I put the GT on the car trailer and drove it to Alternative Blasters (in Marysville) to have the cruddy paint job removed. I left the glass in, as it makes life easier for blaster, but will remove it when the car is back. Then it’s on to rust repair (lower front fenders) and new paint in the original grey (which you can see a glimpse of where the tail lights were).

The Ford put in yeoman service (yet again) hauling around my other machines.

I sold the Vanden Plas earlier today for just a smidgen more than I paid for it. I like the car and felt it was good value, but I’m going to stick to genuinely old stuff for the time being.

I’ve been doing some long-delayed work on the ‘63 MGB–I’ll post a roundup of what’s been happening under that bonnet in the next day or so.

Generally speaking, I’m very pleased with the Vanden Plas. I’ve put a few thousand miles on it and it has returned a rock steady 23 MPG — overall. On the highway it gets very close to 30 MPG.
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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!
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Consider: This car was $69,000 new in 1996 (in today’s dollars, that’s about $90,000). I’m paying almost exactly 5% of the 1996 price for this car, in 2008. That depreciation is absolutely mind-boggling; in constant dollars, the car essentially lost 97% of its value in a bit more than a decade. Much as I love Jaguars, I cannot imagine buying one new unless I had chests of gold doubloons.

This Vanden Plas is not absolutely perfect, but it is in very nice condition, with 84,000 miles. I think it’s “Kingfisher Blue,” which is a darkish blue-green, depending on the light. The inside has all the usual excess, including lambswool over-rugs and picnic tables for those carefree afternoons picnicking in wine country gorging on gut bombs at the drive-in. It’s also the long-wheelbase version, which means the rear doors are about ten feet long.

In a bout of sensibility I have sold my Rovers back to the guy who sold them to me. My wife is extremely concerned.

There are a couple of machines in the “Past Indiscretions” column which (until now) have had no words spilled about them–mainly because they weren’t all that remarkable.
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This is the parts car which came with the red Rover. It looks fairly decent from the outside until you begin poking at it, and then you realize that it is rusted beyond repair. Too bad, I kind of like this color more than the red.

I think I will swap the wheels onto the red car, though, I think the chrome Rostyles are pretty smart on these cars. It also has an original radio and roof-mounted aerial, which is neat.

I finally got rid of the rusty body shell from the “parts MGB” today. I had to surrender the title to do so, which I guess is proper–but also flushes my idea of finding a decent shell to put the saved mechanicals in. (Not that I’m ever going to get around to that, realistically.) So, with that, I’m going to remove 1964 MGB #2 from my current list–a victory for common sense, alas.

Shown in the photo is the trailer I part-own with my neighbor. It’s a neat design, all aluminum, so it’s pretty easy to haul. Need to do something with the sleazy wheels that are on it, though.

I last had one of these 20 years ago, when I was 20. Too bad this new car doesn’t make me feel 20, but what can you do?

This is a fairly nice, straight car, a TC with a manual gearbox rather than the single-carb slush box I had back then. It’s a reasonably fun car to drive, and is in decent shape, if you don’t mind sun-crusted seats and original paint faded from the California sun. And a few dings. And a few minor mechanical issues. And…

In any case, this is now my “daily” driver for winter use and abuse, sharing duties with the Ford–the 10 MPG of the truck was wearing a bit thin.