meet Matilda

Matilda, out front of World Headquarters.

She sits with her nose in the air, but don't think she's a snob.  She's just waiting for a big block.

Comfortable in the garage, at last.

Bumpers already removed, pulling off trim and front grille to get her ready for bodywork and paint.

Front grille and trim removed.

The expansive dashboard.  There are two giant gauge pods.  The one on the driver's left is split into quadrants for a fuel gauge, temperature gauge, oil pressure gauge and ammeter.  The one on the driver's right is a giant manifold vacuum gauge.  It's actually probably closer to the passenger than it is to the driver, and for some reason I find its size and location hilarious.  I think I might replace the giant speedometer with custom-mounted gauges for a speedo, a tach, and some small gauges for temperature, oil pressure, volts and fuel. Then I could relocate the giant manifold vacuum gauge to the driver's left and I think there are factory clocks that will fit in the spot where the manifold vacuum gauge is now.  It's a great looking dash, though.  On the one hand, I hate to spoil its 1960s style.  On the other hand, I'd like to have a tach somewhere, and I think the modified dash would give more of a "race car" look.  Although, I once got to look inside a real 1966 NASCAR stock car, and I think it only had a tach and an oil pressure gauge.  But I'd like a little more than that, though.

I probably should have taken pictures before I started gutting the interior, but there wasn't really a whole lot here even as the car was received.  I pulled out the back seat and used a Shop Vac to suck a bunch of garbage out of the car before taking this picture.

Out on the patio, here is the bottom half of the back seat, and the crappy bucket seats that weren't even bolted down in the front of the car.  From the looks of them, I'd guess they came out of a late-model minivan in a junkyard.  They're still on the patio now, but Monday is the city's next day for "bulky item" trash pick up.

Looks like a great place to put a Mark IV big block V8.

"It's all relative."  The Corvair was Chevrolet's first "compact" car.  It doesn't look real "compact" by today's standards, but here it is with the Impala's bumper on the floor in front of it.  The edges of the bumpers are lined up on the driver's side, and it can be seen that the Impala bumper is a good foot past the Corvair's bumper on the passenger side.

The gas tank is out, and on the floor.  The exhaust is removed, cut up and on the floor, too.  I guess sometimes it's a little strange what I get excited about, but I was delighted to see the track bar rear suspension.  The track bar, or "Panhard rod," as Europeans might call it, is the long bar that runs diagonally down, left to right in the picture above.  It locates the rear end laterally under the body.  It is a design that is sufficiently antiquated that even Bertha didn't have one, and yet it is used to this day under NASCAR "stock cars."  So, modern NASCAR's roots can be seen here, and Matilda's NASCAR roots, too.