Step 1: I have a problem, new car arrived today Options

[fiacra]

Well....when this Bumblebee came up for sale I took a long look at the savings account, had a short talk with my enabler (aka my wife) and started a conversation with the sellers. Stan and Ann (the sellers) seem like wonderful people and I enjoyed our conversations. It took a few weeks of getting to know each other, but ultimately we arrived at number that made both of us happy (although Stan might say it made me happier than him (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) ). Fast forward three weeks, and today at 6:15am I woke up a few of the neighbors as the car was unloaded down the street. It arrived in an enclosed transport in the company of some expensive Italian cars and I swear I saw it giving them the finger as it was unloaded (IMG:style_emoticons/default/evilgrin.gif) . Some of you may be familiar with this car as it has been around for a while. It's an older restoration done at Otto's in Venice, CA. I wanted a car that I could drive and not be too nervous about, and while quite nice this is still a driver. It will join my Karmann Ghia and my 1975 1.8 in the garage, and after I give it a good inspection and undoubtedly sort out a few things I hope to start driving it on a regular basis. Everybody loves pictures but I won't overload this post with more than a few. If you want to see more pictures I'm including a link to a publicly accessible dropbox folder. Thanks to everybody for sharing their knowledge and friendship over the years, especially @tygaboy , and if those of you who are familiar with this car have any stories to share about the car or John (Otto) I'd love to hear them.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f9ohfbqam5585ls/...0gHJ-9HbUa?dl=0

[fiacra]

Thanks everyone. I appreciate all the well wishes. I got an hour today to go through the car and so far it is better than I thought it would be. It's not rolling with the parking brake off and the car in neutral so at least one of the calipers is stuck, but that is fixable. I couldn't tell when I drove it a few blocks. That's all I've found so far. PMB will be getting some of what is left in my bank account. Otherwise it looks like what you would expect from a 20 year old well done restoration. Apparently John claims to have put $50K worth of NOS parts in it when he restored it. I would guess that is an exaggeration, but it does seem that it was properly done. Not the original engine, and a reproduction front air dam, but I can live with that.

@nditiz1 You find what she loves and you overwhelm her with it. I bought her a beautiful antique store display cabinet for spools of thread that works great as a jewelry box and every now and then a new piece of vintage jewelry shows up in it. Works like a charm! She even started to look online to see if we could buy a nearby property with an eight car garage.

@tygaboy . For sure! A trip to the red barn is always the highlight of my week. Let me sort out the brakes and I'll make a run out there.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/bumblebee914.jpg)