I think most of you know the story by now, but let's have a quick re-cap anyway. Firstly it's probably worth taking a moment to explain how somebody who has been genuinely obsessed with old cars his whole life has waited this long to actually acquire one. I'm not sure there is a satisfactory answer really; When I hit 17 I was still avidly reading C&SC, but that was about the level of my involvement in the 'old car world'. I took driving lessons but I was only half-interested, most of my time, money and energy was spent in on Girls, Music and Getting Stoned, which were gradually pushing cars to the bottom of my interests (a familiar situation; I'd had a brief dalliance with dinosaurs when I was 6). This was the situation for a few years, until I discovered there was a pretty massive online community of people into 'my' sort of cars. First I found Retro Rides, then Autoshite and OJC and my passion for rubbish old motors was all of a sudden rekindled. I gave up on women & weed and tried to limit my vinyl addiction whilst gradually becoming a bit more involved in car stuff. I've still somehow managed to avoid actually getting a license and I hadn't really considered buying a car before I was a fully legal driver as it seemed a bit pointless.
That very tiny sensible streak was abandoned as soon as I saw a shitty Valencia Blue Bond Equipe pop up on Ebay a few weeks ago. I've long been fascinated with these funny plastic cars from Preston - I bought a copy of Autocar from a car boot sale when I was 9 purely because it contained a GT4s road test - but I've only actually seen a couple in person before now. There was actually a brief point about 10 years ago when there were TWO in Brighton at the same time - one a tatty daily driver and one laid up under a tarp in a nearby garden.
Even when I saw this one, I didn't consider the possibility that I might buy it, merely knowing it existed was enough to make me happy, and anyway it was much too expensive not to mention on the other side of the country. A day after I first clocked the ad, the car was still very much on my mind; It looked so helpless in the grainy photos, sitting in the corner of a muddy yard with a big hole in the roof and some very questionable paintwork. Clearly it needed somebody to take care of it. Somebody who could appreciate it for what it is, and look past its many quirks. Somebody to..... Oh shit! That's me isn't it?
A quick message to friendly local Autoshiter 'Betaboy 2.0' who agreed to go and have a look at it for me armed with a list of things to look out for. The prognosis came back more or less as I expected, but I had worked myself up so much this point that I already knew I'd be buying it... I'm not sure that's what they advise in the typical cla**ic buyers guides. Before I could really commit to buying it though I had to arrange some transport, which was sorted entirely by our very own I.K. Brunel who went way above and beyond the call of duty to help me out. Cheers mate. You are what is known as an 'enabler'
With a rough idea of how much it was gonna cost to get home, I made the seller an offer which he accepted and OPERATION GET POINTY was underway!
OBVIOUSLY the delivery didn't actually happen as the twatburger who'd agreed to get it chickened out at the last minute, sending me an email at midnight the night before it was supposed to arrive. Much annoyance but again IKB stepped up and got another quote for me (from these guys who I would thoroughly reccomend) and the date for delivery was once again set...
... So this morning, at 7am I was already up, washed, dressed and full of coffee, staring out the window waiting for the truck to deliver my new toy. I'm sure you all know how it feels when you're just about to buy a car, the mixture of excitement and nerves creating a sort of internal tumble dryer effect in your stomach, and I'm sure you'll understand how much this feeling was amplified by this being my FIRST car, finally, aged 26 (& ½) a car that was MINE. And it was a silly old plastic car nobody has ever heard of with some rather questionable styling. YES!
... more anon (please excuse that rambling intro. I'm too tired/excited to proof read my drivel)