For The Love Of Muscle Cars
By Sheila
J. Robinson
Staff
Writer
Web
posted
Asking people about their hobby is a good
conversation starter, and sometimes points shared in common are discovered.
This is part of a series taking a behind-the-scenes look at names in the news
and well known people around town.
David Wall likes to restore old muscle cars.
Muscle cars were built from about the 1960s through mid-1970s,
when a lot of auto manufacturers produced cars with limited options,
medium-sized cars with big V-8 motors.
"The appeal was go fast, and some of them were downright
almost drag strip cars made for the street," Wall said. "It was an
era in which there was a lot of fun with cars. A lot of people spent a lot of
time fixing up old cars and hot-rods."
Wall, who is general manager for Cable One, thinks what happens is
a lot of people who grew up in the Baby Boom era remember the old cars and
enjoy revisiting their youth by working on and driving muscle cars. He does
most of the work himself when he is restoring vehicles.
"I have done and completed about five full restoration
on cars," Wall said. "That's everything from a cosmetic restoration
to completely removing the body off of a frame, and separate it and doing
what's called a frame-off restoration."
Many people collect cars, but Wall says he doesn't have a lot of
money, so he can't always keep the cars he has refurbished. He enjoys going out
and finding the vehicles.
"It's part of the process of finding them, getting them
purchased and actually fixing and working them up to something that you're very
proud of when you're done," Wall said. "There's a lot of satisfaction
in that."
Once he's driven the car for awhile, people tell him they don't
understand how he could sell something he has put so much time and work into.
Part of the enjoyment for Wall is the work.
His love of cars goes back to when he was a Cub Scout, and he
remembers identifying photos in a Cub Scout manual for a merit badge. Then in
his teenage years, he enjoyed working on cars he owned.
"As a lot of the kids did back then, I spent most of my time
messing around and spending whatever money I had on my car," Wall said. He
recalled how his girlfriend, who is now his wife, told him he was spending more
time with his car than her.
"I didn't want to be a mechanic, and I didn't want to do that
as a living," Wall said. "I enjoyed it. I had the idea that I wanted
to go into the electronics field, something to do with electronics. That's
really kind of what got my start into the cable industry, was the interest in
that area."
He had a '68 Camaro and a '68 Chevelle when he was in high school. But when he started
raising his children, those toys kind of went away.
"Now that my children are grown, graduating college, finished
with school and married, it was enjoyable to go back and kind of revisit some
of that and work on those cars, and actually own a couple that I used to have," Wall said.
Currently, his projects are a '66 and a '67 Chevelle.
He's doing a complete frame-off restoration of the '67 Chevelle.
It will be the fourth Chevelle he has completed.
"It has a 454 big block in it, and a manual five-speed
transmission," Wall said. "That wasn't standard back then. I'm doing
some updating and modernize them a little bit, to where they are actually a
little easier to drive than they were back then."
No long ago, he completed a restoration on a 1970 Chevelle. He says it looked like factory stock when
completed, but had the modern conveniences of an overdrive transmission and an
updated heating and air conditioning system.
When his youngest son was growing up, they worked on an old Chevelle together, and Wall says it was a wonderful,
bonding experience with his son. Wall is also member of the Blue River Car
Club, and he thinks it's important for people to have a hobby they enjoy.
"In this particular hobby, you find a lot of people have
common interest and you meet a lot of nice and friendly people," Wall
said.
Going to the local drag strip
Wall enjoys going to Ardmore Raceway drag strip near Springer, and
says the raceway recently installed night lights for racing after dark. He says
it's the oldest continuously run drag strip in the
"We did that (lights) for kids and because we are trying to
reach out to high school kids, and kids who have cars out on the street,"
Wall said. "This is the place they can come and have fun and have
something they can do that is actually healthy for them, instead of going out
and doing something different."