Took the GT on a road trip today, the shot is from the upper deck of the Port Townsend ferry. Car did well, some berry-flavored, baked on bird droppings aside. Be nice to get the overdrive in, though!

Update: I went to the regular first Saturday South Whidbey Sports Car meeting, on time for once…and everyone else was late, no joke (see photo). I had to run before anyone else arrived as I was headed to the vintage races at Pacific Raceways. This has taught me a valuable lesson about timeliness: don’t bother!

This really is a pretty decent driving car, way wacky-reading speedometer aside. Taking it out for its first post-paint-job drive today. (I’m calling the concept of red wheels on an MGB a “Kevin” for reasons I’ll keep close to my vest.)

Jim did the final buff and I spent some time today polishing the car with a foam pad. I still have some hand polishing to do…it’s not looking too bad. Not perfect but pretty darn decent.

I decided to live life on the wild side and painted the wheels a maroon color that matches the seats rather than the staid silver the majority thinks they should be. (The photo is pretty horrible–please excuse–but I’m shoehorned into a corner of the shop while Jim is working on his Italia 2 project.) Got the drums painted as well. The wheel color “in real life” is closer to the color you see on the front wheel in this shot.

The wheel wells are now painted with truck bed liner and I even cleaned the tires…the car looks much crisper. I still need to paint the wheels themselves, and the brake drums, too.

I purchased some more of the carpet which was in my kit in order to finish the areas behind the rear wheels, which were not included in the set. (Evidence of my work in the photo above.) I need to create a pressboard panel (which I’ll carpet and hold in place with a snap) to cover the tail lights and their wiring.

You can see one of the maddening things about this carpet kit in this photo–nearly every piece of carpet was slightly too small. I ended up hiding any slightly short ends under seats and other out-of-the-way places, but the load floor is pretty difficult to fudge.

The punch list is getting shorter. Still to do: Interior mirror, final paint buff, wheels painted, the aforementioned interior tail light trims, and of course the tranny swap/engine detail which will now take place later this summer.

I did a tremendous amount of work on the GT today…well, OK, I got the license plate lamps working. I took a few minutes afterwards to drive the old girl outside and take some photos, including this one with the BSA. (More after the jump.)

The punch list on the GT, ignoring the installation of the stalled-waiting-for-parts overdrive transmission:

• Final buff and detail, including a bit of wet sanding beforehand
• Trim the area behind the rear wheels inside the car
• Undercoat the wheel wells
• Repaint the wheels (silver, for this set, anyway)
• Cast in resin and finish a replacement interior mirror
• Buy and install the half of the missing seatbelt

So we’re getting fairly close!

Got the front seats in today–they look pretty good…better than they did in the front hall, anyway. They aren’t quite as red as shown in this shot, the photo below is more akin to their true color.

Never did find the seat belt half. Drat.

Progress! I have most of the interior installed, but I need to buy some additional carpet; the cheapie kit I used didn’t come with any for the areas behind the rear wheel arches, next to the load floor. Overall, I’m reasonably pleased with how the interior is turning out, but concours champions can rest easy, this car won’t be competition. By the time I get done driving it a few miles it will look well lived-in anyway.

I had an upholstery shop install the seat covers–mainly because this Moss Motors rear bench cover was incredibly ill-fitting. The shop did a nice job making it fit (which they should have at the price, sigh).

Somehow, I have lost half of one seat belt from the new set I bought. Par for the course!

Just for the red wheel haters, I’ll include a shot of the other side of the car, still sitting on the test wheels. (I do think these wheels are too bright, but I’ll definitely be cooking up some alternative set of wheels to go with the standard silver ones.)

I grabbed a couple of wheels from storage (complete with dry-rotted tires) and gave them a quick shot of rattle-can paint to see what a set of red wheels would look like, “for reals.”

Update: Added a couple of photoshop mock-ups to end of post.

It’s so unusual for me to see an MGB with wires that aren’t silver I’m suffering from cognitive dissonance–but I think I like the effect. They add a spark to the outside and once the interior is in (and I have all of it now, I hope to work on it this weekend) and you see a similar red through the windows it will tie together nicely.

Here’s the other side. Be interested in hearing what you think, though I suspect opinion will be split.

Update: Here’s the car with body-color wheels and with darker red, which is more what I was originally thinking about (but couldn’t find in a rattle can at the local hardware store).

I was able to get some clutch action today (I have a new slave cylinder set aside for the transmission swap) and, sitting on the floor to drive it out of the shop, saw the GT for the first time under natural light since it was painted. I think it looks pretty nice, though it needs to be buffed again and then polished. Please excuse the badly parked wipers with frankly awful wiper blade assemblies (being replaced)–and don’t examine any of the trim too closely!

The interior obviously needs a few things. And my fan switch dissolved shortly after refinishing the dash, so I have some touch-up there.

In any case, this car will be the very definition of “nice driver” but it’s definitely not a concours winner!