We always get a little excited when we see a car flying out of our youth, especially one that's always been relatively obscure and usually overlooked by most. If you like one of these loads you're probably wired with a subjective personality and happily situated a step or two off the mainstream, like we are.
Ours was a late-build 1960 fixed with a 350-horse 348 garbage truck motor that was strung with three carburetors. Rebuilding that hinky trio in 1962 was a trip though, huh? When we were finished, there were only a few extra bits left over, but who cared? We were playing hot rodder, putting hands on the churl, gaining some sort of stature even if it was in our own cockamamie brain.
Although our Biscuit never got beyond a Hurst conversion for the three-speed, plumber's pipe exhaust cutouts, and gummy Bucrons (yes, they were whitewalls) for the track, it was a low-mileage heap that wore its tuxedo black like a badge, sharp, clean, and crisp.
Yeah, a long time, say 60 years down the pike, way before Joe and Stephanie Boyd were noisily at their baby bottles, all of that has changed. We liked the Biscayne especially for its lack of trim, chrome, and its aspiration to be anything more, that and the fact that you could order the cheapest body with the biggest engine available. The Boyds see theirs as a clean sheet to gently decorate with upscale trim from Bel Air and Impala. Stephanie was the instigator. She was stubborn, no, possessed. She'd seen a '59 Impala at a show and fell in love with the fins and taillights. The search was on.
Why did they build this car? Why, because Stephanie wanted one. She's been into hot rods since she was 15. Joe got in when was he was 13. Joe said, "Steph got involved when her dad purchased a '65 Mustang so she could get me to help—and (laughs) it worked. My first ride was a '54 Dodge truck and then a '65 Mustang."
Joe related, "Little did we know how few and far between [Biscaynes] are and if you did find one it was either rusted out or expensive. At a car show in Ft. Worth we met Dale and Theresa Hilbert who were down from Oklahoma and had the car for sale. It was running and driving, a six-cylinder with a three-speed." The pair started working on it immediately, first changing out the drivetrain for a small-block and an overdrive automatic transmission.
Once the reliable drivetrain was in there, they felt empowered, began pulling on the carcass, stripping the trim from inside and from the exterior and sending it to Whitworx Fine Metal Finishing in Lincoln, Arkansas, for polishing and plating.
