On a private island in Newport Beach a young Donn Dabney is playing basketball. He puts it up for a free throw and ping! The basketball bounces off the rim and in to his neighbor’s garage. Young Donn goes to dislodge the basketball from underneath his neighbor’s 330GT and catches his eye on the sharp edge of the Ferrari tailpipe, nearly gouging out his eye.
“That was the day I was infected with my love for classic cars,” Dabney jokingly explains. Donn Dabney is the driving force behind Left Coast Classics, buyer/seller of classic and special-interest cars. “Growing up, I was surrounded by great cars. My mother’s favorite car was Aston Martin. Unfortunately my father could only afford to buy her a worn out Jaguar so our family gathered together to fix it up and that was my first project.”
Donn has since traded in his tools to deal classic cars, but takes the time every so often to work on passion projects. His current project, a beautiful ’61 Ford Econoline. “I can only stand to loose so much money a year on cars, but I had to build this van, and I had to make it comfortable,” Dabney explains. “I had to build the van I had when I was 16.”
In the late 70′s Donn scraped up $600 to buy his first Car, a 1963 Ford Econoline Panel Van. He cruised Newport Beach until he came of age and moved to San Francisco. A day after moving into his San Francisco apartment the U-joint gave out. Unable to afford the $90 repair, Donn sold the van for what he originally paid, a whopping $600.
“I’ve got about $35,000 in the van and it’s worth about $18,000.”
Some 27 years later Donn was unable to find the van he originally sold to a guy named Bob Herman of San Francisco. So he bought a replacement in March of 2007 and immediately got busy building this van the way he always had wished he could have had the old van.
“I’ve got about $35,000 in the van and it’s worth about $18,000.” Donn hopes to have it on the road this summer, but it’s likely it won’t be completely finished. The interior is taking some time due to the modern flair. “Power windows, leather seats and a flat-screen. I understand that I will never see the money that I spend on this van again. But it’s not about the money, it’s about a piece of the past and a memory of simpler times.”
Follow Donns progress here, as he puts the finishing touches on Econoline.