Got my Speedster ready to go yesterday. There were only a couple of last minute items that needed attention.
I needed to take the serial number and paint type tags off of the door closing panels. I have seen hints of blue paint in hidden places and suspected that either the car came from the factory black and someone painted it blue at one time, or it was blue and someone did a heck of a job changing it to black. The color under the tags would tell the tale. But first I had to get the tags off. The rivets are about 1/16" in diameter. I tried grinding the back off of one of them, but that just obscured it. I couldn't tell the difference between the aluminum panel and the aluminum rivet. In the end I made a punch by grinding down a 4 penny nail, laid the panel face down on a piece of cardboard, and drove the rivets through. The rivets are still in the tags, so I'll probably glue them back on. No one will be the wiser. I'm storing the tags in my gun safe.
Annddd - it's "Speedsterblau." This is a color used only on Speedsters and not many of them, so it's rare. I'm actually glad it got painted black.
I needed to put warnings on the car about not folding the hood in half and tie everything down. I had a friend who was a Porsche dealer in the 1960s. He used to order hoods a half dozen at a time. Gas station attendants were always trying to shove the hood closed. If it didn't close easily the just pushed harder and bent it in half.
The car is so small, all stripped down it looks like a go-cart. I dated a girl once, a real farm girl who drove a F-350 diesel. I picked her up once in the Speedster. I thought she would be impressed. All she said about it was, "Kinda little, ain't it?" I knew that relationship was dead right then and there.
Cliff picked the car up this morning to haul it to Dave The Painter. It looked pathetically small on the flatbed.
It might be a bad thing that I know my towtruck driver by his first name. He's not typically the kind of guy you want to see a lot. Cliff is a great guy. When he hauled the VW it was the first time we did business together. He charged me $100 each way. We got to know each other and now he does the maintenance on my Tundra. He charged $75 for the Speedster. When I asked him why the change he slapped me on the back and said, "It's lighter!" True that. It weights 1900 pounds with me and a full tank of gas on board.