I picked this car up on Saturday with the help of my friend Jeff. Seems like a good machine so far, the usual “oh my god, what have I done” moment hasn’t yet arrived (you’ll know when it does). I even got 28 MPG on the trip back!

So far the punch list of things to take care of includes:

• The right corner of the front bumper has a good scrape in the paint, plus a broken lens on the fog light. Perhaps a coyote which is no longer of this vale, or a chunk-o-debris.
• The paint (the color seems to be “Nautilus,” which amuses me for whatever reason) is in decent condition, but could use a polish to remove a few “sure, put the grocery bags here” scratches.

• The driver’s door trim is loose as all of the snap fasteners are broken. This is common when you take interior trim off–the fasteners rarely come off in one piece. Be interesting to know why someone poked around in there…
• The clock doesn’t work, which is a common problem on these cars–the ribbon cable loses contact with the LCD. Cure is a piece of cardboard crammed behind the cable. Unfortunately, it means dismantling a few things to get the cardboard into place…

Anyway, it seems like a decent car. Drives very nicely. Considering the beat-up MGB GTs I was looking at for this price, I couldn’t be more pleased.