>Well guys, I turned down the good Spit deal offered me. In a way,
>I long for the warm memory returns, but I know the cold reality.
>I decided to go through buyers remorse without ever buying the car.
>What a concept. No trailer dolly, no trashing the driveway and
>explaining how short it will really be when I know it will be there
>forever. No admittimg defeat as the broken project is eventually
>hauled off. I still wrestle in deciding if a few days of spring
afternoon
>top down with my daughter is worth all the frustration. This way, I
>have no garage guilts of too much to do and too little time. Where has
>all the endless time of the teenager gone to? I long for those days
>dedicated to grease, rust, total control of my time. We surrender
>our time in infinitesimal increments when we are too young to
>realize what we are giving up. As we approach 40, we rail against
>the web we have allowed our life to become. See all the insight made
>possible by past British car ownership! Mark
<<<>>>
What's today's date? March 11?
A week from today marks the one year anniversary of the arrival
of my Spit. It was a $400 car that did arrive on a trailer,
deposited on my driveway looking very sad indeed.
Broken windscreen, dinged up bonnet, trashed interior, rusty
wheels, rusty floorpans, broken seatback, dash by Tommy the
Termite, paint by Earl Schieb and wiring by Radio Shack...
what a bargain! :-)
I remember standing there, asking myself: "Why did you buy this thing?!"
"You have NO GARAGE; you can't even hide it from the NEIGHBORS!"
My first week with the car was pretty depressing. Every used car
buyer goes through this I suppose, but it seemed everywhere I looked
revealed more hidden problems.
My original first year goal was just to get the thing safe and
_presentable_ for short trip, summer cruising. I figured if I got
caught up in anything even remotely like a genuine restoration,
that the project would languish and my motivation would be gone.
I remember in a former life, chemically stripping the paint from my
'67 corvette in JULY. I remember the feeling I had working in my
parent's garage, looking out at all that beautiful sunshine going
to waste saying: "never again".
I bought a Hayne's book on the Spit. It turned out to be much
better than I thought it would be. When I got stuck on something,
I posted questions to this list. I *always* got helpfull replies.
The repairs on the car started going well. I took quite a bit of
pressure off myself by lowering my standards on the cosmetic work. :-)
I'm the type of guy who could spend months trying to get the
ripples out of a single door panel, so this was an important decision
for expediency. After all, you can always do the cosmetics over
in the off season, and if the car's running and registered it's
not an "unfinished project", right?
The long hot summer drags on....electrics sorted out, carb rebuild,
wheels sandblasted and painted, dashboard re-veneered, interior
patched and spray dyed, <hey....black covers everything well>
new seatbelts, slightly bug infested new paint on bonnet.
I know this sounds bad, but it was actually quite presentable
when completed. Real dollar cost was low and I have *years*
ahead to set things right, one by one.
In mid september it was done. I drove the car for about two months
before the great blizzard of '96. It was a BLAST! I found it
more fun to drive than my vette.....'course at 42 maybe I'm
getting senile.
Shall I describe the expression on my 7 year old daughter's face
when I picked her up from the soccer game? :-)
Buy the car. We'll help you fix it.
Regards...Tom O'Malley
'74 Spit..."project car" <NOT>
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