Yes he did Ethan - He'd just posted pics within the past couple weeks. How sad. He messaged me literally last Tuesday while I was @ work "Now quit working so much and build your cars! Lol." I've had some as of yet undiagnosed health issue that's even kept me from working as much as I used to, but this should be a wake-up call to all of us (well, many anyway - I don't know how some of you guys do it) to get these cars done! Spend an hour every day in the shop and get something, anything done - I'm really going to adhere this as best I can. It could happen to any of us tomorrow. Allen is watching us and I don't know the circumstances and I hope he went quickly and painlessly, but I wouldn't be surprised if that newly finished chassis didn't cross his mind for a split second among all the other thoughts. I hope someone finishes that car in his memory. If anyone has a link to the GoFundMe page, please post it. Otherwise, I'll see if I can find it. Sounds like they were not financially ready for this and I hope we can all help his family out and show what an awesome community we have here.
I'm sure - I certainly didn't mean to imply that you were through it. It'll take years to recover, and probably never fully. I can't imagine...
Hello all. New here to this forum. I joined to comment on this thread. Allen and I grew up together and have been friends since elementary school. We have worked on a lot of cars together over the years and shared a love of both GTOs and Mustangs. He was really stoked about getting the '71 GS rolling. He had the trans with him when he picked me up at the PHX airport in Jan so we could spend a couple of days at Barrett-Jackson together. Allen convinced me to 'rebuild' my '70 Cougar's 351C back in 1979 even though the car (which my mom got new) only had 78k miles. Six months later we were still struggling to get it running again and my folks were pissed! We laughed about that every time we got together since. In 1981 he helped me locate and buy a 1966 GTO convertible which I restored and then foolishly sold in 1984. At the time of his passing he was still helping me search for that car since we vowed if it ever came to market again one of us had to buy it. I'll really miss Allen and I'm so sorry his GTO and GS projects will likely go unfinished now, at least in the way he wanted to do them.
Thank you for posting that link Michael. Spoke to Allen many times at length on the phone about both our projects and he was so good to me on the parts to get my engine closer to running and was just a very kind man. R.I.P. Allen
I'm glad to hear that there's at least someone that was close to Allen to (not to be presumptuous) help the family sort out all the cars/parts. Many of our families haven't the 1st clue what we have in our shops and the reality of the situation is it needs to be dealt with sooner or later. As hard as it may be for you being his friend, I can only imagine it would be even harder for his family. As I said above, I hope someone finishes his GS in his memory. Lots of help of here if you need it identifying parts and when the time comes, a classified section where the car and/or parts can be listed for sale or links to eBay auctions if you go that route. Thanks for posting. Most of us had never met Allen, but felt like we knew him. He was a fixture on here. It was really nice to hear from someone close to him.
I was close friends with Allen for over 30 years. He would give you the shirt off his back if needed. He helped me with my Tomahawk Block and kept me motivated on my Buick projects. Last week he spent a day and a half just hanging out at my shop talking about his '71 GS and his GTO. I am so thankful now that I took the time to visit with him. He will be deeply missed by all that knew him. Eric
I hope his family will reach out to you for help when the time comes. I imagine they will need it. I'll be at his service Saturday in Wichita and will offer to help as well.
