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If anyone has ANY information about the ITALIEN or any of it's history, please EMAIL ME THANK YOU!!! ...
(continued from page 2)... After a couple of anxious weeks had gone by
without hearing
back from Don, I decided I had better call him. Since I knew that
Saturday mornings he was always at the office at opeinig time, I waited
until the next Saturday.
Opening time in California comes a couple hours later than it does in Minnesota so I had to find something to keep myself busy until noon. That wasn't really hard since I'm up to my neck in the restoration of a 1962 Thunderbird Sport Roadster "M" Code car, but it still seemed like it took forever. Noon finally arrived. I actually gave it until around 10 after to make sure he'd be settled in. Don answered the phone on the first ring "MUSTANG"! (Short for Mustang Country Sales) When I announced who I was, he was silent for a moment and then said "Oh, yeah...I had to picture your name on the computer." He has gotten many emails about the car because of the ad that was in Hemmings Motor News. Cutting right to the chase, I asked him if he had given any more thought to my offer. He said he has but he hadn't had a chance to contact a transport to get a shipping quote yet. (My offer included delivering the car to me) So I said "Then it sounds like we have a deal anyway?", (a leading question) and he said "Yeah, sure we do". I asked him if he wanted a deposit and he said "I suppose I should get one from you, so you'll feel more comfortable about the deal". I asked if he wanted to write up an agreement of our deal to go along with the deposit or should I, and Don told me to go ahead and do it. A couple days later I sent the deposit along with a written agreement for his signature. I won't be getting the car delivered until the end of January (2006). I'll have room in my garage then as I have two cars being sold at the Barrett-Jackson Auction in Scottsdale Arizona in January. In the meantime I've been doing a lot of research on the Italien and it's been a lot of fun. It's also very time consuming. In my research I've met (via mail, email and phone) many interesting people, including a competitor in the purchase of the Italien. Many of us are going to meet while at the Barrett-Jackson Auction. I've talked to people at Dearborn Steel Tubing (now simply DST Industries) who were actually there in 1962 when the car was built. Mr. Wayne Fietzer told me that Vince Gardner was their Fiberglass Designer and he actually built all the fiberglass parts on the car. Mr. Gardner worked for Studebaker and Fridgedaire before working for DST. He passed away several years ago. The other individual who was very involved in the construction was Jimmy Mason, and sadly Jimmy died this past April. I've also communicated with Mr. Lee Iacocca. As you know, he was at the helm at Ford Motor Company when the Italien was built in 1962. The Thunderbird Sport Roadster is his concept. I sent a couple pictures of the Italien to Mr. Iacocca and he autographed them and sent them back to me. I just received them on Friday, December 23, 2005. That's about all I have to add for right now. Stay tuned for future updates. |
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