I bought this car in '98, as what I thought was a solid driver. after a deeper inspection, I found rusty panels, lots of them, hidden by bondo, paint, trunk liner, carpet etc. Luckily, parts are pretty cheap, and I dont mind getting dirty. So I installed a new trunk pan, drivers floor, passengers rear floor, and rigged up the frame to body mounts, yep, they were rusted thru too. It did have a solid mid 70's 350 in it, and the stock powerglide, so after a trip to the Pomona swaps for a Weiand manifold, and Carter AFB, I drove it like that for the next 4 years.
I was initially going to do a T56 swap, and some suspension upgrades, but things started to snowball...just a bit.