Yeah, thanks. I was right to be concerned. The car in question had been described as "mint" (grrrr) underneath. Aye right, bloody Polo mint maybe as they have a hole in the middle too! It was a VW Fridolin, like the one pictured below but in bright
orange and equipped with the 1500cc engine and semi-auto transmission from a 1968 Beetle:
See, absolutely perfect thanks to its being within a few inches of the daily Toyota in every way; seat height, low floor, high roof, large doors, I felt comfortable in the thing and was able to get out without bending, the pedals came out in the right places and even the weird 2-speed semi auto (actually 3, but they don't publicise the extra low crawler gear that's in there too) worked well and felt less laggy than the one in my '68 VW 1500 had done. All of the electrics worked, the engine had the barest minimum of endfloat and the suspension - which wasn't quite so low as the one in that picture - felt great, well damped, yet soft enough to take the usual potholed roads along that stretch of the west coast. I loved it! Then, as you do, I decided to ask to get it up on the lift at the garage where it was being stored. This was when things took on a bad taste. The pan and every other part from the door apertures back over were very freshly painted so I gave the most suspicious looking areas an extra firm squeeze and when the lumps of pitch fell off, I could see from the print on the paper that formed the substrate that the UK is about to hold a genial erection, at least that's what it looked like but you know how newsprint distorts when it's been roughly crumpled, a bit like that trick with an old fiver where the queen can be made to wink if the note is folded just so..
So I questioned the seller's description, especially his use of the word "mint", which really ought to have triggered alarm bells before I'd driven the van and it turned out that he'd been a victim of a body repair person who'd been economical with the truth when he'd issued the bill that I saw for £1200 worth of "underside repairs to o/e standard, drill out spot welds, grind back corroded metal above, fabricate repair sections to suit, weld, grind flush, prime, paint with chassis black (this was the thick type that I last used to stick the new felt to my kitchen roof), inject all box sections with wax-oil (sic.. That too should have worried me sooner as someone who genuinely had a barrel of the stuff in front of them would have made a better fist of the name), and so it went.
I felt for the bloke, who was clearly gutted by my findings and was making noises about what he'd do to the person who'd relieved him of his £1200 as I got back in the bB to leave. I felt for him because the original keeper of the orange Rebel had been similarly bullwashed by the garage that had been taking his cash for years, only that time, muggins here was the one left with it when it was sold to someone who didn't know the old bloke or the garage and so, had no qualms about checking with a blunt instrument.
I had no excuse either, and sympathised with the Frido's owner but some good has come from this..
I now know what vehicle I want! It could have been made to measure, honestly, if the bB didn't have its engine at the front and its front wheels driven too, the Fridolin would have felt identical to drive, as it was, I liked it, it fitted me and I'm now going to find a decent one and buy it, though I'll also have to budget for a scrap VW1500 as a source of the semi auto transmission and the matching engine, then get a couple of days help in to do the conversion but it's all nuts & bolts stuff and I'm just glad to have found my ideal next old motor.
So was today a total washout? No. I reckon the VW's owner thinks that I'm crackers because I travelled some 70 odd miles to check out a rust bucket and left happy, but if he knew the vomit-filled swamp of vehicles I've had to wade through to get to this point, he'd get it!
It alarms me that someone has quite clearly put a lot of work into the Escort, but hey, each to their own.
