1974 Monte Carlo Landau Sport Coupe 454 Sky Roof

Greetings, friends! After a long wait, it's here: my 1974 Landau sport coupe with the rarest of options - the factory electric sunroof known as a Sky Roof (option code CA1). Nearly equally rare is a factory installed big block, the mighty Mark IV 454 c.i. Chevrolet powerhouse, option code LS4. The vehicle, with only 123,000 original miles, also is equipped with a TH 400 transmission (M40) Four Season air conditioning (C60), cloth swiveling Strato Bucket seats (AN7), center console (D55), electric remote trunk opener (A90), front and rear bumper guards (V30) and impact strips (VE5), side body moldings (B84), auxiliary lighting group (ZJ7), front and rear mats (B37), sport mirrors (D35), deluxe seat belts (AK1), Comfortilt steering wheel (N33) and the original 8-track stereo cassette player (UM1) with an extra rear speaker (U80). I suspect there are other options as well, such as heavy duty radiator and battery, etc, but I haven't confirmed that yet. And I can't wait to ascertain whether this Monte is equipped with the G80 and/or YD1 options, those being posi-traction and towing package (which automatically adds the F40 heavy duty suspension) with a 3.42:1 gear ratio. The medium red metallic paint (code 74) is all original, but 25 years ago the second owner, upon purchasing the car, removed the maroon vinyl Landau half top due to weathering, and he repainted the area underneath, which has faded since and is visible in the pictures. The interior of the car is nearly perfect, with the only defect being a single crack down the center of the dashboard. Amazingly, after nearly 35 years of service in the north (purchased new in Montana, and stayed in Montana and Idaho for the remainder of its life), it has very little rust, one spot appearing in front of the right rear wheel well. Other than that and some surface rust on the frame, rear axle, and some other parts of the underside, it has no rust to speak of. That was a real relief to see that, since you never know about northern cars. But this one is nearly rust-free, and in amazing original condition.

I got the call last Monday that the car was to arrive in port last Wednesday, and be available for pickup on Monday. Unfortunately Friday I found out due to a mess up at the shipping company, the bill of lading was missing, but early Monday morning that was fixed, clearing me make arrangements again to pick it up, and this time it would be Thursday. This time I decided to rent a flatbed truck with a driver for the 600 mile round trip. So yesterday morning before 2 am, we left Warsaw and arrived at 7:30, giving us enough time to eat breakfast before the offices opened at 8. I payed the handling company for unloading the vehicle, then proceeded to the port where another intermediary dealt with the customs clearance procedure. Since I am now an old client of theirs, they fortunately decided to get this usually tedious and lengthy task out of the way quickly, and indeed finished that by 10:30. I was really surprised to have it done by that time. So then we headed to the customs lot to pick up the car. Since I had a flatbed, I didn't bring too many tools with me, but I did have a fresh battery (side post from the yellow 73 that arrived two months ago), which came in handy because the other one didn't have enough juice. Another problem was that some jackass had revved the engine so high that the fan belt had been thrown off and partially chewed up...just like with the white 73!! That made me mad, but didn't bother me too much since the car was going on a flatbed. But I didn't have the tools to even put it back on. I poured some gas in the carb and it started up and ran till that gas ran out. I guess the tank was empty! So we went and bought some gas, came back, put it in and tried to restart it. It wouldn't run for any length of time, and I noticed the venturies were closed. I didn't figure it out till later that the cause was something to do with the thermostat in the heat stack in the air filter housing. I guess that's the cause, anyhow, since finally at home my father in law held the butterfly valves open and the car started right away and continued to run....beautifully!!! It ran so smoothly I was shocked, and revved extremely quickly and easily. Since the engine had been rebuilt 25,000 miles ago in 1989, I realized that this smoothness of operation was certainly due to great care taken in the rebuild, including balancing and blueprinting by a professional. The previous owner had told me about that, but I wasn't prepared for how wonderful this engine runs.

Anyway, back to the story. We pulled the Monte up on the flatbed with a winch, and I could tell how that Mercedes Sprinter was struggling because its max carrying capacity was 2 metric tons, and the Monte weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.9 to 2 metric tons. But we got it on, secured, and hit the road by noon. We arrived in Warsaw at 7 pm, which is the fastest I've ever made this trip. All in all, it was a great success, though I got a good case of heartburn before long day was over. I guess part of the reason for that was that I feel better behind the wheel and doing everything myself, so driving my own car up there with another driver and returning with two cars is more comfortable and fun. Certainly the 18 hour trip in the uncomfortable seat of the flatbed, plus the driver smoking the whole time, didn't make it any easier for me. But when the day was done, the car was delivered safe and sound to its final destination and I got home at a decent hour. Not to mention I ended up with a fantastic example of a car I've been dreaming of having ever since my first Monte (also with a factory electric sunroof) was stolen in 1994.

For all you history buffs, here's the trim tag info:

ST 74 1AH57 R 210048 BDY
TR 744 AN7 74H PNT
05E 010500

VIN: 1AH57Y4R475439

Without further ado, here are the pics (Imageshack is a bit weird lately, so you might have to click twice to get the larger versions):

Nice car! Cohgrats. JB

Thanks a lot, JB!

Working a bit on the car today, I determined that the differential is non-posi. Unfortunately, but I can live with it. I couldn't find the CC or CJ punch on the rear axle, however, so I don't know if it's got the 3.42 towing ratio or not.

COOL CAR wish I had one!

Thanks for the compliment, Dan. Your rides are bad-A$$ too! By the way, you have a lot of room out there in Oklahoma, so you should go ahead and get yourself a Monte; it would look cool in your fleet.

LOL yea, I tried to get a first gen monte. It was a 1971 all original big block 402 car. Had 3 build sheets and all info back to the original owner. It had aftermarket headers, intake and carb but all the original stuff was still in the trunk, only thing missing was the wheels and tires. Which it had old school 15" cragar SS's on it. Best thing was the price. it was $3000obo
I wish i wouldve had the money then, it wouldve been mine!

I took the car to the customs office on Friday to get it to finish the clearing process, and since it's between holidays and weekend, there wasn't much traffic there, so I was able to finish the process by noon or so. The weather has been in the teens here, and snowing. This time the flatbed was up to the task, being larger. Here are a few pictures. Also, I just had to do a doughnut in the parking lot....I don't suppose this is proof the car has posi, huh?!

Hmmm, did we miss some pics? Do they use salt on the roads over there? Where I live if we get 2 inches of snow it paralizes the city because people are not used to driving on it. Up North of here if it snows they put down salt, but do not need to because everyone knows how to drive on it. My daughter lived in Gary Indiana and she came over the top of an interstate overpass and the red light at the bottom of the hill turned red from green and she did a 360 and stopped at the light like it was nothing. JB

Mine are in for the winter.THe salt here in NY is bad, really corrosive they use this stuff before a storm on the main roads its sort of a salt water with some other junk and it makes some mess then pound the roads with rock salt and sand/calcium. My cars dont come out till the end of April.

JB, I have taken a few pics in between when the car arrived and now, but nothing of note. I have to go through an extremely bureaucratic process to register cars, especially antique cars, and especially those freshly imported from outside the EU.

They absolutely do salt the hell out of the roads over here!! I am also a strict advocate of not driving any collector cars in the salt, ever. I have a daily driver, a Ford Focus wagon. Notice I've been using a flatbed, and so no salt got on the car. Inside the customs compound, as well as at the house, there's no salt used. Both my other 2nd gens (the white and yellow ones) are in a garage (not in the pics) under covers, and they will not come out till the salt's gone, in April or May. That makes for a short driving season!! Sort of like New York.

I did make a short video before the snow hit, a few weeks ago:

http://s238.photobucket.com/albums/ff196/yogreasygramma/videos/?action=view&current=20081207045.flv

Man, thats a big gas tank for a big car! The reason I mentioned pics was I saw a bunch of red Xs on the post. JB

That flatbed truck just barely was large enough to carry the Monte, eh? JB

JB, you can't see the pictures I posted yesterday? I can see them fine. Perhaps an administrator needs to see what's up.

Yep, that flatbed in the first post was barely up to the task! You should have heard the winch straining to get it up on the truck!! The one I posted yesterday was larger, however.

Well, as an old friend once said, "Que Sera Sera". JB

The final clearing of customs I just did is only one of about 15 steps before the car will be registered. Since this is an antique car and historical car (legal differences exist in Poland) and I want it to have antique (yellow like in the white car) plates, I have to go through a pretty tedious process, and importing anything from outside Poland is more difficult, and even more so if it comes from outside the EU. Since I wanted to take advantage of the tax advantages of having it yellow plated (only one comprehensive inspection for the life of the car instead of every year, the ability to have liability insurance only when I want to have it on the road, as opposed to the requirement to have liability on every car you own regardless if it's not in use, plus upon importation, only paying 7% value added tax (sales tax) on the value of the car and shipping instead of 22% plus import duties), I had to jump through more hoops. Here's what has to be done:

1) Buy a car. In order to avoid being hassled, save proof of payment (bank statement, etc) and even copy of the ad. Customs officials will do everything to give you trouble to either fine you for non-compliance, or find some part of the law that you violated or allow them to interpret the law the way they choose, in the end costing you more money.

2) Have the seller take pictures and send them to you. Develop these pictures.

3) Go visit an automotive "expert", who has a license to make a statement concerning your car. You need a description of the car and declaration that the car has historical value. This is a preliminary appraisal. If you want it done cheaper, or quicker, or at all (!), provide the expert with your own statement to which he will add something. This is what I did, and you can find what I wrote in the thread of my white 73 S.

4) Take the expert's preliminary appraisal (after waiting a few days for it to be done) to the city's conservator of historical objects. You want his preliminary declaration that the car might have historical value, which you will use at the customs office at the port to allow your car to be released preliminarily upon presentation to the customs office in your city within 7 days. This conservator's declaration also takes a few days to get. So you have to visit this office twice for this act.

5) Pick up your car at the port. Pay docking fees/unloading fees, then pay an agency to fill out the documents necessary to get initial customs release of your car. Pay initial customs duties. Any adjustments will be made upon final customs clearance. In order to qualify for the lower VAT payment, you must have the conservator's declaration of historical value of your car, otherwise you will pay full customs duties and wait many months or even a year to be reimbursed after you present proof you car has historical value.

6) Tow your car to you home. Or drive it if you buy temporary insurance for it, though this is viewed as a shady area legally, since in fact the car isn't registered to you yet, so you won't be legally in the clear even if you have liability insurance if the police want to give you trouble.

7) Within 7 days, try to jump through the other legal hoops in order to present your car for final customs clearance. The first one is a visit to the legal expert who gave you his preliminary opinion. He will look at the car, see if it's the same one (VIN check, etc) and in fact original (car needs to be 90% original in order to qualify for this historical category and get yellow plates). Fortunately most don't know the difference between a 350 and a 454, and in most cases, will cut you some slack here. Then you have to wait a couple days for him to get this final opinion ready.

As soon as it's ready, run down to his office and bolt over to the city's conservator office and present this opinion to him.

9) Wait for the conservator's final declaration, which takes a few days. Do you see a pattern developing? Though you have 7 days to clear customs, it's basically impossible to meet the deadline. Result: extra fines for not clearing customs on time.

10) After getting the conservator's final declaration, flatbed the car down the customs office ASAP. Usually you will not make it in time, and will be fined. You might also face a seedy customs officer or two who will want a bribe or threaten you with all types of legal red tape, including a forced appraisal of your car by their appraiser, to verify the value of the car in the Polish market, and if your bill of sale doesn't jibe with that, you will be forced to pay more, plus fines for fraud (even if you have all the legal requirements met). No breaks for getting a good deal on the car! They want to maximize their intake.

11) Now that the car has cleared customs, you can go to your friendly car expert again to get what is called a "white card", or description of the car's technical aspects. Basically a more in-depth description of the car, along with more pictures, on a hard copy white paper. I did the white card myself on my cars, since it's not necessary to have the expert's signature on this document.

12) Take the white card to yet another government office, the historic registry office, and submit the white card. Wait a few days till you get a certification that the car has been entered into the official historic registry of automobiles. Your car is now officially a historical car, and you qualify for yellow plates.

13) Either get your car expert to make you one, or make yourself a 3-page list of technical specifications for the car, which will be necessary for the car's inspection.

14) With this specification list and registry certification, take the car to an approved inspection station and get the car inspected for two things: first time in country inspection, and historical car inspection. This is more thorough, and expensive, than the regular yearly inspections. Good thing is that you never have to get another inspection on the car (at least that's the way it is now; who knows what the future will hold). See, it's impossible to complete the registration process until the car is 100% ship-shape. Fortunately, the inspection station officials usually give me a pass even if there are some small issues, such as not properly adjusted emergency brakes or tint on the windows, etc. But that's because they know me. Some stations will try to screw you.

15) Now you can register the car and get your yellow plates and be done with the whole bureaucratic mess.

16) Oops, not yet. You have to go back to the DMV after 30 days and pick up your hard copy of the registration, in lieu of the temporary one you got upon initial registration. Don't mind the endless standing in line at every government office.

17) Enjoy your Monte!!!

I just finished step 10.