Buying and bringing home my girl (long)

[Isabo]

Reading the thread on worst road trips brought back how I bought my car and took it home. I feel easier about it now and I'm no longer so young, silly and scatterbrained. Hope this makes you smile.
I was visiting my sister in England with my fourteen year old daughter. My brother-in-law invited a friend of his for dinner one evening, (Milu, he also posts here sometimes, he's now one of my best friends and occasional employer), he turned up in a car that looked like sex on wheels, a new dark gray metallic 964 with a bodykit, the conversation turned to cars and I mentioned How much I would love a 911. BIG MISTAKE number 1.
My brother in law said there was one for sale at a nearby petrol station and he thought it was on Italian plates. After dinner we went to look at it. BIG MISTAKE number 2. It had been polished to within an inch of its life, this didn't hide the stone chips, dings, scratchs, it was a cheap and nasty 2.7 RS conversion (2.7 RS,My dream car because it's what my dad wanted, he had an S) It looked sad, lonely and forlorn, it was love at first sight. Milu was with us - BIG MISTAKE number 3. MILU has a heart of gold but he's one of those friends you sometimes wish you didn't have (I HAVE TOLD HIM THIS TO HIS FACE!) He is the friend who will convince you to go to a sleazy nightclub to drink tequila slammers when you have a major presentation the next morning, his ex business partner, an industrial strenght arsehole, used to be a tee total family man, a couple of years under Milu's inluence and he became drunken womaniser with a half share in a Porsche he couldn't afford, Milu is the friend who will convince you to buy a camelhair coat by MAX MARA with your rent money, he accompanied a friend to pick up an ELNA sewing machine (the Rolls Royce or maybe Porsche of sewing machines)for his friend's wife, they used her money to buy a BMW motorcycle. What makes him so dangerous is that he sincerely believes that these are rational and mature choices, he is definitely from the far side of the twilight zone. I was putty in his hands. Not helped by being encouraged by my brother-in-law and my daughter who loved the idea of mummy picking her up from school in a ratty pseudo race car when everyone elses mum has a sensible city car.
I didn't sleep that night from thinking about that car I wanted it so much. I tried phoning my husband but he was travelling on a business trip and I couldn't get hold of him, I was buying myself a sportscar when we got home(a Mazda) but this was what I really wanted, ignoring the fact that I would still need a car to use every day. I was so afraid of someone else buying it that I borrowed the money from my brother-in-law and bought it after he and Milu checked it out. BIG MISTAKE number 4. That car was going nowhere, the paperwork on the car was a complete mess, the RS conversion was cheap fibreglass, the interior was stripped out etc, etc, etc. The car had been sold cheap when its owner destroyed the engine while on holiday in England, the engine had been replaced and it was being sold on. To give credit to my buying assistants they got the price down to real bargain level and mechanically the car was good, however, there was no hurry to buy it!
I kept trying to get hold of my husband but he was always travelling and the two times he phoned I was out doing the deed. BIG, BIG MISTAKE number 5. Buying a ratty old car without discussing it with your other half, especially when he believes cars more than a year old are things you sell, NOT BUY!
The next thing was getting the car home, any sensible person would have had it professionally shipped. No, I decided to drive it home, Potentially, this was big mistake number 6. as it happens it wasn't, but it wasn't clever with such an unknown quantity of a car and zero mechanical knowledge.
We loaded the car up (roll bars are very convenient for coat hangers), my brother in law and Milu kept using up important storage space with things I thought were pointless at the time, such as duct tape, bits of wire, molegrips, aerosol tyre inflator etc etc.
Driving the car for the first time on a proper drive as its owner I suddenly felt a million dollars, the car was so much nicer than it looked. The drive to Dover was a dream, we took off the perspex pop out sun roof, listened to the anaemic stereo and the raspy exhaust note - wonderful. On the hovercraft crossing the channel I started having doubts about my sanity in buying this car. The more I worried about explaining it to my husband the faster we seemed to be eating up the miles. If I hadn't had my daughter as a witness who would blab to daddy I am sure I would have dumped the car by the side of the road,taken a train home and written of the money to experience. When it looked like rain and started gettting cold, I learned the merits of the duct tape. We had to use it to keep the sun roof on as we'd damaged, or perhaps they were already damaged, the clips in removing it.
On Milu's advice we didn't take the short direct route through Switzerland but went down through France, the objective was to minimise the number of customs crossings and the hazards of document checks. My mind being a bit more than elsewhere I missed the exit I should have taken.
I should have doubled back, instead I looked at my map and decided on an alternate route and went on. What looked like a sensible route on paper was anything but, instead of taking one of the tunnels through the alps I ended up going over the top on minor roads, a fantastic drive and a great way to learn about driving a 911 but not what I needed. We stopped for petrol outside Turin, and I saw I had a cracked headlight lens - just to be safe I used some tape on it. Looking at my new toy it was filthy and looked even more disreputable. Before my husband saw it it was going through a car wash. BIG MISTAKE number 6. A few miles from home I took it through a car wash, it ripped off the rubbishy home made ducktail! More duct tape and the poor thing looked even worse!
If this was a fairytale my husband would have been all keen on it at first sight as I was and the car would have proved to be ultra reliabe, needing only routine maintenance. My husband's reaction when he saw it was as bad as I had expected, the atmosphere in the home was pretty awful for weeks and didn't improve even after he added to his fleet of motorcycles without mentioning it first. My mother-in-law saved the day by backing me up and telling him he was making mountains out of molehills. When he understood my 911 was a permanent feature, unlike his toys, he started to warm to it, sorted out the paperwork (that took almost a year!) and actually started working on it for me. I've had it for almost ten years now and it's been about as reliable as you could expect for a ratty old car. We've played together on circuits and on hill climbs a few times and I can't immagine life without my 911. It's just had a 3.0 engine fitted which is absolutely glorious and I am now saving my pennies to have the bodywork sorted.

[Jim Richards]

Great story, Isabo. Even though the road has been bumpy, you seem to be enjoying the ride!

Great story Isabo. Another in a long line of "this car and the reason I have it is not rational, but I love it anyway" stories. Most of us can only dream of driving an old 911 through Europe.
Mark

[Thomas Owen]

What a story! Thanks for sharing it with us, and most importantly, thanks for buying the car!

[Jim Garfield]

Good for you.

[Doug Zielke]

Enjoyed that, Isabo.

[cegerer]

Great story! Can't wait for Milu's rebuttal ..... -- Curt

[gr8fl4porsche]

A very nice read,

Any pics from the infamous journey?

[silverc4s]

Great saga, Isabo. Is this the same 911 that you were inquiring about restoring a while back? I suppose so, sounds like a new engine since then...Good show. Love to see the old cars survive..

[Milu]

Isa is just a bit upset with me as her husband had a bit of a hangover after being introduced to Tequila slammers made with champagne. I'm used to being blamed for the indiscretions of married friends.

If Isa had mentioned the problem of presenting her husband with the car I'm sure we could have come up with something better than leaving a ratty looking old sports car held together with stickytape in his garage space.

Oh well, it all worked out fine in the end and he probably loves it as much as Isa and her daughter do now.

[dean]

Quite the adventure Isabo. And that Milu is just the friend to have.