Where to begin

So the plan for this tan receptionist transportation is emphatically simple but needlessly OCD.


Most of my effort will go into the suspension and maintenance to let it drive to and from events without issue while still being friendly enough to drive around the city and reliable enough to take cross country, so in a very uncharacteristic move, I'm going to leave the damn thing alone.


Obviously it needs to be converted to manual, it needs new dampeners, springs and bushings as well as a step up to the better designed M car suspension hard parts, but after that the next upgrade will be to the monkey behind the wheel.


First however is the business of cleaning out 20 years worth of commuting, spilled drinks and mystery stains from the interior. 


 Today I unbolted the seats to get a good look at everything inside, attempted to fix the steering wheel cover and tried to pull up the carpet.


 You'll notice there was not a lot of success in those tasks because it turns out BMW employees get paid by how many fasteners they install on the interior. Just to remove the carpet alone I needed 247 different screw driver sizes and shapes, and the steering wheel was held in place by the flying monkeys from the wizard of oz, so I had to distract them with a small poodle before I could attempt to remove the wheel, and when I did the horn got stuck on causing them to return.

Eventually I did get it off only to find that the horn was shorting against the middle bit and the only reason it wasn't making noise all the time was because of a single piece of electrical tape that I knocked free in my attempt to make it better.


 Everything did eventually come out, just in time for it to start raining so I could put it back in.

Maybe next week will get off to a better pace.

The first misstep

The unlikely story of the purchase of a beige car.

The story:

One seemingly ritualistic hobby I have is checking car classifieds. I have checked them every day without fail since I was around 19 with exception given to those days I was restrained from the internet by either beauty or brawn

You need to understand that this disease is so bad I will shop for a car the day I purchase one I have just found. I will look for a car when I get up in the morning, when I get to work, when I take my lunch, when I go home, after supper and before bed. 

I will do it on the weekends, on holiday, on planes, on trains and once - even while on a girl.

The real tragedy however is that seemingly in spite of this illness I have a bit of a knack for picking terrible cars for real money hoping to strike a find, but I don't.

In fact I can tell you that 90% of the time my ideas are so bad they make the philosophy behind "shoot first and ask later" seem patient and considered.

So my luck with cars being somewhat infamous by this point in my life, I have yet to own one that doesn't blow up, over heat, bite, scratch, kick, scream, punch, pull hair or just plain insult everyone within a 50 foot radius. I seem to find the ex-sex pistols drummer of the car world, coming down off a 16 year binge only to look in the mirror, wonder when it stopped being the hottest thing around and then proceed to projectile vomit on anyone in range just to prove that it is still a wild thing.

So, when I spoke with a very rational man who was selling a very rational car for a very irrational price last week I started counting the minutes until the other shoe dropped.

It would sell before I got there. It would be covered in bees. It would be smelling of a mix of excrement and rotten oranges. It would be facing the wrong way up.

But it wasn't.

The Car:

In fact, other than being a very unexpected (but not entirely unwelcome) beige, and being stored in the furthest possible place it could be without needing a border crossing to go see it the car was in remarkable shape.

Everything electrical worked, the interior (although in need of attention) was respectable and even had suede and heated seats (mostly). The car was all there, there was no unexpected rust or dented panels. No smells or puddles of goo, no former tenants and no missing parts (in fact even some extras).

Even better it ran, and ran well. No noises, no smoking, no hesitation and most importantly, it hasn't thrown up its lunch once.

Of course it wasn't just cheap because the owner was hemorrhaging into his higher logic centers. It was still an automatic, still had collapsed struts that allowed for so much movement I miss-diagnosed it as a completely destroyed wheel bearing, it had still had sat unused for years and somehow the color manages to be both beige and shouty.

I kept looking for the other shoe under every panel, post and pocket. All I really found was potential pouring profusely from every plain. (Sorry, that got away from me there)

So I bought it.

I bought a classic,

straight six,

two door,

rear-wheel drive

Teutonic sports car

and it will be put to work.