Contact Steve Lusich - 1969 AMX
California 500 Special
Sunland, CA

I went out to Chris' lot in North Hollywood after I sold my 69 Castillian Gray metallic 4 speed 390 car to a friend of a friend. I had known the gray car since 1975 when I saw it zooming up the hill in my neighborhood back in the day. I bought the same car from its second owner in 1995. I drove the car sparingly the next couple of years but I didn't like the 4 speed as the clutch was too hard to operate with my bad left leg so I sold it. I immediately regretted it and decided to find another, but an automatic car this time.

David Simon put me in touch with Chris Trombly of North Hollywood. As I recall he had 4 AMX's there at the time and tried to sell me the Alamosa Aqua 343 4 speed, but I told him I wanted an automatic car. His other cars were either in too poor condition or I was just not interested. I looked at the faded Matador Red car and saw by the VIN that it was an automatic car, but it had a 12:1 motor and a 4 speed in it at the time. On closer inspection I discovered that it was a BBG car. The paint code on the door tag said 4A and there was green everywhere under the red paint. A previous owner had painted the engine compartment black but you could see the green showing thru in places there too. So I bought it from Chris on the understanding that he would convert it back to automatic.

I later discovered it was a loaded BBG California 500 Special. I got in touch with the previous owner as he had the hood and the 500 Special hood badges which were not with the car when I found it with Chris. I started the restoration shortly after. Instead of making it bone stock or a quarter mile racer I decided to beef up the suspension and put 16 inch wheels and Z rated tires on it. Rebuilt the motor and trans and suspension as well. It is mostly stock except for a few go fast goodies. I put the later dogleg heads on it and headers and the 727 Torque Command tranny as it is better than the old Borg-Warner M12. I kept the old parts though. Since it still had the flat back crank from the 390 4 speed I had to put an adapter on the back of the crank for it to work with the 401/727 flex plate. I am thinking now to put a 401 in it because the crank has the machined shoulder that accepts the hole in the 401 flex plate and the pilot hole in the crank matches the hub on the 401 torque converter. That is my next project with the car.

And this is my other car, a 1970 Plymouth Cuda.

My Cuda is a 1970 B5 blue coupe with a 440 six-pack, solid cam, built 727 auto and 3.91 gears. It is a high optioned car with two fender tags, built at the LA plant on Wednesday, November 12, 1969 on the first shift. I bought it from the second owner where I found it in Knob Noster, Missouri, after doing a Google search for Plymouth Barracudas.