sfisher would write this much better than I, so I won't even
try to be that eloquent -- I'll just share an insight I had
this evening.
Sarah's home, and it's wonderful to drive around with the
top down, in the funny seating position that her non-original
seats force on me, listening and trying to identify the rattles
that are still left. And it's fun to start installing the
pieces I"ve been stockpiling for the past two years (hey, I'm
a convert to ITG filters and K&N stub stacks for the 1.75 carbs --
what a difference!).
But she's subtly different. Hell, it's not subtle at all -- she's
Triumph Racing Green, and quite shiny at that, where she was once
tomato soup red over Bondo and rust. A blind man could see the
difference.
I was showing her this evening to a friend who hadn't seen the
new paint, but had often seen the old, who said "it's very nice,
but to me Sarah will always be Campbell's soup red".
That caught me short, because I sort of agreed. And I realized
that I need to be very careful here.
I have a garage full of interior bits for Sarah -- new panels, new
carpet, new dash pads. I've been looking for the right seats,
and planning to get the dash reveneered ... you get the idea. I was
going to "fix" all the things that were wrong, places where she'd
been neglected by time and previous owners.
But now I'm worried that I'm going to destroy the car I love and
create one of those cars that I scoff at during VTR concours
gatherings. I'm already parking at the far end of the lot
and worrying about dings.
So, how do I keep the car I love? I know I'll never find all the
rattles, and I'll probably never get the tach light to work quite
right, but how will I be able to look at this car and make the
connection to the car I fell in love with almost three years ago?
I think I know a start -- the dash isn't going to get refinished. Cleaned,
perhaps, but not made new. This is, after all, a work-in-progress,
a daily driver, a faithful companion and close friend.
Not a thing to be put in a box and worried about.
This is a really tough thing to balance. Anybody been here and
have bits of wisdom or words of advice?
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