1954 Lincoln Capri 2 door hardtop coupe.

Found in 1995 by a pal, Pete Barwick- stand up & take a bow- in Pheonix Arizona.

The car had belonged to a Mr Thomas Eugene Day (I had the original title before re registering it in my name in AZ), & was one of two of the same models he owned.

It was sold as the "parts" car to Pete who bought both Lincolns for a ridiculously low dollar figure, who eventually sold it on to me when I convinced him it was too good a car to break apart.

Originally it was an AZ car, with deleted power window option, Sun-dim tinted windows, electric 4 way power front seat, power steering, power brakes, a 317Cu In V8 with a GM auto transmission, all wrapped in a fab pale green with a dark green metallic roof.

The car got pulled out of AZ & shipped up to Oklahoma whilst still one of Petes cars (he has, and has had loads of US cars), with a Fella now known as 2 week Charlie. He gained this nick-name because eveytime a phone call or e-mail was made his response was always that the restoration would be ready in 2 weeks. On planet Charlie 2 weeks can extend into years, & so after an un-announced visit to check on progress or the lack of it, I pulled the car out -now with a New Interior & lots of Oklahoma mud- to have it shipped up to Steve Francis at Mainstreet Motorsport in Connecticut.

Here Leadbelly (so named because of my plans for his revival & after an old Delta Blues Guitarist) moved in alongside another pal Julian Balmes' Lincoln (Wooly Bully, a real live road race replica that has raced and completed the Carrera Panamericana; all be it the revival one in the early 1990's).

This is where my plans crossed with Jules' plans, so we both had Steve do a swap & refurb of the front end.

You see I wanted to customise & hot rod my Lincoln, while Jules wanted to get his back to period correct for racing. To those ends my drum brakes would be a straight swap for Jules' disc brake set up.

So with all Lincoln bits (ok they're from a 64 or something continental but its still part of the family) it now gives me the stopping I want over on this side of the pond.

Steve & I decided the engine & gearbox were too much work, & sold them onto a restorer, then found a Mercury Cougar with a 351W & C4 Auto Trans that had been rebuilt less than 10,000 miles earlier (Mercury is part with Lincoln of the Ford stable of motors).

We bought the wholecar for a few dollars more than we got for the resto bits, & pulled what we wanted before selling the remaining bits onto a scrap yard. Steve fabricated new engine mounts, transmission mounts, plus block hugger site specific headers, & installed the lot.

This upped the BHP from the standard cars 205-210 to about 225-230 on a crappy two barrel carb, not forgetting the diet the car had been on (Steve reckoned we had shed close to 200Lbs in weight difference between both engine & trans combinations). In addition Steve had a custom prop shaft made up & a local exhaust firm bend up a stainless open (I think theres 1 silencer out back in each line) twin pipe exhaust; just to make it sound right!

Steve then cut the front coils to drop the front end down fromits almost Gasser stance, whilst the rear leaf springs were left as de-arched as the last 45 years had done to them.

A painless wiring kit was installed, & its at this stage that I arranged to have the car shipped back to the UK.

This is towards the end of 2001, so somewhere near the end of January or early february 2002 I am in the Alfa 164 heading towards Felixstowe on the A12 & A14 to hand over my money to HM Customs & bring the old fella back to a wet & wild SW London.

We made it about 8 miles from the inland dock we'd picked him up from (having first installed a new battery & tied up a door to the oposite one which would lock) before he started to overheat.

The AA were called & the man diagnosed a head gasket failure.

So a tow truck was called & we were ignominiously flatbed trucked back to Wandsworth. The old boy made it in the early hours of the next Suday under his own steam (literally) to a lock up in deepest darkest Balham & I started by removing the Rad for a re-core.

I also want to sort out the brakes as they have an rock hard servo unit, giving next to no pedal travel.

It has languished like this for the last 5 years whilst house moves(x2), divorce & a new family have all been added to lifes rich pageant.

So this years resolution is to get an MOT, UK reg, & Tax to start using it as a rolling custom.

To do that an elctric wiper motor must be found bought & fitted, a handbrake cable found & fitted, the headlights converted to UK focus, & the drivers door lock fixed.

I have a new speedo cable to go in & the re-cored rad to drop back in.

The heater is out having started to strip the engine bay to detail & paint or powder coat parts.

All this is before the real customisation starts.

Frenched front lamps, frenched aerials, 40's door push buttons (off a 41 Lincoln), & all the subtle body mods that I want before the wild paint job gets laid on.

All this not forgetting the hot rodding of that engine.

Lets put it this way....Mr Edelbrock will be selling me quite a bit of performance matched parts to create his stated 460hp Windsor motor. All these will be added to as work and pix occur.

In the meantime keep it all tin side up.

Happy motoring.