CARS IN BARNS PAGE 29

I was living in QC (Cananda) when I met a guy driving a 57 Chevy 210.  Being a muscle car enthusiast, I chatted with him and told him that my ultimate dream was to own a Superbird.  His reply was "oh, yeah, I had one of those".  Like many of you readers, I immediately said "not a Superbee, a Superbird".  He then replied, "Yeah, yeah, I know, with the funny nose and the big spoiler on the trunk.  Man, could that car ever go!"  He then told me he bought the car new in 1970, and drove it for a month...before being confronted with the physics of Polyglass rubber on wet pavement, in a curve at 130mpg.  They say the grass never quite grew back like it did before in that field. Anyways, he sold the car, which was quite fixable, to a young man from Quebec's Gaspe Peninsula.  He told me the man lived in a little place near a town called Amqui.  About 4 years later, I moved to that very place and began asking around about the car.  Turns out one of my colleagues from work, a Chrysler enthusiast herself, thought she saw that car in a field near where she lived.  That same day, we proceeded to look for the car, and sure enough, there it was.  The original yellow color could still be seen under spots of flaking red repaint, and the 440 4bbl was still in it and running!  The current owner ws a farmer who had a thing for Dodges.  But this Superbird was his toy: he said he added the hood scoop because "them engine, they overheated all the time because of the nose".  The side pipes were remnants from an era when they were legal in Quebec.  He kept them for the looks. Well, like it's always the case, he wasn't really into selling it because he was "gonna put it back on the road someday".  He did hint that it would take "over 10 grand" to pry it out from his hand, although the frame was bad from years of sitting outside in the field, and numerour prior encounters with calcium on the road.  Even then, he said he wasn't even sure he'd let it go. My time was soon up in this place, and I had to move about 700 miles from there, swearing to myself I would be the first one at his door the day he would sell.  Then one day, while travelling the area on my summer vacation, I went back to see the car he said would have been completely redone by now.  When I got to the gentlemen's place, I was met by an unfriendly farmer who told me there was never such a car here, and would I please go away.  Odd, considering there was no way to be wrong about the place.  Last time I checked, nobody ever saw the car again.  Jean-Marc