It all started because I went to an auto auction with my uncle. I saw a beat up old motorcycle in a cloud of blue smoke. It sold for $50. It had never occurred to me that vehicle ownership was actually a possibility until that moment. I had $50 in my pocket. It seemed like a no-brainer.
Picture borrowed from
Imagine what you think it will cost, double it, double it again and it will still cost more.
I spent the next month talking about motorcycles and scanning classified ads. My dad started distracting me with cars. I was 22 and easily distracted. Why get a vehicle that you couldn’t use in the winter? How can you transport your stuff across country on a bike? You’ll spend just as much money on a car. My budget started sliding upwards.
I saw an ad for a 1976 MGB. It was $2300. It was in”great condition” and it was right around the corner.
(ok it wasn’t that bad but ........ )
This is where it began.
Over 5 years I replaced the starter, the suspension, the top, the battery the exhaust, the starter, the clutch, the kingpins, the starter, the kingpins, the battery etc etc etc.
The car had this almost magical way of knowing when I was a couple of dollars ahead and saying “I’ll just take that”. There was never any logic to it. Sometimes it would go fine for months. Sometimes it would demand a thousand dollars in repairs, then a week later demand another thousand. I would plead with it “I just got you a new starter, what do you want now? Please just keep going until payday.”
I sat down and worked it out once, with the money I spent on that car over 5 years, I could have purchased a brand new 1991 Honda Civic SI, which was a hot car at the time.
Lesson #2
Letting emotion override logic can get you in to trouble.
Love is not only blind, but it can blind as well. I was looking past the lack of radio and brakes. The holes in the roof and the floor didn’t seem like such a big deal. There were bungee cords holding the front bumper on and a weird button on the dash to start it.
I didn’t see any of this stuff. What I was thinking about was how wonderful it was going to be with new paint and interior. It is sort of like the way some women will look at men they are dating; “With a little bit of elbow grease I can get this fixer upper in to shape.”
I ended up having to spend every spare dime I had on repairs. There was never very much left for refurbishing.
Lesson #3
If you moderate the speed juuuust right you can keep the inside of the car dry when it rains.
The air coming over the windshield creates a little vortex. It is the same vortex that will push long hair in to your eye. No matter how romantic the vision of hair blowing back in the wind is, it just doesn’t work that way.
Of course there are some limits
Picture borrowed from: http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/squba-convertible.jpg
Lesson #4Putting the cheapest radio you can find in a convertible is a bad idea.
I bought the whole package at a place called Krazy Krazy Warehouse Direct. This was back when it seemed like every electronic retailer was run by people with mental issues.
The radio was putting out 9 Watts of power per channel. For people who do not speak tech, the radio was about as loud as a computer fan. The music coming from it was fighting it’s was out from behind the folded top. Any music that made it past that barrier would try in vain to fight against the wind noise.
On top of all this, I was almost arrested installing the radio. That is a story for another day.
Lesson #5
When the fates tell you it is time to get out, get out.
I got to the point where I either had to put a lot more money in to the car or sell it. I agonized long and hard. I had put so much in to it but there were a lot of major repairs stacking up. I had put them off as long as I could and frankly I couldn’t afford to do them. While I was thinking about everything that I would need to do just to bring it up to the level I would feel comfortable selling it the gods sent me a message.
When I saw the note under my windshield wiper my first thought was that somebody had run in to it. The note said “If you ever think about selling your car, give me a call”. The clouds parted and the angels sang. I knew I had to play this cool. It is like getting the girl’s phone number. If you are too anxious you can spoil the deal. Play it too cool and something else may catch their eye.
I waited until the evening to call and played it cool.
“So you want to sell your car?”
“Well, I am thinking about it.”
I made sure that he wasn’t going to try to use it as transportation. He had a daily driver. This was going to be a project that he and his dad were going to restore it.
I was careful not to over sell the car. I let them see exactly what it was. That didn’t matter though; I saw the look in his eye. He had the fever.
Many years later I saw the car at a gas station. I recognized it by a dent on the trunk and the cracks in the dash. The owner saw me looking over the car and we chatted about how he has just purchased it and he was going to do a full restoration. I didn’t bother telling him that I had heard that before.
Sometimes I miss it. I think about those perfect days, a twisty road, a sunny sky and a full tank of gas. It is just enough nostalgia to make me smile. It is not enough to get me to buy another one.
Any thoughts in that direction get drowned out by memories of dead batteries, skinned knuckles and the time that it stopped dead in the middle of no ware, in the middle of Montana, in the middle on the night. There were afternoons of trying to fix questionable repairs made by previous owners. There was learning how to roll start a car, fortunately it was small enough that I could do it myself.
I may get a project car someday but it won’t be my main means of transportation. I have grown to enjoy luxuries like air conditioning, a radio and a 99% chance of it starting.
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