G.R. RESTORATION REVISITED January 19, 2011
The clock is ticking down ... to March 13, when I started the restoration of Gattino Rosso. I'm planning to step through the notes I took two years ago in "real time", meaning at least one 'new' posting each week.
G.R RESTORATION March 13, 2011
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
You're all familiar with how this obsession begins. I was captivated by the few E-types I saw many years ago, and a cool guy my sister's age had a Series III coupe. I didn't get the bug bad, though, until I had my first (and only!) ride in a Series I roadster, on the night of our high school senior prom. Hard to believe my classmate's dad let him drive it, but... wow. I was hooked.
Several years later, in college, I was scanning for a nice driver's car. Some of the Healeys were sketchy, the Minis were hiding some structural problems, the Jags of any quality were too much money, and although I found a 250 GTE Ferrari for $13K, I suspected I'd end up spending that much just to keep it alive. (Yeah, some years later people spent up to $80K to use them as donors for GTO replicas. Oh well. D-types were $10K way back when too.)
My roommate had a nice MG-TC he had restored and I did my best to not grind the gears when he let me drive it. Still... not quite what I was dreaming of. Then he let on, some months later, that he had another car... Stored down in L.A. at his parents' house, awaiting a valve job, was a 1966 Series 1 E-type coupe. Whoa. A 4.2, known to be more of a driver's car than the 3.8 (mainly due to the old Moss box and the seats, plus brakes and cooling, or lack of).
He was still not sure about letting it go, but being in business school and with his fiance pushing him to simplify, plus repeated entreaties by Yours Truly, he finally OK'd the sale. I just had to go down to check it out, and if it looked OK, write him a check and take it home. No problem. (Stay tuned...)
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GR RESTORATION March 21,2011
So in my experience, don't assume that the purchase / pick-up / delivery of your dream car will be a romp. Let your passions help you persevere…The E-type was waiting for me --well, us, since my fiance Carol agreed to join me (bless her). It took a while to rent a trailer, finally from Unlucky U, for the next weekend. Rented a truck from another, actually competent company. Drove it to UU and the guy shook his head. "Can't have the boss see me hooking our trailer to a competitor's truck." Gimme a break. His solution (!?) was to tape over the name on the door.
Then at the last minute, he wouldn't rent the trailer. "The previous guy lost a ramp on the freeway and it caused a big problem". (Not my problem, pal.) I finally convinced him to rent it. They bolted the huge orange steel ramps in place, and off we went with tape flapping on the doors. It was a long drive down I-5 to Long Beach, with lots of creaks and rattles and clunks to spice up the day and nothing but static on the radio. We got to Mark's parents' place and I took a walk around to make sure everything was fine. It wasn't. One ramp was missing.
I figure there's a 2001-style orange monolith stuck firmly upright in someone's front yard south of Gilroy, the subject of considerable local speculation as to which planet it came from or what religion it represents.
The car looked pretty good, pretty much intact along with a few coffee cans of parts, cam covers in a box, manifold roped in place, a grease-stained copy of Haynes and the original Jag manual. I thought it was cool but Carol was pretty quiet -- wondering why I had gone to so much trouble for a non-running very pale Primrose British coupe that smelled odd. I wrote Mark the check, for a rather small amount (and which pays dividends to this day in low DMV fees) and then confronted the Big Issue: how do we get it on the one-legged trailer?
I did my best diagonal back-up job, putting the wheels in the ditch and the end of the trailer near the hump of the driveway. Mark grabbed his group of high school kids (going on a hike later) and found an old wooden beam in the back of the garage. Along with several other bits and implements, we all wrestled the old girl up the ramp -- gingerly -- and got her centered and eventually strapped down. We had some lunch and joked nervously about the drive and headed north into a major headwind. It was all pretty surreal and I'm glad I didn't know at the time it wouldn't actually move under its own power for 24 years...
