MARTINSVILLE — Richard Hamilton graduated from Martinsville High School in 1962 and wanted, in the worst way, to own a 1962 Chevrolet.
A decade or so later, he bought one, a silvery blue Biscayne with fawn-colored upholstery. The two-door car, with its six-cylinder engine and three-on-the-tree shifter, needed some work. Hamilton figured he would get around to it before long.
He never did. The car was driven into a barn.
Where it sat parked.
Until 1996.
That’s when his nephew John Hamilton came along to take the old Chevy off his uncle’s hands. By this time the engine was shot, and the car was pretty much a rusty shell.
If you read this column regularly, you know this happens. A lot. Some lucky cars get saved while others are still out there parked in someone’s uncle’s barn.
The hood latch on this vintage Biscayne was broken, so it was held shut by a cement block sitting on a piece of plywood. I have proof this is true, a photo of the car with the cement block in place, hood down. It’s one of the pictures in a photo album documenting the car’s nearly five-year restoration.
“By the time we got it, the color was a mixture of blue, primer and rust and the interior was in sad shape,” said Jo Ellen Hamilton, John’s wife and the person who drives the now-restored fire-engine-red Biscayne.
“There was no engine or transmission in the car, and it sat in our yard for several months with a concrete block sitting on the hood,” she said. “I asked my husband what on earth he was going to do with that ugly thing.”
John Hamilton had a vision for the car that he made come true.
Over the next four and a half years, this base-model Biscayne underwent a transformation after which the car was unrecognizable. Improvements included custom red exterior paint, custom-made seats and upholstery detailing from Interiors by Ed in Mitchell, a 327-cubic-inch engine, chrome dual exhaust pipes and a four-speed manual transmission with a floor shifter.
“We completed the car in 2001 and have been enjoying it ever since,” Jo Ellen Hamilton said.
Over time, he drove the car less and she took it out more often. “So, it became my car,” she declared. She drove it to work, the recycling center, the grocery store, all over town.
Her husband continued tinkering with the engine, making the Biscayne more powerful than ever. The current 409 runs on aviation fuel and made a loud “vvvrrrroooommm” as she drove away from the June 12 Morgan County Courthouse square cruise in.
And this car? She has a name. Mean Christine, “after the car in the Stephen King novel, because at times it seems to be possessed,” her owner said. “Christine truly does have an attitude, but we love her anyway.”
Sixteen-year-old Brooke Nicholson was with her grandmother and Christine the Biscayne at the courthouse square cruise-in that night. The three have a summertime plan: lessons in how to drive a stick shift, a skill everyone should master.
My father’s attempt to teach me how to drive an early 1970s 5-speed Toyota was futile. I actually abandoned the car on a slight hill at a traffic light and left him there in the passenger seat after the engine died over and over (“push down on the gas as you let up on the clutch!”) the car rolling backward inches at a time, the driver behind me honking and yelling.
I soon figured it out on my own and drove that car a few years, becoming adept at down shifting instead of using the brake.
Have a story to tell about a car or truck? Contact My Favorite Ride reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: My Favorite Ride: Meet Christine, Martinsville woman’s 1962 Chevrolet Biscayne
Reporting by Laura Lane, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
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