What happened? I come back from a weekend breaking down a Saab 96 and find
people shooting at each other????
My 2nd BGT I bought shortly after Halloween. A friend approached me at work
and asked if I wanted another one of "those cars" (I was driving a 74.5 rubber
bumpered BGT). A "weird" guy had broken down in front of his house and he had
started a conversation with him. In between the guy's curses, my friend asked
him what he wanted for the car. The guy said "give me what it will cost me to
tow it...$35-". I of course said yes and bought the car for $35 through my
friend. I never met the owner. I happily went to the registry and paid my
$1.75 in State Tax.
When I drove up and saw the car, it was a '70 BGT (Mustard Yellow resprayed
Silver) almost no rust, 65K miles. It turned out the clutch arm bushing had
worn and had fallen against the clutch shaft. I wired it up with stainless
wire and drove it home.
On cleaning the car out, I find:
- The carpeting has been redone in "corn chowder" style puke yellow, 2" shag
carpeting, under and in the shag I find:
- A hairpeice (brown)
- Half a set of dentures (top)
- Several ladies stockings (none matching)
- Several very old condoms (unused thankfully)
- A doll's head (Barbie, I think)
- 2 doileys (the lace thingys, not paper)
- A Socian Security Card (not the former owner)
- A racoon tail (like from a Daniel Boone hat)
- Another set of keys
- $25 in assorted change
Net cost $10 and the entertainment value more than made up for it.
I drove it until, I did a clutch job on the car in February without a lift, in
an unheated barn with a wind chill (under the door) of -20 degrees F. I went
through at least 6 light bulbs in the drop light because of the cold.
I drove the car for 2 more years, without investing much of anything.
Every time I think of that car I remember two things:
- The strange circumstances that I bought it under and wondering what bizarre
things that car had seen.
- Calling my girlfriend (now my wife) on Valentines eve, greasy and numb from
doing that clutch job.
Apologies if this previous owner is on the list....I don't want to know.
Chris Stanton
That car lives on in my '78 Midget (the SU carbs).
|