Uh oh - anybody wanna buy a movie star TR-3? Scott
Fisher's story about The Green Car's unchanged personality
of his MG has me scared now. Ya' see, I've got this TR-3
that's been a part of my life for a long time now. I
bought it as an unloved car that had been sitting for
long enough to freeze the engine. It had far more rust than
I'd bargained on (I was naive), but that got fixed over
time - but the car kept getting hit. People would run
into it when it was parked and I'd fix it (and the rust
in that area). And it would happen again, and I'd fix it
again. That first year and a half that I owned it, the
Diner was hit five times. I took it off the road and did
a cosmetic restoration, and it looked good - good enough
that MGM rented it from me for use in Barry Levinson's
movie "DINER". Then I moved to Boulder, CO and had a 4WD
truck back into it while parked; gave the front apron a
nice crease between the shield and the TRIUMPH letters.
But that got fixed, too. Finally, the engine really
needed that rebuild and shipwright's disease set in
big time; so, while the engine was out and I was building
a hot rod motor, the long struggle to do another, better
restoration began. I'll save that story for another time,
although a few of you have heard much of it (let's leave
it that I've now got a $3500 mixed breed dog ;-0
So, after Chris K. had driven the Diner to Savannah two
years ago (with some excitement involved), I managed to
hit a signpost and tear up the right front fender and
suspension. That's been fixed, and the car is almost ready
to go back on the road again. But...after owning the car
for 16 years and having had it hit 8 times - I'm afraid
that Scott might be right - does this car have bad karma
or what? I keep hoping that if I get it looking right,
it'll become proud of itself, get some self esteem, and
stop throwing itself in the way of hard objects!
Whaddya think - will this car ever reform itself and
take some pride in itself?
John -boy I wish my science writing was flowing this well - Lye
lye@elegans.wustl.edu
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