A badass, cool,low-budget "Junkyard Jewel.....

A guy I know showed he me a toy he's been working on all spring the other day. I was impressed because it's definitely "Old School" and definitely cool, and he doesn't have $3,500 in the whole project!!  He bought a '69 Buick Skylark 2 door from his neighbor for $500. The body was straight and in good shape, but the interior needed work and the 350 was very tired, running on 6 or 7 cylinders and smoking badly. Another friend of his sold him a '75 Pontiac Gran Prix for $1200. The G/P had a body that didn't really have a straight piece of metal on it, but it had a 455 that would smoke the tires at will and a good-shifting TH400. He took the 455 / TH400 powertrain and dropped it in the Buick using the G/P motor mounts. He also used the G/P rear crossmember and trans mount, having to drill a couple holes in the frame. He spent a little at a driveline shop getting the G/P driveshaft shortened and re-balanced. ( Although their both technically "A" bodies, Skylarks have a 112 inch wheelbase and G/P's have a 118 inch wheelbase ). This was and easy and cheap procedure. He took the G/P's front spindles and added the 11" front disc brakes, calipers, master cylinder and booster, which greatly improved the stopping power over the Skylark's 9.5 inch 4-wheel drums! He also transplanted the G/P's wrist-thick front and rear stabilizer bars to the Buick as well as the G/P's steering box and P/S Pump. The Buick had power steering-but it was a 17.5:1 ratio box. The G/P's "Radial Tuned Suspension" box had a 14:1 ratio-which greatly quickened steering response. He added KYB gas shocks as well. A set of Hedman "Shorty" headers and dual exhaust went on as well as an Edelbrock Torker II intake he had laying around topped with a 750 Edelbrock carb. He had the 6X heads milled .060 at a machine shop to raise the compression one full point and new valvesprings installed. He also added a matching Edelbrock Torker cam.  A TransGo shift kit was added as well. The car is awesome. It handles like a '70's Trans-Am, and runs like a '60s GTO!!  It will literally spin it's tires as long as you want to stay on the throttle. He's got about $3,500 in it now. He plans to paint it, and add some 17" wheels and modern ZR rated tires to further improve handling. When he's done, he'll have maybe 6 grand in the whole thing, and it's totally badass. I'd put it up against a new Hemi Charger or a Mustang G/T in a drag race or the twisties any day of the week. Some people will gripe that it's a "Hybrid"-that it doesn't have a Buick powertrain-but the fact remains that it's a cool car that was built for almost nothing. This is the kind of projects my friends and I did all the time back in the '70's and '80's.  Anyhow I thought it was cool, and wanted to share it. Mastermind