Day 1

Here is what the Comet looked like the day I brought her home. The engine ran very smooth, but the steering was loose and the brakes needed a lot of pressure to stop the car. I found the car on a lot in San Marcos, Ca. through www.autotrader.com.

I love this first picture with one eye shut…the headlight is resting on the bumper. You can also see the bumper is a bit tweaked.

All the tires were different and the back ones were not even the same size! If you look closely, there is a chrome trim around the windows. Supposedly, this was not a 202 feature and was part of the 404 trim. Either a mistake was made at the factory or the previous owner bought the trim and installed it themselves. Once I took them off, I also found the metal under the trim rusted and pitted.

The side mirror was located way up on the fender. It was so far out there; I don’t see how it could be of any use. Is this where all the mirrors were located?

Here’s the velour interior…

Here’s another view of the front seat and rear bench…

Notice the missing door panel on the driver’s side…down below, you see only the brake pedal. The car originally came with a three speed on the steering column but had been since been swapped for a C4 automatic transmission sometime in the past. When I took the carpet out, I found the clutch pedal pushed up against the firewall.

This is what the trunk looked like. Full of trash….

Here is the original 200 CID engine….

And here is the driver’s side floor after I pulled the carpet. You can see the driveway through the holes. The other side was repaired with a single piece of heavy gauge sheet metal tacked in place over even more holes. Notice the clutch pedal against the firewall?

Here is the back seat after I removed the seats. There was a lot of trash under the seat. I wore gloves and a mask as I removed all the debris. Looked like a bag of rice had been spilled…had gotten wet…and petrified into something rock solid…needed a chisel and hammer to remove it all.