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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Category: Past Indiscretions (Page 16 of 25)
Valuable, if hard, lessons learned
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.
Just have the front badge and the opening part of the hood to bolt back on, and of course getting the linkage for the governor sorted out.
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In a bout of sensibility I have sold my Rovers back to the guy who sold them to me. My wife is extremely concerned.
It is wise to become familiar with the controls and dash of your F250 before taking to the road. You may wish to refer to the illustration while reading the reference below.
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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 guess I should get around to updating this blog more frequently at all. Goldie is still going great, a wonderful old truck. I put a new bumper on last summer, which improved the looks from the back about 100%. I’m now in the process of putting in a new brake controller and a receiver-style hitch to haul around the car trailer, which I’ll undoubtedly be using to ferry more of my precious junk hither and yon.
Truck has passed 100,000 miles now. That’s only 2,500 miles a year–mind you, that’s also 10,000 gallons of gas, so that might be part of the reason for the low mileage.
Since most of what I have left to do on the Ferguson is rattle-can painting, and it really should be dry and above 50 degrees to do so–and since we live in a hole with only an open carport on the north side of the building…well, it will be April before I can finish. But you can see above I got a lot done, and the machine looks 100% better. It doesn’t stand up to “concours” level inspection, but then again it will be bouncing around the field acquiring scratches and such. Hopefully I can avoid major incidents and keep up with a touch-up brush until I get tired of that.
All that remains, really, is to assemble and paint the hood.