I think the RAF camouflage is a great idea! And don't forget the rondels on
the doors! (I got a great little book on Spitfire airplanes at the Palm
Springs air museum-great pictures of all different schemes and ensignias and
rondels)-I would love to have a round tail- and do it RAF. Go for it-and
send me a picture plese! :-)
Laura G. and Nigel
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Welch <mikew@turbopower.com>
To: Spitfires (E-mail) <Spitfires@Autox.Team.Net>
Date: Thursday, December 31, 1998 9:49 AM
Subject: Spitfire Story
>With all of the 'how I got my Spitfire' stories, I'm looking at my
>experiences in a new light. This is a bit long, but I already snipped out
a
>bunch of stuff (once I started reminiscing, I couldn't stop<g>)
> My first car was a '65 Spitfire, which I bought in '83. I went to the
POs
>house but he couldn't start it, and I didn't know anything about how to
make
>it work. I left that day, and he called me a few weeks later with a very
>reduced price. I told him that if he could drive it to my house (about 100
>miles away), I'd buy it. The next morning, he was at my door with the Spit
>at the curb. Being the naive kid that I was (only 17), I paid the guy $400
>without going to the car. As soon as he walked away, I went out to drive
it
>around and saw him drive away in a pickup with a car trailer. When I got
>the Spit, it was stone cold. The guy had towed it to a few houses away and
>coasted to my house.
> My second car was a '78 Spit, which I bought in Alabama in '88. I
>actually drove this one before buying it for $1200. Within a month, the
>differential froze while I was on leave over a holiday weekend, and I had
to
>pay a mechanic $900 for him to replace it. After that, I was transferred
to
>Virginia, loaded my duffel bags on the luggage rack, and took a long road
>trip. A couple of months after that, one of the flywheel bolts sheered
off.
>Of course, I threw away all common sense, listened to my army buddies, and
>bought a replacement engine. We removed the old engine and installed the
>new one in the parking lot of the barracks. I didn't have an engine hoist,
>so we used some rope and 4 soldiers. The engine ran at the junk yard, but
>wouldn't turn over in the car, so it sat for a few months until I was
>transferred out again. I left the car at the gas station on Ft.Eustis.
>(Maybe one of you bought it at the abandoned car auction and now owns it?)
> I took a completely different approach to my current Spitfire. I was
>helping a friend tow a TR6 home and we were stopped by another guy driving
a
>TR6. He asked us all kinds of questions about the TR6 I was towing, and
the
>conversation turned to Spitfires. He told me that he has a junk yard with
>several Spitfires in various states of decay, and I went out to take a
look.
>I wanted a MkI or MkII, but all he had were old body shells and frames.
>After a few trips to his yard, I decided that I wanted a true basket case
>and that I'd rebuild it. I picked out a white '68 with a good frame and
>most of the sheet metal intact. I paid for it by doing some electrical
work
>for his shop and he delivered it a few days later. You can see pictures of
>it on my web site, but it was just a big pile of potential. To make a long
>story short, I traded more work a his shop for the drivetrain ('74 engine)
>and seats, rebuilt the engine, removed the body, stripped and repainted the
>frame, welded floor panels and seat frames, and basically pieced everything
>together. I picked up a parts car ('66) from a police auction (it was
>evidence in an arson case...the PO set the whole thing on fire), and used
>the '66 bonnet. Right now, the car is sitting in my garage awaiting a
>tranny transplant (the current tranny doesn't shift into 1st or 3rd), some
>more body work, and repainting. I am going to paint it BRG in a few years
>(have to save up to have it done professionally). In the meantime, I'm
>thinking of painting it in the RAF camouflage scheme. Right now, I've sunk
>close to $400 into the car (including parts for the trades), and a few
>hundred hours of my time, but I have my Spitfire. There's a tremendous
>amount of satisfaction that comes with driving down the street knowing that
>there aren't two pieces of metal on the car that I didn't put together
>myself.
>
>
>Mike Welch
>'68 +/- Spitfire MkIII
>'60 Jaguar MkII
>http://home.turbopower.com/~mikew
>
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