spridgets
[Top] [All Lists]

farewell old friend

To: <spridgets@Autox.Team.Net>
Subject: farewell old friend
From: "Mike Gigante" <mikeg@vicnet.net.au>
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 16:11:51 +1100
Reply-to: "Mike Gigante" <mikeg@vicnet.net.au>
Sender: owner-spridgets@Autox.Team.Net
My old racecar was cut up today. The rear quarter panels and the
rear deck were removed with an oxy cutter.

This marks the official demise of this car. ;-(   --  the only spridget I
have
been responsible for destroying instead of saving.

Why? Well it's frontend was always dubious. It used to house a rotary
and the conversion (a D PP O) was poorly done. The result was that
the front end twisted and buckled pretty badly. On top of that the PO
smacked the car into a concrete wall at Winton, and the final death knell
was my gentle little rollover at Phillip Island. I pushed in the front left,
this exposed the poor repair that the PO did after the wall incident.

The cost to fix this shell was just too high. It really needed some other
repairs as well as the front end. The body was twisted a bit and
this affected the handling.

So when a local restoration/body expert was looking for rear panels and
offered $300 for them,  I said yes. The good news is that these panels
are making another car complete.

I have had a love/hate relationship with this car - it was my first sprite
but I also cursed all the bodges that the cheap PO had done. It cost me
heaps and heaps of money but I had some good racing with it. I have
been planning to build a new racecar for some time and now I am actually
doing it.

My new race car is in preparation, it is a HAN9. It will have the best bits
out of my old car, a better engine and will be closer to "stock" than the
old car so that it is eligible for our Marque Sports class. So the old
exhaust through the sill (rockers) is gone, in comes original dash,
2nd seat etc etc.

I am documenting the new car so one day I'll post the project.

My old racecar is http://home.vicnet.net.au/~mikeg/cars/racecar.htm

Mike



<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
  • farewell old friend, Mike Gigante <=