Original GC coupe.
Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2013 6:43 pm
So the story began a couple of years ago, when The Wife got a phone call:
"You left a note under the windscreen of my mother's car a few years ago. It's a white Galant sedan. Do you still want to buy it?"
The Wife had no memory of the car, but it sounded OK, so we drove to Goulburn with the trailer to have a look. It was sitting in an open garage and was about 30 metres away from where we parked, but we could instantly see that we were going to buy the car...
As we walked closer, I realised is was a coupe, not a sedan - which was sort of like taking Jennifer Hawkins home and then discovering that she lives in a brewery...
The mother had stopped driving a few years earlier due to dementia, so it had sat unregistered for a year or so before her daughter talked her into selling the car. Apparently the mother used to get notes left under the wipers all the time, but she'd just throw them out. Somehow, The Wife's note survived, so we got the call.
Sadly, the mother's dementia meant that she couldn't offer anything meaningful about its history, but we've been able to work out that:
She bought it new, in her home town of Goulburn;
It had a reco motor fitted at some stage (kind of an aqua blue colour, which I think was a GEM engine?);
It has had a respray, back when panel shops did decent resprays on old cars (and not just show cars). There's a small amount of bog in the LHS rear quarter, and a tiny bit of rust under the LHS tail-light, but the body is incredibly straight and rust free.
The interior is just as good. The seats are in fantastic condition under the covers.
The Wife has been insistent on throwing away the 'old lady' stuff from it, but I've been able to slow her down by arguing that it's part of the car's history - the holy water hit the bin, but the cross-stitch kit is still there...
Everything works, including the original AM radio. It starts, runs and drives beautifully, except the front struts are soft and the brake pedal has far too much travel.
Our plans are to replace the strut inserts and fix the brakes, and then put it on historic rego.
"You left a note under the windscreen of my mother's car a few years ago. It's a white Galant sedan. Do you still want to buy it?"
The Wife had no memory of the car, but it sounded OK, so we drove to Goulburn with the trailer to have a look. It was sitting in an open garage and was about 30 metres away from where we parked, but we could instantly see that we were going to buy the car...
As we walked closer, I realised is was a coupe, not a sedan - which was sort of like taking Jennifer Hawkins home and then discovering that she lives in a brewery...
The mother had stopped driving a few years earlier due to dementia, so it had sat unregistered for a year or so before her daughter talked her into selling the car. Apparently the mother used to get notes left under the wipers all the time, but she'd just throw them out. Somehow, The Wife's note survived, so we got the call.
Sadly, the mother's dementia meant that she couldn't offer anything meaningful about its history, but we've been able to work out that:
She bought it new, in her home town of Goulburn;
It had a reco motor fitted at some stage (kind of an aqua blue colour, which I think was a GEM engine?);
It has had a respray, back when panel shops did decent resprays on old cars (and not just show cars). There's a small amount of bog in the LHS rear quarter, and a tiny bit of rust under the LHS tail-light, but the body is incredibly straight and rust free.
The interior is just as good. The seats are in fantastic condition under the covers.
The Wife has been insistent on throwing away the 'old lady' stuff from it, but I've been able to slow her down by arguing that it's part of the car's history - the holy water hit the bin, but the cross-stitch kit is still there...
Everything works, including the original AM radio. It starts, runs and drives beautifully, except the front struts are soft and the brake pedal has far too much travel.
Our plans are to replace the strut inserts and fix the brakes, and then put it on historic rego.
