About two weeks ago, Lane, the guy who is going to do the paint and body work on my project car, gave me an ultimatum…
“Am I going to start working on your car or are you going to move it out of my driveway?”
I don’t want to paint him (pun unintended but it is a good one!) as the bad guy. After all, the car has been sitting in his driveway for a year and a half. He let me store the car there for free, IF I we gave him the go ahead to work on the car.
We have delayed it as long as possible because the price to finish the car is pretty steep.
My wife has repeatedly questioned me about it.
“Can’t someone else do it?”
“Honey, it’s a custom car. It’s not just throwing some paint on it.”
My wife has repeatedly questioned me about it.
“Can’t a regular shop do it?”
“Honey, it’s a custom car. It’s not just throwing some paint on it.”
But, since she suggested it several times, I decided to check just to “make sure”. I would hate to find out after the fact that I could have gotten it done much cheaper.
The shop across from the place where I work has a pretty good reputation so I took pictures of the car and took them in for a quote. After checking a few times, I realized that he didn’t really want to even quote it!
So, when Lane called, I had a choice: let him start working on the car or pay for a year and a half of storage, sell the car and lose all the time and money that I have invested over the past 13 years!
I chose the former.
I cringed a little inside when he called me today. I hoped that he didn’t want money already…
He needed me to remove all of the stuff that I jammed inside of the car before I left California.
As I removed, box after box, I was once again struck by the enormity of this project! I can’t believe that I actually tackled this! What was I thinking?
I am not one of those guys who always dreamed of building my own car. It just kind of happened…
When I pulled out the magnetic tail lights that I bought to tow the car from California, memories of “The Trip” came back to me. That was the signature event that really got this blog going.
Lane already has about 15% of the car down to bare metal. As I looked at it, I was really impressed with what I have done. I REALLY like the design!
While I don’t have a burning desire to finish the car, I have a feeling that I will glad that I did once I start driving it. I certainly have a lot of life invested in it!
