Portland, OR
This was the first time that we got see the American Graffiti Coupe in person. We were pumped as we drove to Portland and a bit giddy when we first spied it from across the arena. Up close and personal though, my prior vision of the Coupe, and what I saw that day were not exactly the same. To describe it as 'un-restored' would be polite. We won't speculate here as to the reasons it looked like it had swam the English Channel. We'll just say that it was a tad disconcerting. We had come to meet a 'movie star' and had run into Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler version). Rough? Like the Rockies.
Please don't get me wrong, it was still a thrill. Just different than I expected. But as bad as it was, we would see it worse less than a year later.
Here are more of the photos we retrieved that day. We still refer to these for research from time to time. They made identifying the rear end parts possible as every shot of it previously had been low-res and usually focused on something else. But even after all these years, we'll still notice some things we hadn't seen before. 'Course that's usually what we're really looking for.
