another exciting episode! Those of you paying attention will notice I'm not standing in the garage, and you're correct! I'm standing in the secondary yard, as the subject of the new episode is right here." She gestured at the dull and faded maroon-ish Chevelle with its swathes of surface rust and pale primer, the dull blue hood and black left front fender. "That's it right there. Most of you will immediately recognize it as a Chevrolet Chevelle, and again, you're correct! This was a project car that didn't get finished, so someone bought it, got it running and driving, and used it as it was to play around the B-roads. Until a couple weeks ago, during that rainstorm, when he dodged a deer running out of the forest and ran right over the remnants of the old wildlife crossing sign, doing some pretty bad damage. He got it towed to my yard, asked me if it could be fixed and what it would cost, and decided it was more than the car was worth so he gave it to me. Thanks a lot for loading a bunch of work on my shoulders, mister Stewardson! But this will be a fun little project, which in turn will make for a fun little new series on this channel! So I will take you through exactly what kind of car we have here and what it will need, right here after the intro, here at Mousie Motorworks!"
She counted to three in herself before shutting off the camera - the little trick she had started using to give herself a good editing point in the video to put in the animated intro of her channel. Taking all the cameras and lights and tripods, the vanilla-hued mousette brought them back over to the main yard and put them in the frontmost of the two large new buildings she'd had built there, then took her old, large and somewhat unusually long forklift and brought the damaged car into the building as well, setting it down between the arms of a two-post car lift. With the lights in the building switched on and the cameras and lights on tripods set back up and checked, Missy switched the cameras back on and stood by the car, again counting to three in herself before looking up at the main camera.
"TV magic! Now we're suddenly over here! So here we are in the disassembly room, now let's introduce you all to the new project." She turned and motioned at the car with a paw. "What we have here is a nineteen seventy-two Chevrolet Chevelle two-door coupe. The last of the properly good-looking Chevelles if you ask me, because from seventy-three on they got that Colonnade styling that was already used on the Monte Carlo, and those ridiculous thick safety bumpers, and I'm not a fan of that, it looks goofy. So for me, the seventy-two is the last real Chevelle. Quick tip; how do you distinguish between a seventy-one and a seventy-two? In nineteen seventy they still had the double headlights, and the turnsignals were in the front bumper. In seventy-one they went to the single round headlights, and the turnsignals moved to the front of the fenders." She ran a finger over the orange lens of the front left turnsignal. "And in seventy-one, they had a little strip right here, dividing them into two parts; in seventy-two they became one single unit like these ones, so we're looking at a seventy-two here. I can also tell you, at a glance, that this is a Malibu model that used to have a vinyl top. But Missy, how can you tell? Well, right here." She ran her finger along the chrome strips running along the side of the roofline, the back edges of the front fenders and the hood where they jutted over the hidden windshield wipers, and from the rear side window across the sail panel and under the rear window. "The Malibu was the top trim level and came with these Hide-A-Way wipers and additional brightwork. Chrome driprail molding, hood and fender guards, wheelwell trim, a Malibu script on the front fender although on this replaced fender it's missing, and this strip over the sail panel here indicates a vinyl top. Thank goodness that's been removed, because even in this country, a vinyl top with even the smallest amount of damage will trap moisture and completely rot out the roof skin, but this car was fortunately spared that fate. And I can hear you already; Missy Missy, stop yapping about details, show us the damage!" She wagged her finger at the camera with a light grin. "We'll get to that, people, patience! We're still doing a walk-around here!" She took one of the smaller cameras and walked around the side of the car to the back. "So as you can see, car's pretty straight. Few little dings, surface rust but nothing chewed through, and it looks like the original color was Black Cherry. Back here; pretty standard. Trunk lock cylinder is still in it, that's a bonus. Big-ass chrome rear bumper with the two round taillights in it, as they started doing in seventy-one to give all their models that Corvette look in the back. I have to say, I prefer the nineteen seventy rear bumper, that also had the taillights in it, but they were a nicer shape and the bumper was molded around them so they were actually part of the design, rather than this look which to me looks like an afterthought. Oh shit, we forgot taillights! Well, we'll just french'em into the rear bumper and call it Corvette style. But anyways! On this side, much of the same; faded paint, primer patches, surface rust, but no rot. Bit of rust bubbling through along the wheel opening, bit of bubbling in the lower corner of the door, that's normal. Some body filler there, and look, this fender is original and still has the Malibu script." She opened the passenger door and panned through the interior of the car. "Interior is... decent. Still has a headliner, even though it's a bit saggy. Bucket seats... now, it could have originally come with bucket seats if it was a Malibu SS, but it wasn't so it could have come with a front bench as well. Besides, these seats are from a seventy-seven Camaro. Four on the floor, again, would have been standard for a Malibu SS, but this was not an SS, even though someone did put in an SS instrument cluster. And that ugly little sport steering wheel." Standing back upright, Missy pointed the camera at herself and smirked. "Good thing you don't have smello-vision yet, because I can tell you this thing is ripe inside. Let's leave this door open for now, shall we? Yes we shall. And now we finally get to the exciting part; the front end damage. Here, let me lift up this thing a bit so you can have a good look."
Setting the smaller camera back on its tripod, Missy swung the arms of the lift in place under the car and hit the button on the lift. A quick shake to check if the car was stable, then she lifted it further into the air so the front fenders were about level with her head. Standing by the front of the car, she looked back into the main camera again and held her left arm upright in front of the damaged nose of the car.
"As I mentioned, the fellow who gave me the car ran it over the remnant of a warning sign post, at quite a bit of speed. And South Plains Municipal, I gotta hand it to you; you sure anchor the warning signs around here very solidly into the ground. Look at what it did to this poor car!" She took one of the smaller cameras to look up close at the damage. "Front bumper and lower valance completely folded double. Grille completely shattered - well, of course, that's just plastic. Core support pushed in so hard it made this car go cross-eyed. A chunk taken out of the middle of the radiator. Sway bar and center link bent, which also yanked on the tie rods and gave the front wheels some serious toe-in. Belts snapped, fan crumpled, and a big old flesh wound in the oil pan that also ripped the oil pickup off the pump. The fellow shut off the engine decently quickly, but it still ran for a bit without oil, so there's possibly internal damage as well. Upper valance also bent, which popped free the hood latch so the hood sprung open, which fortunately prevented damage to the hood. And luckily, the front fenders are only pulled inwards a bit from the bending of the core support, but they're not creased so they should pop back straight once the tension is released." She set the smaller camera back and looked into the main camera again. "So there you have it, folks! Quite some serious damage that looks rather spectacular, but it can all be fixed. So let's talk about the plan." She lowered the car back down and leaned against the left front fender while looking at the camera. "You know the quality of the work I do at this garage. Now, is this car worth that level of restoration? Nah. It's just a seventy-two Chevelle, it's never gonna be worth a hundred grand. But just to be sure, let's have a look at the VIN and the trim tag, to see if maybe we have something special on our hands, shall we?" She pointed a small GoPro camera through the windshield to zoom in on the narrow tag riveted to the top of the dashboard. "So what do we see here? One, D, three seven, F, two, B, and a row of numbers. Up to that B is what's important to us, so here's what it means. One is Chevrolet. The D indicates it's a Malibu. As an aside here; if that had been a C, it would have meant Chevelle. But this is a Chevelle. Yes, but they separated the Malibu trim line into its own division - lateron, I believe in seventy-eight, the Malibu even became a model on its own. But anyways. We've had the D, now there's three seven; that means it's a two-door sport coupe. Next, F. Now this one is important; that means it came with the base V-eight motor, the three-oh-seven. Yes, even in the top of the line Malibu, you could get the measly little three-oh-seven, and this one had it from the factory because it was the base engine. That also is proof this was not an SS. Then, two; that means nineteen seventy-two. And that B means it was assembled in the Chevrolet plant in Baltimore in Maryland. The rest of those numbers is the production number." She stood upright and turned to the main camera. "That already gave us some important info right there. From the factory, this was not a very special car. No SS, no Heavy Chevy, no limited edition or nothing, just your standard luxury Malibu with the smallest V-eight engine available. Now let's have a look at the trim tag." She zoomed in on a rectangular metal plate stamped with letters and numbers that was riveted to the cowl, just behind the front left fender, and tapped each stamping with a fingertip, following the lines from left to right and from top to bottom. "ST, or Style, seventy-two. Correct, it's from nineteen seventy-two. One three six, three seven; Malibu series, two-door sport coupe, six passenger version. Correct again, it's a two-door Malibu trim car, and this also tells us it came with a front bench rather than bucket seats. B, again, that's the Baltimore plant. Six numbers here in front of BDY or Body, and they match the numbers on the VIN, so that tells us this is the correct original trim tag to this car. Next line. TR, or Trim. Seven one nine, B, T T. That tells us it had a tan vinyl interior, a vinyl top, and TT... a tan vinyl top, unusual choice. Below that; zero eight B, that is the second week of August in nineteen seventy-two when this car was built. And to the right here, PNT is of course Paint, and we see seven five, T T. The double-T is again that tan vinyl top, and seventy-five is the paint color, so this car was... seventy-five... that's Cranberry Red, not Cherry Black, my bad." She again stood back upright to look at the main camera. "Well, wow, I have to say, whoever ordered this car new had a rather unusual taste in colors, to order a dark red Chevelle with a tan interior and tan vinyl roof. Black would have looked a lot better in my opinion, at least for the vinyl top. But anyways again! So do we have anything special here? Nope! Just your run of the mill Chevelle two-door coupe that came with a three-oh-seven V-eight, which means it most likely had the three-speed PowerGlide trans as well, a front bench seat and the Malibu trim package. And it's been fiddled with. Patrick Stewardson, who gave me this car after he ran over that stub of sign post, told me he had picked it up as a project from someone who had dropped a three-fifty engine in it. I'm thinking that someone also put in the four on the floor trans and those Camaro bucket seats, and possibly that different hood and left fender. Now, is it worth restoring this car back to original? Nah. Is it worth doing a full-on frame-off rotisserie restoration? Hell no. The cost of that kind of work would far exceed the top value this car could ever have. Am I gonna do a full-on frame-off rotisserie restoration? Hell yeah, because for one, that is the level of quality I put in my restorations, and for another, I'm an idiot, and I happen to like Chevelles, from the nineteen sixty-four shoebox all the way to these seventy-two models. And since this car has already been fiddled with and so much has been changed on it, that makes it a perfect candidate for a fun project to make it something more special than what it used to be." A playful grin curled her lips. "And I can hear you again already; Missy Missy! Don't leave us hanging, tell us what you're planning! Well, here goes!" She walked back to the rear end of the car with the smaller camera and pointed at the large rear bumper. "As I mentioned before, I much prefer the look of the nineteen seventy rear bumper and taillights. Those bumpers are relatively interchangeable without too much fabrication needed, so I'm gonna put on a nineteen seventy rear bumper." She walked back to the damaged front. "I also much prefer the look of the nineteen sixty-eight and sixty-nine front end with the double headlights in chrome bezels, although I'm not really a fan of that strange design of the front fenders they had in those years, with that weird swage line that made it look like the front fenders had an extra flap folded over the side. So I'm planning to put in a sixty-nine grille and headlights, but keep the fenders with those seventy-two turnsignals on the front. That will require a fair bit of fabrication, as I'll need to change part of the fenders, the upper front valance and the front lip of the hood. Fortunately, there's lots and lots of aftermarket body panels available for Chevelles, so I can use new panels and not have to cut up original panels. And of course, as this will become somewhat of a personal car for both myself and the garage, I'll paint it in Mousie Motorworks Yellow. Heckity, I may even paint the roof in Ancona Blue because I'll keep all that chrome trim that used to outline the vinyl top, and go full ham on the Mousie Motorworks company colors. So we're looking at a resto-mod here, folks. Of course I'll also do some upgrades; better disc brakes in the front, I may even convert the rear drums to disc brakes, much better aluminium radiator to cope with that insane warm climate here, new, better sway bars, a touch of Ancona Blue tint on the glass, who knows? But I'll keep a lot of what's here, too! I mean, look," she pointed at the wheels. "She's sitting on Rallye wheels, I'm definitely keeping those, although I'll probably color-code them to the body color and give them the finned center caps and trim rings, and white-letter tires because a car like this requires white-letter tires. And that three-fifty motor that was plopped in there, I'm definitely keeping that, because that's one hell of a great motor. Plus, with how versatile and adaptable it is, I'll most likely bolt a modern trans behind it; a Tremec T-five five-speed manual or maybe even a T-fifty-six six-speed manual, because I'm a manual mousie, I much prefer stirring the soup myself. Motor will have to be gone through as I said, it likely spun a bearing or two, so since I'll have to strip it all the way down to the crank bearings, I'll do a complete rebuild on that as well, and I'll give it an Edelbrock AVS or AVS-two carb - sorry Holley! - and maybe even a slightly improved camshaft and possibly another tickle or two, but that will depend on what I'll find once I tear that motor down. And of course, before I even get to that; we're in the disassembly hall for a reason! First this car needs to be stripped down to the last nut and bolt so I can see what other damage there might be and what I'll be working with. So look out for the teardown in the next episode of Mousie Motorworks!" Her playful grin at the camera grew even wider. "C'mon you guys, you didn't think I was gonna spoil you and go right into that in this video, did you? Hell no, I gotta keep the traffic to my channel flowing! I gotta keep you guys wanting to come back for more! So this is just an introduction video, to make you all aware that there is a new project at Mousie Motorworks, and thus, a new video series will start, after I've posted this intro video. So see you all next time, in the next episode, for the start of an exciting new series, right here at Mousie Motorworks! See ya!"
She waved cheerfully at the main camera and counted to three in herself again before shutting off the cameras and the lights. The filming equipment was set aside in the large hall, as she would be needing it right there for shooting the footage of the next videos, but first the light yellow mousette had some other things to do. A list needed to be made, she'd have to put in some orders, and she'd had to visit Bowen Metal Salvage to pick some parts as well, such as a 1970 Chevelle rear bumper plus taillights, a 1969 Chevelle front grille plus headlights and a 1972 Chevelle front bumper and lower front valance. And the footage she had shot so far would need to be edited into a proper video, but that's what Sunday was for, so she could set the finished video to upload to her channel on Monday while she went to the gym with Fanni.
All the while as Missy was going through the work she had to do, she grinned cheerfully to herself. It was always so exciting to start a new project!
