Lou's '69 barn find

[RiverPatrol]

A true barn if I ever saw one. My friend Lou brought his recently acquired '69 Patrol over to show it off today. I took lots of pictures, figured I would practice my photography for my next eBay listing.

This '69 is immaculate. It has 18,000 original miles, undeniably. And the rings are fine. This is what an 18,000 mile Patrol should look like. It is running on the original set of Toyo tires that it came with from the factory. I know from experience that he doesn't want to remove those tires from the rims until they are shot and ready to be replaced. Only one of the hubcaps was with the Patrol, it's on the spare. No tool box under the seat, but digging through the glove compartment is like opening a time capsule. Old road maps, old box of matches, all kinds of neat stuff.

I told Lou he needed to leave the Patrol at the Patrol farm, that I would happily give him a ride home. He didn't go for it.

So if the white '66 on eBay is going for $12,000+, this is easily a $25,000 Patrol. Here are some pics, there are more in the Gallery.

[faux40]

Sweet! That's a spectacular find!

John

[Esteban]

What a beautiful Patrol! Beyond words.

You have to tell us more about the find...

[zed]

Beautiful...did you take a muffler photo?
You took those photos in 1970 didn't you Leslie? Come 'on fess up.

[RiverPatrol]

I don't remember all of the details of the purchase. It was something a friend of Lou's found on craigslist. This friend has an interest in Patrols, in fact he was trying to get the Dream Garage Patrol at the same time I was. This friend saw the craigslist ad as soon as it was listed and immediately knew what it was. He made the deal and drove to Fremont to pickup the Patrol. Once he got it, he realized that it was far too nice to actually take it out and off-road it, which is what he wanted to do. So he sold it to Lou.

Apparently the previous owner was a jet propulsion engineer, a rocket scientist. And he was a car buff. I don't recall all of the details, just that it was kept in a garage and he only paid $5,000 for it. I'll try to get more info next time I talk to him.

Yeah, that is one sweet Patrol. Short of having all of the original documentation, this one beats Togo, hands down.

[moore_rb]

Hmmm ... Is this the one we're going to see in that auction that Keith posted the link to last Friday.... ?????

I only have one (minor) observation, and this seems very common -

Someone took the time to refurbish the original paint on the body, the rubber and the upholstery (outstanding work bringing those old tires back to life - lots of wintergreen oil, I'd bet)

but then, they re-painted the chassis... in the classic-car circles I used to run in, that would get your car immediately dismissed as a true "survivor car" candidate. On a survivor, NOTHING can be re-painted, re-plated, or re-upholstered- Only cleaned and refurbished. You can disassemble the entire car if you want to, and clean every single part, and then put it all back together, as long as cleaning (and operational repairs) are all you do.

if you take the necessary time and effort, the chassis can be cleaned up, de-rusted, and refurbished, keeping as much of the original chassis paint as possible, without having to break out the rattle-cans.

Just a minor commentary (I'm sure you are all used to that from me ),,, not to be taken as criticism, (consider it a "critique" )

but otherwise this is one immaculate looking, very original example. - besides being low mile, this one clearly spent much of its life in a garage, or under a nice weather proof cover.

[moore_rb]

Leslie- are you saying you took those pictures, but not a single shot of the Vin tag...?


I would have thought you would have added this one to the registry (or is it already there?)

[RiverPatrol]

He repainted the wheels, also. He's not going for concourse, just clean. He didn't do anything special to the rubber, just cleaned it up. The very first picture posted is when he brought it home on the trailer. You can see that it didn't need too much effort to clean it up.

Yes I took pictures of the VIN tag, the frame VIN and the engine number. They're all in the Gallery album. It's going in the Registry.

I don't think he's taking it to auction. He did talk about taking it to JCCS this September.

[RiverPatrol]

Oh yeah, and he had the front seats reupholstered. Here are the originals:

[zed]

Seats reupholstered.... Now you are talking my language. Can you get the contact info for the shop that did the work?
Keith