MONTE UPDATE (3/29/07): As most of
you know, my ex-fiance had my beloved Monte in his possession and refused to acknowledge
my repeated requests to return it. After having a police-type person run a title
search on the car at the beginning of this year, I discovered that the car has
never been re-registered, and probably has gone to a junkyard somewhere. A complete
waste of a very restorable car, in my opinion.
I sincerely thank everyone who'd given
me help while I was trying to find the car - your help was so appreciated and
I can't say enough to express my gratitude. Many thank you's to Ray
Buck for even asking for help on his Monte Carlo link page on my behalf.
With that said and done, proceed on to take a peek at the car that won my heart.
Back
in September 1996, I was living out on Long Island, looking for a car after
my first one blew up and got promptly shipped off to a demolition derby. Wasn't
too sure what I was looking for at the time; just needed some wheels.
I had looked at a '68 Torino, which was
unfortunately absolute garbage. Looked at a '85 Buick Regal, but the guy never
called me back. I happened to be going shopping and came across two cars parked
next to one another in the strip mall parking lot. A '71 Chevelle and an '82
Monte Carlo. After perusing the Chevelle and realizing it was going to be financially
way over my head, I called about the Monte.
They wanted $1500. And someone else was
going to look at it the next afternoon. I offered to meet them in the morning,
with cash. There was something nagging me to buy the car, and I couldn't figure
out what.
It turned out to be owned by a 40-ish couple
who apparently had no time for it anymore; it didn't strike me as they knew
a whole lot about cars. The oil was dirty, the trans fluid was nasty, the tires
were so bald they looked like drag slicks, you name it. I was able to talk them
down to $1275, mostly because the front end of the car was shot (can we say
balljoints?). Cash apparently spoke, and I brought her home. And proceeded to
become extremely attached to her.
After having the car for a few weeks, I decided
to put some effort into deciphering the cowl tag. I found out that she was originally
a D84-optioned car (two-tone paint); Redwood Metallic up top and Beige everywhere
else. (some of that Beige was still evident in the door jambs and the underside
of the trunk lid.) Somewhere along the line, someone decided to paint her solid
Redwood Metallic, which is the color you see here. My original idea for the car
was to change the color to Black Cherry Metallic and redo the interior to a Burgundy.
however, the more I got into talking to other people with Monte Carlos, and the
more cars I saw, I realized that I had yet to see another one this particular
color! (Since then, I've only seen 3 other cars this color!) While I'm no authority,
I believe this color to be relatively rare. So I decided to keep it that way.
My Monte started out with an all-original 229 (3.8l) V6/TH350 combination.
Standard fare for these cars. It supposedly had 77,000 miles on the clock, which
I found out after a while was actually 177,000. Yikes. It burned oil like a fiend.
It had valve rap cha-cha on the highway that probably would have disturbed most
people. It leaked anywhere there was a seal. But the damn thing ran. And ran.
And ran. It ran its little heart out whenever I asked it to. The 229 slowly got
worse as time went by; it developed some real nasty leaks (can you say rear main
seal?) and started eating oil. (2 quarts/week.) It dieseled, it stalled, it took
forever to get warmed up. Whatever little power it had left was slowly going away.
It managed to flip the big 200,000 mile mark (11:55 am on Halloween, of all times);
I nursed another 25,000 miles out of it while I was deciding whether to upgrade
to the 4.3 V6 from a later Monte Carlo or just go V8. I went V8. *grin* I didn't
get her anything nuts, just a GM Special Performance 350. If I remember right,
it made about 250 horses. Nothing nuts. But a BIG improvement! It was like I was
driving a whole different car. I will say, however, that I'm impressed that little
V6 made it so many miles. I never babied this car; it was driven every day of
the week, and it was driven over 500 miles in a week. I made it work for all that
Meguiar's, you know. :-)
Being on a real strict budget and having to
pay for a lot of catch-up maintenance (I do believe the best was when the entire
exhaust decided it was going to fall out....from the Y-pipe), I didn't really
have the money to do too many modifications besides the engine. I was saving for
a new transmission, as I was losing reverse in the one that was in the car. The
tinted windows were there when I bought the car, but they were in need of a re-tint.
I did change the tire size from the stock 195/75R14's (of which there were 3 different
brands on the car!!) to BFG Radial TA's; 215/60R14's up front and 235/60R14's
out back. I had intentions down the road of upgrading to the 15" wheels from
an SS Monte Carlo. To me, those tires alone seemed to make a BIG difference, especially
in the rain. I was also saving up for some fresh paint and a bit of bodywork.
I wanted to refinish the interior, which was showing the car's mileage. The seats
and the headliner were the biggest offenders, the seats being worn on the driver's
side, and the headliner having to be stapled up to avoid that household drapery
look. Besides, at the time, I
was enjoying my new engine too much. *smile* I did mange to restore my rally whels
back to their original condition with a little help from a friend in Florida;
he sold me the centercaps off of his black '84, which was unfortunately totaled
in an accident. That friend from Florida turned out to be my husband. :-)
The Monte was never in a major accident while I owned it; it did
recieve its share of parking-lot dings from inconsiderate people. I came out of
a store to find one day that someone had apparently backed into the car and cracked
the entire lower half of the bumper cover around the front marker. I was well,
a tad pissed. I decided that a brand new bumper cover was a little out of my budget
at the moment; I wound up buying a Bra for it just to cover it up. *sings the
praises of Covercraft, the only people who even make one for a non-SS car* I'll
say this about them too - that thing fit like a glove and covered up all that
unsightly mess. (See below for some pics) Now my ex, however, seemed to be the
one that received the decent smack; sitting in traffic on the Long Island Expressway,
some moron in a brand-new foreign car didn't see my Monte's brake lights and plowed
into her rear at 30mph. The Monte suffered some minor cosmetic damage to the passenger
side bumper cover (which you can see in some of the pics below). The bitch that
hit my baby, however, totaled her car. (Can you say HA!!!) Thank gods for steel.
He also backed into a Cavalier at work and did something like $700 worth of damage
to it. Left nothing but a little blue line on my car. I could've killed him. :-)
Though it had its share of problems, and it
was the fastest or the most perfect, I so fell in love with this car. She was
a damn good car. She never skidded on ice (which I either attribute to luck or
my tires) and never left me stranded. Everything that broke, broke in the driveway.
If it can be said that cars have personality, this one was so very full of it.
To say that I was heartbroken when my ex took this car from me is an understatement.
I'd own twenty more of these cars in a heartbeat, and I have sworn up and down
that one of these days I'll have another one. It'll never replace this one; nothing
will, but I'll love it just the same. :-)
Back
in September 1996, I was living out on Long Island, looking for a car after
my first one blew up and got promptly shipped off to a demolition derby. Wasn't
too sure what I was looking for at the time; just needed some wheels.
The Monte was never in a major accident while I owned it; it did
recieve its share of parking-lot dings from inconsiderate people. I came out of
a store to find one day that someone had apparently backed into the car and cracked
the entire lower half of the bumper cover around the front marker. I was well,
a tad pissed. I decided that a brand new bumper cover was a little out of my budget
at the moment; I wound up buying a Bra for it just to cover it up. *sings the
praises of Covercraft, the only people who even make one for a non-SS car* I'll
say this about them too - that thing fit like a glove and covered up all that
unsightly mess. (See below for some pics) Now my ex, however, seemed to be the
one that received the decent smack; sitting in traffic on the Long Island Expressway,
some moron in a brand-new foreign car didn't see my Monte's brake lights and plowed
into her rear at 30mph. The Monte suffered some minor cosmetic damage to the passenger
side bumper cover (which you can see in some of the pics below). The bitch that
hit my baby, however, totaled her car. (Can you say HA!!!) Thank gods for steel.
He also backed into a Cavalier at work and did something like $700 worth of damage
to it. Left nothing but a little blue line on my car. I could've killed him. :-)
