Hello. I hope I'm not too late with this.
My name is Sergio and I've been a subscriber for a litte while and I've
even posted some comments a couple of times but I've never shared my
Alpine "thrills of victory" or "agony of defeats".
The first Alpine I saw belonged to a friend of mine. It was/is a 67
Series V that had been in his family for some time. It was the coolest
car I had ever seen. His family owned quite a few Alpines. His dad told
me the history of Alpines and after driving my friends car, I had to get
one.
The first one I bought was a 1960 Series I that had major bondo work done
on it. I drove it for a while and then ended up selling it for $300.00.
The next one I bought was a 1964 Series IV that didn't run for $150.00.
It wasn't in bad shape, it just didn't run. Found out it had a broken
crank so my friend Dave and I took a crank from a Hillman at the junk
yard ($10.00) and put it in the Alpine. The car started and ran great.
That night after putting it together, we went for a drive. I had a little
problem with the bar that supports the soft-top on the drivers side of
the car. Every time I took off, it swung around and hit me on the side of
the head (ouch!). I started from a stop light and it hit me again so I
tried to put it back in place and when I looked down again to see where
was going, someone move the road. I hit the curb head on at about 40 MPH
and the Alpine tried to bunny hop the curb but it didn't know how. When
we finally came to a stop, we had taken out about half a dozen sprinklers
not to mention some of the flowers planted by the "Welcome to Santa Fe
Springs" sign on Telegraph Road. But guess what, the engine was still
running. I would have driven it home but those flattend rims didn't roll
very well. Got a tow from Daves dad after replacing those defective rims.
Kept the car for a while (using re-treads to keep it on the road) and
tried to fix it but the frame was bent, so it became a parts car for my
friend Dave and then I had to junk it (sorry guys!).
Then I bought a 1965 GT for a parts car (it had an original top) cost me
$500.00. We stripped it completely and sold the shell for scrap (oops, I
did it again).
I now have a 67 Series V that I bought about 15 years ago and have been
trying to restore it ever since. I'm getting tired of working on it
though, I'd rather be driving it.(Need some encouragement to continue).
Well about me, I'm 37, single, work as a draftsman for a small company in
Newport Beach, and just bought a house with a big garage to keep all my
Alpine parts.
Sorry, I didn't realize I had written so much.
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