We decided to join the windy500 after a short discussion with spooky. Having been involved in the 38bus project we thought this would be worth a go as his trips are always exciting and differently brilliant.
I started coming up with crazy ideas. I had a 'popup 4 poster bed coming out the back of a vehicle' idea. Rejected!
Then I had 'a dinosaur idea' - a wooden profile of brontosaurus where the tail was attached to a tow ball and would wiggle as we drove through the European countryside. Steps fitted to the tail would lead up to a cocktail terrace on the hump. How would I get the head onto the vehicle and how would we get it on a ferry? Rejected!
We then thought about involving our neighbours as Bill used to renovate and sell triumph spitfires and don't they have soft tops? Now we were getting somewhere that we both thought was possible, and more practical! Apparently they are quite uncomfortable and the idea of a convertible vehicle was starting to sound promising. Very.
The next consideration was an Escort XR3i Cabriolet. Yes! I could see us in that with the windy in our hair. We looked at several and talked to a few people and decided that would be our car. Top down, sunglasses on, 360 view from all seats etc. etc. That was it. Decision made and we had plenty of time to find one and do it up. Buy the clothes to wear.......
Then we had a big change of direction, for which we have to blame spooky. He bought his VW van about two weeks ago and we thought that could be quite an interesting project for him. So we starting looking at what we might be able to do to help him so as we were trawling eBay, amazon and anywhere on-line for information it struck us that with our skills WE might consider a van as well. So about 2 or 3 days ago (6th Dec) we started looking seriously at vans for ourselves. We had to talk to our neighbours Kath and Bill again because they had said we could use their large garage to do any work on our vehicle. And would a van fit in?
Well, we found a vehicle on eBay, a VW T4 Transporter with some customisation started, in Newton Abbot, 15 mins from our house. A discussion with Kath and Bill suggested we would have to remove a one metre panel above the garage doors and then replace it when finished and do something to the garage doors as well. But it was doable.
So we contacted to seller to arrange a viewing of this red van. Neither of us have any mechanical knowledge and the viewing was arranged for 6pm. Oh, and did I mention that the van was a non runner! So there we were in the dark, being unable to to start this red thing, turn the engine over or anything of those things that people always tell you that you must do when looking at any vehicle.
We examined the seats, opened the doors a few times and sat in the seats. The drivers seat would need to be modified as Lucy could not easily reach the pedals. But we liked the colour. I grovelled on the floor pretending to look underneath for something that I didn't know what to look for. Oh yes, rust! But not sure I could find much. Some cow dung and a lot of dead insects but no rust. Lucy asked about paperwork and she saw the MOT certificate, which was current. Good point noted. Some minor faults noted but only advisory. Even some receipts of some of the work that had been undertaken. Good point. I was starting to think this looked very promising. We looked at the engine sat next to the van on a pallet and then we found there was another one under the bonnet. Bad point. But both were broken. And we didn't seem too bothered about! Bad point!
As we walked around this for about 10 minutes viewing it with a torch app on my HTC mobile, we were both getting quite excited about it. So after a quick glance at each other we enquired if he would take an offer. NOW! But he said we had to continue bidding on eBay. And someone else was coming to see it!
So returning to home a bit dejected thinking there would be no chance and telling ourselves there would be others, we began to watch the bidding. We also noticed a J in the registration and an L. Then Lucy also said the letters MWL - My Windy Limo. This seemed too good to be true! So we made a bid and set the alarm for 7.30 am as the auction finished at 8.47. With 10 minutes to go the price stated to go up, surprisingly. We nearly swallowed our dressing gowns as the time was nearly up! With ten seconds to go we made our final bid, fully expecting to be beaten. We pressed refresh a few times just in case. And then it all ended. What had happened? Did we win? Did we lose? LOL LOL LOL We had it. We got it. Amazing! Phew! And all before 9 o'clock. We were now the proud owners of My Windy Limo. And we still don't know if it will ever start!
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