Once again, thank you everyone for all the advice. I think i can summarise
as follows:
1. everyone pretty much has raved about how much the love their spitfire,
and how much they love driving it. I don't need convicing, i think they are
the most beautiful car in the world, and having just test driven one ...
well it was the most fun i've had behind the wheel in a long time!
2. I have had more mixed opinions on safety. Bu the consensus seems to be
that being a good driver is going to save your life, having airbags isn't. I
couldn't agree more.
3. I have had very mixed opinions as to reliability in general, and as to
the value and likely prospects of the car which i described.
So I had a very sleepless night last night, and i came to the following
conclusions :
1. i would love to OWN a spitfire. This is what has got me so excited.
2. on my salary i cannot afford to OWN one car and USE another. (USDA pays
better an academic better than in england.. but not much!)
3. Therefore i can only afford to OWN a car which i can USE.
4. if i was not madly in love with the most wonderful woman in the world,
who just happened to live in palo alto, I would only USE a car to go to the
gym and got to the field station, and for the occasional outing to SF,
sacramento, or the Yuba.
5. and therefore i could afford to OWN and USE a pitfire which needed a
little TLC
6. Fortunately however I AM in love with the most wonderful woman in the
world. Hurrah!
7. In which case I have to own a car which can regularly make it to palo
alto and back.
So i still had no idea what i was going to do!
So I rang around the specialist garages in the area, and their opinion was
somewhat in line with the gloomier 25percentile of respondents on the list.
None of them would agree to check the car over: they all had a no-spitfire
policy! But everyone was very friendly, and gave me plenty of advice.
Namely:
1. Again, in concensus with opinions on this list they thought that the test
drive noises that i described could indicate any or all of: an engine
screwed over by a bodged smog retro fit; rear bearing that needed replacing;
rear transmission that needed replacing; exhaust problems; or major valve
problems.
2. They also agreed with opinion here that low use in the last 12 years
(especially 8 years in storage) was probably a very bad thing. The most
helpful guy i spoke to (who was actually from near where i grew up in
england, judging by the accent), was also the most sympathetic to spitfires
but he was of the opinion that a car that had stood that long -even if it
ran now- would need a continuous and severe rebuild over the next few years
if it was used at all heavily, and the symptoms i described were the first
signs of the need for that rebuild.
3. Certainly, everyone indicated that i would be putting a lot of money into
the car and that it was probably not worth the $2000 being asked. The other,
really interesting, comment was that the reason none of these garages would
take spitfires is that they were notoriously unreliable, but that this
unreliability was mainly due to years of neglect... i.e. if the car has been
well maintained for a long time it is an excellent car, but simply most
people don't know how to the preventitive maintainence required to avoid the
development of these particular unreliabilities.
4. I actually think the situation may be more subtle: the people who DO know
how to maintain these cars rarely if ever take them into the garage (sorry
that's shop in american). So the garage mechanics really do see a lot of
very unreliable spitfires... and it really isn't worth their while to work
on them... but that's because all the reliable spitfires are relible simply
because they are being properly maintained by people like yourselves
5. As to my mental state, opinions ranged from brave... to deranged.
I think this latest bout of fact-finding may have put me off this PARTICULAR
spitfire... but i'm still thinking about it... i'll keep you posted!
cheers
Joe
___________________________
Dr. Joseph Garner
University of California
Department of Animal Science
One Shields Avenue
Davis
CA 95616
USA
Phone: (530) 754 5291
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