I'm pleased to have you join me as I embark on the restoration of yet another very rare Ford Concept car. Although this restoration isn't much unlike the others you've seen on my website in regards to the process, you'll see many unique features on the XM-800 that you haven't seen on the others. I'll start right at the beginning of my involvement with the 800 which is my purchase of the car on ebay. The XM-800 first appeared on ebay in April '08. A friend of mine alerted me to the listing and not knowing a lot about the car I quickly did research on Yahoo and Google and absorbed all the information I could find. Satisfied that it was the real thing, I placed my bid and immediately became the 'high bidder' but without meeting the reserve. In fact, only $125,000.00 of my much larger bid registered as none of the other 4 or 5 bidders went any higher than that. I'm sure the condition of the car kept the other bidders at bay. You may recall the same happened with the Italien. As I said before, I've learned to look past the cracked and peeling paint, the dirt and grease and the ragged interiors. I look at a car for it's structural integrity, authenticity and its completeness. The XM-800, as did the Italien, passed all of these tests. Besides that, this beauty is all made from fiberglass and the beautiful part of that is NO RUST! Anyway, after the auction ran it's course without meeting the sellers reserve I contacted the seller to try and negotiate a purchase. During my earlier research I discovered with no real surprise that the XM-800 was owned by none other than the "King of Concept Cars" Mr. Joe Bortz from the Chicago area. I spoke with Mr. Bortz a couple times in the past inquiring if he'd be interested in purchasing the Italien and he is a kind man who did well in the night club and real estate development businesses in the Chicago area. With his wealth he fulfilled his dream of seeking out and owning many very rare American made concept cars. It was easy to find Joe's phone number and surprisingly he answers his own phone. So many people nowadays rely on 'voice mail' to take messages and then you never hear from them when you leave a message. Not Joe, he's willing to talk to anyone which is quite refreshing in this day and age of synthesized voices. Well, when asked what it would take to buy the XM-800 Joe simply responded "What's the most you'd pay for it?" HUH?? I've never had a negotiation go quite like that! I had to think about that one so we parted with the understanding I'd call back in a day or two. I talked to a couple friends who were also dumbfounded with Joes response. I called Joe back a bit later and asked him if a rather large amount of money would buy the car. He told me of the rarity of Ford Concept cars and the uniqueness of the 800 being one of a kind and fiberglass, etc. I told him I didn't think it was worth as much as some of the sporty two seater concept cars we've seen lately and that it was kinda ugly being a larger family type sedan. We parted without coming to terms. Imagine my surprise when one day in September I was surfing ebay and typed "concept cars" into the search window and low and behold the XM-800 popped up! At first I thought it was the expired listing from April but then realized this was a fresh listing, and better yet, it had a which was less than I previously offered for the car!! This was a no brainer, CLICK, I bought a car! The next day I contacted Joe and made arrangements to wire the funds to his bank and to pick up the XM-800. While talking, Joe recalled that he was surprised I bought the car since I thought it was so "ugly". I had to clarify that even though I thought it is ugly compared to some of the sleeker looking automobile designs to come out of Detroit, I also thought it was beautiful because of it's uniqueness and history. Then I drove to Chicago on September 19th to pick up the car. It was a 700 mile one way trip so I left home at 3 AM that day. A good friend rode along. We arrived at Joes place around noon and it took about an hour and a half to get the car loaded and tied down in the trailer.

The XM-800 was parked in a 3 car garage with the 1950 Bob Hope Saturn and the 1953 Cadillac LaSalle Roadster. (The Lasalle didn't look like this, as it is unrestored and in somewhat the condition of the XM-800) The Saturn had to be moved to get the 800 out so Joe asked me to drive it out of the garage as he had just had bypass surgery about a week earlier and wasn't up to climbing into that car. Here is my first viewing of the XM-800 in the corner of Joes Garage. Here's a picture of me and Joe with the XM-800 in the background After loading the XM-800 into my trailer it was time to hit the road back home. It was a grueling 1400 mile day that got me back home at 11:30 PM, nearly 21 hours after leaving, but I was too excited to think about how tiring the drive was. I couldn't wait to get to bed so I could get up in the morning and unload the 800 from the trailer. As you can imagine, it was a short night. Awakening long before sunrise I was anxious to see what the XM-800 looked like on my driveway. Ahhhh, there it is, its beatiful! Wanna go cruisin? You can see some similarities in my recently restored Supercharged '57 Tbird                                                                             Page 5