Hello everyone, Nate here. As you know my Dad is a bit of a Marina guy, a Marina Man as it were. From a very young age I remember riding in these cars and remember him tinkering with them in the garage. While the Marina got a bad rap for some things, one being reliability, I never saw that side of them. He’s been driving them since 1974, so you do the math.
Restoring cars is something I’ve picked up later in life. My first being a 1978 Fiat 124 Spider. A lovely looking car and a great drive train to go with the looks. But they were made out of old Russian beer cans I think. You could almost watch them dissolve into rust in real time. So restoring one was a real steep learning curve. Lots of sheet metal work, then block sanding, then block sanding, then block sanding, then paint…you get the point. A lot of work.
The Marina was something I’d looked at that thought it had some good lines, I just think the factory didn’t bother to accentuate those in a positive light. So when one came up for sale about 3 hrs from me, we jumped on it. A running driving car, but in need of some TLC.
I didn’t want to do a stock car, I wanted to see if I could make a really cool car that everyone would appreciate. I knew what I wanted in my head, but sometimes that doesn’t translate in the real world. It took a couple years, but it’s done and I’m quite satisfied with the results.
BTW, there was essentially no rust at all on this car. This was a north west (Washington state) car, and never saw extremes in nature of any kind. Anyway, enjoy the pictures.