7/24/07

My carbon fiber grille for Matilda arrived yesterday. I took a few minutes and installed it. It looks pretty good. I may paint it to match the body color, but then again, I may not. We’ll see. John gave me grief about buying a carbon fiber part for a car when he found out about it. At least a grille doesn’t look stupid when it is a different color than the body. A black grille looks like, oh I don’t know, a black grille. A black hood looks like you couldn’t afford to have your Taiwanese knock-off part painted before installing it. Besides, I bought it because it was about $100.00 cheaper than the fiberglass grille I had seen a few weeks before. Of course the guy who sold the CF grille also has fiberglass ones listed now for a few bucks less, but he didn’t when I bought this. I'm thinking about adapting a 1200 front emblem to it. I'm also thinking about a 1200 rear for the, duh, rear of the car. I'd probably replace the “Versa” with a Datsun script while I'm at it. We’ll see. Yeah, I'm abandoning the “badge it as a Renault Clio” idea. Although, now that I have a grille with a nice flat surface, I could resurrect that plan. I need to get John's input on that. I do have the badges to do it. Hmm, interesting. The interior would still say Nissan everywhere, well in the center of the steering wheel at least, but I could make the exterior into a Renault. Well, the auction ended and Mr. Wiggly did not sell. The dude who came to look at it is balking too. He’s blaming it on the wife, which could be true, but he’s balking nonetheless. I guess I need to buy a “For Sale” sign and park it in a visible spot. I don’t know how that “Craig’s List” thing works, perhaps I could get a hit there. John would have to do all the work, again. What I do not need to do is just throw up my hands and say, “Oh well, I guess I'll keep Mr. Wiggly,” which is what we all know is going to happen. I'm looking at a picture of George on my work computer’s screen saver. I really need to get back to work on that project. I think it has been at least a month since I've done anything to it. Have I told the story of the Anglia yet? Well if I have, bear with me. John called some time back asking if I wanted any more “vintage British cars.” I asked what he had. This sounds familiar. Anyhoo, he told me that one of his customers has a 1958 Ford Anglia that we could probably get cheap. I assumed it was somewhere in Not Texas and made a somewhat positive noise about wanting it. Well, it is at Steve/John’s muffler shop. John and I discussed a few different ideas for powering the thing when the Locost frame deal came about. The Locost came with a Zetec engine. A Zetec powered Anglia would be so friggin’ cool! On a side note, I think the T-5 transmission I have will bolt up to the Zetec with a Ford 2.3 liter bell housing. I could be wrong though. We’ll see. Anyhoo, I asked Steve/John about the Anglia but didn’t really get a response other than, “Itisverynicecar.Norustatallunderneath.Thefloorsareverysolid,” in that rapid-fire South African accent of his. I was hoping he’d throw out a price but I don’t think he did. I'll need to make space for it before I can consider it though. Probably once George is up and going I could park him on the back patio of the house and free up some space at the shop. What I need to do is get the junkyard 1200, the blue 200SX, and the 620 truck frame onto the trailer and off to the crusher before they park an RV in that spot next to the shop. Then I can drag three more projects home. Oh wait, I have the trailer to park, so I guess it would be two projects I can drag home. By “home” I mean the shop, of course. Then there’s Gregg's Mustang and Roger’s BMW, both of which need to go away. Gregg should see what House of Hot Rods would give him for that Mustang. I know it isn’t going to be worth what he thinks it is worth, but something’s better than it rusting back to the earth next to my shop. Of course I'm one to talk about having too many project rusting away. Oh well, what are you going to do? Ok, so I just passed the page break. I guess I'll consider this rant complete. Have a day.