Street-legal tribute to the legendary NASCAR driver Fireball Roberts; the car is a replica of one of his last super-speedway cars driven before his untimely death. Okay, I hearby stake claim that I was in the process of building a 60s stock car replica before the handy bunch at Car Craft did the same! Unlike the Car Craft project Comet, my "Project Fireball" was intended from the get-go to replicate an actual former NASCAR racer (as opposed to an imaginary one) as visually accurate as possible, yet still be street legal. I chose to pay tribute to Fireball Roberts, starting with (ironically, or twistedly... your call) a '64 Galaxie that had previously been stolen and that the theives had tried to torch to hide their stupidity. Also unlike the great Car Craft folks, I stuck with the small block 289, yet completed a race-bred interior that further adds to the car's accurate 60s-racer appearance. Removing all of the chrome also required filling 161 holes in the body! It's admittedly a show car and not meant to run low 11s at the local strip... yet. I have a 390 block waiting to be built, but I'm leaning more towards a significantly upgraded small block so I don't have to change everything over (springs, mounts, tranny, etc.) to accommodate the larger motor. I had no shop, no previous welding or bondo experience, and pretty much no budget. Other than exterior paint and exhaust, it just was me, a crowded garage, and a few borrowed tools. Still, the car was purchased October 1, 2006, and the project was completed on July 11, 2007; or a little over 9 months, for a total of about $4,000, and I am damned proud of it!