Our third project car of the 2006 season of Sports Car Revolution takes a definite retro turn as we unearth the last 1971 Blackhawk to be built. Fresh from Beverly Hills car #26 of 25 (they counted the prototype) will get the full SCR treatment with an upgraded drive train and suspension with a little, well actually a lot of restoration thrown in.  


Project Introduction – Show Open Episode 8
Intercity Lines Inc. collected the car from an underground parking garage in LA and safely delivered it to Neely Auto Service in Milton. Our Intercity driver told us that this was the roughest area he had ever picked up a car in. Rob and the guys at Neely’s went over the new arrival and made sure it was safe for us to do a “before” test drive.  Preparations included removing the old knock off wires and cracked bias ply’s, replacing them with 17 inch Michelin rubber and Hot Wheels Sixty-Eight style rims, courtesy of Discount Tire.

Rob also checked the brakes and replaced the tired springs with a custom set from Eaton Detroit. Someone had put cargo coils on the back and the stance was all wrong. An oil change and fluid check rounded out the initial preparations.  

Despite its rusty appearance the Stutz ran great, the 400 Pontiac small block has less than 30,000 miles. Tom made a couple of high speed passes past the camera and pronounced himself impressed. Handling was on par with big cars of the era so there is obviously room for improvement.

 SCR Episode  8 – Body work at Oaktown         April 12th. début    
The guys at Legendary had their hands full, what with V8 Prowlers and Corvette race cars so we called on our local Oaktown Collision to let in a couple of Kia’s worth of new sheet metal. The Stutz body is entirely made by hand in Italy, the coachwork by Padane is beautiful but lacked the proper placement of drain holes. As a result the Stutz still had solid floors and frame but the lower fenders, rocker panels and quarters and door bottoms had rust holes you could put your fist through. Obviously some serious body work would have to be done to repair the Stutz before we could get to engine and suspension modifications.

As one of only 25 production cars there are no spare body panels kicking around. Luckily the craftsmen at Oaktown really know their way around both modern and vintage cars. The first time we visited the shop they were putting the finishing touches on a cherry black and white 56 Chevy Belair.  Primarily a collision shop, Oaktown has locations across the GTA.

Oaktown really had their work cut out for them, no one piece plastic bumpers or even repop panels on this project. The guys had to employ old school metal working techniques to repair the compound curves on the Stutz’ body work, so much so that some of the still photos we took at Oaktown look remarkably like photos taken at the Padane factory over thirty five years ago.

Make sure you don’t miss episode 8 of SCR to see the transformation of the Stutz body from faded glory to gleaming black.

Project Car Sponsors

Neely Auto 905-876-9487