I have a question regarding the name 'Grabber' on the fenders of a 73' Grabber. I have looked at many pictures of 73' Grabbers and all the ones I have seen have 'Grabber' on thier fenders. For whatever reason the car we are restoring does not have the Grabber name it's fenders. This car is bone stock original and other than a spot on the left quarter it has never been repainted. This has me somewhat stumped. Did all 73' Grabbers come with 'Grabber' on thier fenders? I'm not sure if this means anything or not, but this is a Canadian made car. Is it possible that some of the Canadian Grabbers might have come without the Grabber name on thier fenders ? The car's owner wants to keep the car as stock as possible, and I need to know this so I can order the stencil with the stripe kit.
May be they ran out of Grabber stickers that day, or the sticker installer was on a hangover and forgot to put it on....
Is it a real Grabber? (From the VIN) If it was my car....I would put the decal back on the fender. Got any pix?
It definitely is a real Grabber. It has the ' 93 ' in the Vin# and the body code is 62D. I also found the build sheet under the carpeting that confirms that the car is an original Grabber. I don't know how to decode a lot of the build sheet, but the box for the Accent Stripes is marked with a letter "A". Would that indicate that the car came with the Grabber stripe kit? There was also another smaller paper under the bucket seat track that lots like a mini build sheet or check list. It's in pretty poor condition and it's not all there. It's something I've never seen before. I will be giving these papers to the owner when he stops by later this week. I'll ask him if he wants to have the Grabber name put on his fenders or if he wants to leave them off.
Here's some pics of the car just after we towed it here and one of the small paper that was found in the seat springs. Has anyone ever seen one of these before or know what it is?
Since i got my '73, ive looked at every '73 grabber picture i can find on the internet and have always seen the decal on the fender. kinda weird that your's is gone.... and i found the same type of paper in my car when i took the interior out but it was taped to the inside of the driver's quarter panel right behind the inside interior panel, but mine wasnt as complete as your's.
I have never seen a build sheet "supplement" (That is what I would call it) like that before. I bet that at least the bottom portion of that car (the black part) has been repainted.
I got the car sanded down and it turns out Craig and Chuck ( AKA MaverickConnection ) were right. At some time in it's life someone repainted the black on the bottom of the car. Who ever did the job went to a lot of trouble to make it look like the black was never repainted, but once the stripes were removed it was easy to see the double black line that was hidden under the old stripes. The thing is I can find no reason for the bottom of the car needing to be repainted. There was no old bodywork done anywhere on the car where the black paint is. The only thing I can think of is maybe the lower part of the car got all stone chipped up or scratched and the original owner had the black repainted and left the Grabber name off the fenders. Oh, it's such fun being a bodywork detective. On a totally unrelated note, did 73' Mavericks have catalitic converters? This paticular Maverick has a cat converter and an EGR valve, but no smog equipment. When this car is done it will have a dual exhaust installed, so the converter will be history anyway. I'm just curious about why this car even has a converter when it never had any smog equipment in the first place.
It should not have one. Not sure if it is a California car and they were different??? Does it have the hump in the floor for the cat?
I've owned a '73 that had a factory cat. converter... i dont think all 73's had them (well i know all didnt because my 4dr doesnt have one) but i dont think they're very common on them. but i think all 73's had an EGR valve..... could be wrong but doubt it
This is definitely not a California car. It was built in Canada and was sent down to Newark New Jersey. Now that you mention it Craig, the car does not have a hump in the floor for the converter, nor was there a heat shield for it. It appears to be factory, but to honest it's really hard to tell for sure. The converter is so rusty that it has rot holes in it. It's laying out in the scrap pile now.
