joe's garage

The old SPG from the 528 Trade

2011-05-23T14:09:00.001-07:00

HEY!

I found the pix of the old SPG that i was just talking about (the one I traded for the 528).

Here she is the day I "bought" her...

she , uh, had some issues...

But, all parties were happy at the end. The guy with the 528 got his "dream" of an older SPG and I, a 528 that I had (almost) no use for.

-Be careful what you wish for...

:)
Drive Happy,
J

A PAIR OF BIMMERS FROM THE OLD DAYS... Part 2*

2011-05-23T13:45:00.001-07:00

*aka: The Car I Never Drove.

So, for those of you who read my last post about my old e-34 M5... here's another.

In the multitude of Saabs I have owned (please click on one of the past threads from 2009 for more info on some of those) I found myself in a strange position.

I had come into possession of an older SPG that had some issues. -Nothing terminal, but more work than I wanted to invest. Anyway, one day I was reading the classifieds on SAABNET I came on a post from a guy looking to trade his 528 for an older SPG.

So...

I called him up, we worked out the specifics and made a deal.

The only thing was, I really had no need for the SPG, let alone an older 528. HOWEVER, my folks (who lived in FLA) were in need of another car, as they just decided to take a place up here in New England for a bit.

So I made a deal, if they wanted the car, they could have it to drive as long as they remained up here. When they were to go back to FLA full time, they would need to sell it for me.

She got rave reviews from my Dad.

They had her for about 2 years.

Never did get a chance to drive her...

Drive Happy.
:)

J

A PAIR OF BIMMERS FROM THE OLD DAYS... PART 1*

2011-05-23T13:05:00.000-07:00

So... as we are still in the midst of the ongoing Porsche Project...

Flashback: I can remember the excitement of taking a new job that took my out of New York City. To a sleepy little hamlet called Westport, CT.

In 1992 I took a job that allowed me to actually be close to the ocean, walk and bike outdoors with almost zero pollution and most important: BUY A CAR.

So after riding said bike to work for the first three weeks, I decided I actually hated my bike and that it was time for a car...

-but not just any car would do... Here's my 1991 Alpina white BMW e-34 M5...

(sigh)
-here's how I ended up with her: one fine Saturday morning this then carless ex-NewYorker took a taxi to Darien BMW. Sitting there on the floor WAITING FOR ME was this simply amazing white M5. It had been a corporate lease return for under a year ("WHAT kind of corporation leased an e-34, M5 and where could I get a job app?" I asked the sales guy). So, after about an hour of wrestling and numerous trips to the "head office" to "talk to the manager" (maybe about the True Tone undercoat)... she was mine!
-Drove her right off the floor!

Anyway, flash fwd to a month later. My parents come to town. "Nice car." my Dad says. "-Thanks Dad." I beam. "Wanna take a ride?"

About an hour and a half later we pull back into the driveway, kill the engine, to all the awesome pings, he turns to me and asks:

"So, what did you pay for this?"
without missing a beat, I proudly say "All in about 49k". Waiting for him to congratulate me on making such a sweet deal.

"Um, what's your annual salary on this new job?" he asks.

"About 48k. Why?"

"Um, do you see any kind of problem with that math?" -he inquired.

"Nope." I smiled
-as he just shook his head slowly.

:)

Drive Happy.
J

I'm GUILTY...

2011-05-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

Hey, remember those wacky 80's? Crazy styles, crazy new genre of music called "RAP" Hammer's pants, New Coke and those gems of the theatre. -With large(er than) life life-lessons coming from movies like Footloose, St. Elmo's Fire and of course... THE SAINT. -Actually not so sure of the life lessons from The Saint, as the line reads something about never giving anyone your name, ID, etc... But what the heck, it was the 80's remember?...

Okay, I'll admit, I fell under that movie's spell -and thought it was pretty cool (of course, we're talking about memory here, like you remember how cool it was to go to middle school... like 20 years later.)

Anyway, I couldn't resist (-should have) the urge to purchase one of these:

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Volvo c-70. TURBO. Yup, that's right ladies. TURRRRBO.

And wearing gleaming Ferrari Red paint.

And that's pretty much about the only good thing you could say about it: "Hey, nice paint". Much like Chitty-Chitty, it didn't do any of the fancy tricks like in the movie. And the Turbo was more like a truck turbo... slow and steady wins the race... or so it goes in Sweden.

As a matter of fact, even with the cool custom grille and EU tag, it handled and drove... -like a Volvo.

Had it for a couple of years, then sold it to a guy from Kansas. He flew in to buy and had no clue about the new "coolness movie star factor" he was about to uptick himself into.

He just came to buy a Volvo.

WOW, been a long time.....

2011-05-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is like FOURTEEN DOG YEARS, almost two human ones... and I am proud to report, that the Porsche Project is almost ready for paint. -Finally got hooked up with the right guy for my project:

Marcel who owns ROUTE 136 AUTO ('www.route136auto.com'). man, it has been a LONG haul on this one. But, here is Marcel taking the pans... with a glimmer of HOPE in his eyes... little did he know....

That it would seem that this vehicle had to be completely rebuilt.

-As it had neatly, rusted from the INSIDE out.
So... here are some pics from over the past year...

Look Ma, no rust on any of the sheet metal... hmmm, seems like there are some advantages to rusting from the INSIDE first...

Here we are putting Humpty back together again...

Ahhhh, here she is, starting to look a bit whole again.

paint coming soon....

DISCOVERING... TRUCKS!

2009-11-30T22:56:00.000-08:00

Usually when you reach a certain (this) age, you are old enough to know better.

it would seem that my Porsche Project is, well.. stalled. -to use an overused bad mechanical pun.

once i get all the details i will post them. -let's just say that i think that Crocket and Tubbs are involved...

let's turn the the other side and talk about trucks.
English trucks. -rather unreliable English trucks. and English guys with bad teeth. -err scratch that last one.

Yes, i am talking about my long term affair with Land Rover.

i think this is what hooked me:
a long time back (like 1996) i had the chance to drive one of the Camel Trophy vehicles that was out in Colorado. man, that was cool. and those guys are HARDCORE. -well not as hardcore as s
some of my friend Dave's friends, but for a candy-ass like myself, let's say i was impressed. there i am in my bright yellow fleece...

needless to say i was HOOKED immediately on the Discovery Series. how hooked? -as soon as i returned, i literally went to the local Rover dealer in Darien and traded in my M5! (and they say experiential marketing doesn't work...).

and picked her up:
not a lot of photos of her. -she was a sexy black SE7 and had a bit of an attitude problem. she would start up, but sometimes she would just quit. favorite was the time on the highway -at 70 mph. or on the tri-borough bridge, on a friday before a long weekend! ah, NewYorker's are such a friendly bunch indeed! -but when she did run, she was awesome. she would go anywhere and looked different than all the other SUV's n the road. i really loved taking her off road all weekend and then driving into NYC with her totally covered in mud. guys at the garage thought i had series issues. -it was the first vehicle that i had owned that really felt free in.

anway, all good things... after a couple of years, i swapped her out for this one
(you'll notice a few pics taken at the same Rover , as the models change in the background):

ah yes, in GREEN all will be better. no?

anyway, she came from Cali. and had to be shipped in. had her for a few of years. she was great, made a ton of trips to ACK and on the beaches out there. -drove the sh*t out of her. after s few years, i put her on ebay and sold her to a... "dancer" -who actually paid me in cash. which is not so unusual. but they were small bills. like real small. try going in into citibank with 19k in 5's and 10's. i promise they will bring you into a small room and have a chat with you. especially when many of the bills seem to curl up on the ends... again, see the Crocket and Tubbs remark at the start.

after getting rid of her though i felt like someone had taken away a favorite old toy.

so i went out and looked for a new toy. a BIGGER one.

i ended up with a G-WAG.
but it really wasn't the same for some reason. maybe because to seemed to start and run, like all the time?...

you can see the clear styling influences that were shared between the vehicles.

this was a strange bird. like dating a girl who doesn't speak english and is mad at YOU about it.

-i remember that there was a leak on the driver's side window and MB couldn't fix it; SO THEY REPLACED THE ENTIRE DOOR. -seriously. she was a g-55 AMG and had B*LLS DELUX.

i mean if you punched it, she would snap your head back to the headrest -with aggression. had this great throaty growl to her too.

she ran like a tank and had the extra feature of getting ALMOST 6 miles to the gallon! -just like a real, actual tank.

anyway, she was fun, but strangely i HATED the way she was off road. HATED her in sand. and found myself missing my old toy...

so to remedy the jones, i picked up this old(er) p-38 Range. LOVE this truck. still have it and drive it. -sometimes, it's the simpler things...

after a while the itch became too much... so..... i wandered back in to Darien Land Rover (where they're always glad to see me. right John?) and traded in the G-WAG for an old (new actually) friend:

ah, home again. great truck. my favorite one on the DISCOS.

Ultimately though, just not big enough. so....

stay tuned... :)

peace,
Joe

A (HOPEFULLY) SHORT TRIP...

2009-10-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

So, as any who are actually out there know, i am in the middle (i say middle, but have no idea how long this will take, so perhaps i should say at the start) of a total restoration of my 1968 Porsche.

here, thought i would post some pics of another restoration i did years (*gasp*) i mean over a DECADE ago.

the year was 1999 and much like the Prince song went, we were all preparing for a global meltdown when the "Y2K BUG" hit. remember that one?...

anyway, i always had a thing for that old pagoda style Mercedes SL. so after looking the better part of 3 yrs i found one located in RI through an auto broker from Germany who specialized in classic German autos.

Once again all the paperwork checked out and she wasn't too rusty, so after some haggling, i bought her. she came complete with her metal top as well. small snag was she was a direct import from Germany (had a really cool history about a woman who had her shipped over from her estate and had the vehicle in Palm Beach FLA. after she passed away all her vehicles were auctioned off by her estate and above named broker found her. she was at that time in RI) so i had to spend a lot of time in Weathersfield CT at CT DMV HQ getting all the paperwork together. -for those of you who have never had the pleasure... it's like flipping the switch on a flux capacitor and traveling back to Mayberry RFD. - i think even Goober was there... i remember now i actually had to FLATBED it up there. eeks. NOT for the faint of heart.

unfortunately these are some of the only pics i have of her when she was done. -this was of course before digital photography was the norm, so please excuse the poor photos. i'll pst more if i can locate them.

had a great mech in Southport CT named Ward Jennings do all the work. those guys really knew their stuff! then had Gregg at Fairfield Auto do all the interior. got all the new hides from Worlwide -as per norm.

took about 1 year to complete. and was a blast to drive. i think max HP was like 90. -but she wasn't about getting there fast!

sold her to a good friend whose wife fell in love with it. nice to see her again...

THE BRAKES IS BROKE! -The Porsche saga part deux

2009-09-22T18:42:00.001-07:00

Welp, the seasons are a changin’.. so it looks like one of the world’s slower moving projects has turned a bit.

Okay, on this episode, we have successfully rebuilt the brakes on the 1968 912.

-Hey look, there's Frank in the background! -Boy, he sure looks happy!

This was a bit tough, as they were the original EVERYTHING. So, we had to coat the calipers and let them sit for a bit, as the rear were frozen and I really didn’t want to cut them.

Had to order THREE (!) different sets of front discs to get the right set. It’s a long story… trust the guys at Sierra Madre Collection on the west coast and NO ONE ELSE. -they know their stuff!

Anyway, we replaced all the lines (went for rubber. Something tells me I will be replacing these again come spring with a set of braided stainless.) pads, brake grommets, discs, calipers front and rear and the bleed valve screw.

-A pretty tough job bleeding them btw. You have to do it like three of four times, as air seems to get stuck.

Also replaced the master cylinder and brake relay.

Whew.

Now about that rust…

Stay tuned.

Peace,
joe

1985 560 SL and a NEW BATHTUB!

2009-09-22T17:43:00.001-07:00

Since we have a bit of time to kill on our hands with the Porsche rebuild, I thought I would take a stroll down memory lane.
So here is my old 1985 560 sl. -I did a frame off an old ’66 230 sl, but that’s for another day/night…

This one was okay. NOT my favorite. Bought her from a painter in SanFran. He had work done on it in a local MB shop and couldn’t afford to get her back out. So we struck a deal and i couldn't resist, as I had fond memories of my old 230 Pagoda. -SHOULD have bought another one of those...

Anyway, had it shipped back to the East coast. She was pretty beaten down when she arrived. -But her back-story checked out and her records of ownership (a one-owner. she had belonged to said painter’s sister. She moved, sold it to her baby brother, etc).

Anyway, when I find the old before pics I will add then.
HEY, here they are. -man, the interior was like a -15 on a 1-10 scale. seeing these old pics really makes me question my sanity.

and the paint job looked really great from about 50 ft... at night...or in a low rez photog in blinding daylight. but i digress...

Oh, there’s the original tool kit, WITH that little top clamp thing.

Changed the serpentine belt. Had a heckofa time getting the timing right… anyway, then the usual: wires, plugs, all major fluids changed out. She also had a broken motor mount (?). Might have been from the cross-country transport.

Stripped all her paint off and had her repainted the picked up a new set of MB disc rims and a sexy set of Dunlop’s from the fine folks at The Tire Rack.

After the paintwork was done I dropped it over at Fairfield Auto Upholstery (as usual) and let Gregg work his magic with the new hides, dash, top and carpet coming from World Auto Upholstery.
She was pretty fine.

Strange end to this one. Kells and I are at the Home Depot in Westchester NY and a guy comes up to me in the parking lot. We make a deal right there, he follows us home (with his wife).

They stop at the bank on the way and I signed her over to him.

If we had never gone to look at bathtubs, we’d probably still have her.

-Actually, probably not.

Peace,
Joe

Porsche saga… take 1 or “On a quite night you can hear it rusting in the garage…”

2009-08-23T04:06:00.000-07:00

Once again here I stand. On the cusp of the abyss. -This next story is not for the faint of heart.
I had been looking for a 1968 901 body styled Porsche for some time. I had come across over the decades, several –and been damn close. But there was always something wrong.
I fixed my sights on this year for me because as most know it is the last year of the 3” inch shorter wheelbase. -And I really had a thing for the originality of that 4-banger 356 engine, so I would be looking for a 912 which narrows the scope a bit.

Okay, enough about my theories. The rubber hit the road on this:
A 1968 912 with 66k ORIGINAL miles. ONE owner car from Westchester County New York.

Here’s our story: about 2 years ago I heard through another member of the PMCA that a neighbor of his had an old 912 that was sitting in his garage and he would look into it for me if interested. As always (and I always say the same thing) I said sure. Great.

About a month later he called and said he drove down to the guy’s house and had a cup of coffee with him. The guy brought him out to the garage and took the oily cover off. There sitting (and rusting) was his father’s 912. It seems his dad had it imported and bought it through his company back in 1968. –he had ALL that documentation, etc from Stuttgart btw (!). –this is the way it was done back in the 60’s, you worked through one or two importers to get your vehicle.
So my friend told him about me and my pursuit. The guy said he really didn’t want to sell the car. He had been planning on restoring it as it had belonged to his father (and his dad had passed away a decade earlier). He added he had it on the road last in 1989 and drove it for about a month or so. Nonetheless, he wasn’t interested right now. They said goodbye and parted ways. The owner added if he changed his mind, he would let my friend know.
So often when buying an older car it’s like a dance. You go back and forth.

So I let it rest for about 4 months. Then called my friend again and we chatted. It seems that the Porsche guy had been thinking about it and had a change of heart. But he wanted to know my intentions. Since my friend had an established relationship, I told him to tell the guy about my long standing PMCA relationship as well as Porsche being a client of mine. So after another month or two we finally agreed on a price. I sent the flatbed out to pick her up –and then she was mine.

First thing we did was bring her over to Frank’s. once there, we put her on the lift. She had some pretty bad rust, but we’ll get to that later. –she also had a really poor paint job done at some point in the 70’s.
We tapped the gas tank and the jelly-like gas came out. We then hooked up an air compressor and blew back through the system (and out through the tank) the remainder of the fuel.

Then we drained the oil, changed all the filters, replaced the destroyed fuel lines, new plugs and points (fun to say that word again!) sprayed the carbs with gumout and WHOLLA! She turned over! A LOT of smoke, but she was alive!

Stay tuned…

NEXT CARB REBUILD, BRAKE REBUILD and the new body parts..

Peace,

Joe

The Good, The Bad and The JAG...

2009-08-20T02:47:00.000-07:00

at least once in every car guy's life he finds himself at that threshold of rational thought and emotional. advice: if you're feeling even a LITTLE bit emotional when you look at an old Jaguar, WALK AWAY AND TAKE A COLD SHOWER or do your taxes or something else that is a buzz-kill IMMEDIATELY.

i did none of these things.

i fell in love with the idea of this: my 1996 Jaguar XJS. did a TON of research, joined Jag forums, etcetc. and ended up with the idea that this, the last generation of the xjs made in '96 and primarily built by Ford was the highest quality for this model.

so i drew up the criteria: southern car, preferably east coast, though not from FLA. one owner, all books and records. -and any color but white.

took about 6 months to find this one:

from VA. one owner (guy bought it and lost it in divorce settlement, you'll catch the IRONY on this in a moment). it hadn't been driven in a while and was not my first choice, but i discovered the field is somewhat limited for these cars. -the paint had completely oxidized.

found (through Jag forums) a GREAT mech down there. actually wired the money to him and he bought the car for me.

took about 2k worth of work to get her road worthy for the drive back up north. had to do a brake rebuild, new rubber, new wires, new sparks, flushed al systems including the tranny (which can be dicey).

he had a great quote when i went down to pick her up from the guy that owned the repair shop. "you ever own a Jag before?" he asked. "no, but i'm pretty excited about it! i love how the xjs looks. sexy, you know? -looks a bit like a woman." i replied.

"i own a couple" he said. "what's ownership like? i asked.

he looked up from his paperwork and said "you ever been married?"

"yep" i said "-so they're like a wife?"

he looked at me and went on: "ever been divorced?..."

"uh, yep. so they're like an X wife? -got it." i said.

"an ugly divorce..." he added. "-...so...they're like an angry X wife?" i asked, my voice trailing.

"yeh." he said then paused before adding "-they're like an angry X wife. -who's WICKED hot and is a complete bitch about it."

great. and that pretty much sums up Jag ownership.

with that bit of info, i jumped into my hot, bitchy, angry future X and drove her back to CT.

-man, how UGY are those stock Jag rims btw? ...had the interior cleaned and repaired (including the rip) by the amazing Greg at Fairfield Auto Upholstery. wow, is that guy good. -there's a pic of that further down.

-ahhhhh, here's how she came out... click on these pix and see how amazing the paint looks. -nice job as always Peter.

then had some additional mech work done. really had trouble starting her up. after spending another 2k or so trying different things found out from Jag "yeh, sometimes we get that. might need a new computer. cost about 3k. might not fix the problem though. we've seen it go away on its' own sometimes..." now THAT'S reassuring.

anyway, with bringing in all the details, then gave it to the guys over at Coatling's. there they stripped her down to the bare metal, got the original paint from Jag and repainted her. -filling all the door dings with lead -and taking all the badges off.

i also picked up a set of custom rims and (again) new rubber.

after all that work, we did get divorced after all. i ended up selling her to my Dad.
-my X now lives in FLA and requires the same amount of attention... i really don't think she's angry.

-sure is pretty though...

peace,

Joe

The definition of insanity...

2009-08-18T17:54:00.000-07:00

in some Eastern religions it is said you repeat your life over and over until you finally get it right. -at least i think i heard about that from watching Groundhog Day too many times. -or is that the definition of some form of mental retardation?..

much in this spirit i hunted down another convert.

i looked at about 15 and made offers on 4 of them. finally on the coldest day in Feb i found my way to some remote part of Jersey drove home this: a 1991 900T with about 180k on it. sure she had some issues. but let's be honest here, so do i. she was a one owner from the Jersey shore, a corporate lease that he woman fell in love with and purchased outright after the lease term ended. all books and records from new (including ALL service) AND the original sticker. so, after doing all homework and finding it all it all checked out, i brought her home to begin her as the next Franken-saab winter project.

Here's what she looked like the day we bought her:

she was pretty rugged. she actually looks kind of nice here in the photos. -first off changed the oil, plugs, wires, fuel filters. then started with the brakes. changed the pads, then replaced the aging spent shocks with a new set of Bilsteins. then patched a piece of pipe that really just need a new clamp. new vacuum lines and sent her over to Frank, the guy who can work magic on my cars. -more about Frank later when we get into the Porsche Project.

he took care of a coolant problem and also a slight loss of pressure issue.

hey, remember those RIMS?... me too. so i searched around and found a set on craigslist in Ohio. had them shipped. put some new rubber on them and put spacers in the rear springs (VERY important btw, otherwise your car will bottom out over every bump).

turned to the interior next. i removed the old speakers, took apart the doors and replaced the really bad porn of the 80's Saab felt fabric with some cow skin the i picked up on ebay. and fit that in. then filled a syringe (we have kids) with black calking and filled the cracks in the dash. sanded and hit with a light coating of kryon FLAT black plastic paint.

then purchased some leather dye from World Auto Upholstery to re-dye the interior leather. THIS place ROCKS. i have been using them for like a decade ( 'www..worlduph.com'). again more about them later in the Porsche Project.

now i REALLY needed to find an SPG panel kit. so scrubbed the internet. looked on ebay for a while. but all of them were going for 1k+. -so i posted a personal ad on saabnet and struck a deal with a guy from St.Louis.

it took him about a month and half to send me the (almost) entire kit. one. piece. at. a. time. AND THE RAILS.

also located a boot on ebay. as original was destroyed.

sanded them down and purchased some SEM bumped paint. took like 7 coats with wet sanding. then used ULTRA flat hunting Krylon paint for the wheel arches.

i vowed to never again install a set of these... so this time i didn't!
got the guys over at Coatling's Auto body to do it for me. they're GREAT guys and Peter is a ROCK star. they painted the Jag for me, which we'll talk about later.

anyway, enough about this vehicle. she's pretty much done form the moment. couple more things need to be done, but she looks and drives great...AND she's an AUTOMATIC! :)

peace,

Joe

SPG/Flooring

2009-08-18T16:51:00.000-07:00

Here's an SPG that i came into in kind of a weird way. -i swear to God these cars just FIND me.

anyway, when we built our home, one of the guys who worked on the project did all the flooring. actually, all our flooring was what they call "saved flooring" which means it all came form an older building somewhere in New Hampshire.

so, the guy who does the deal with us is to deliver "x" amount of flooring against a specific price. trouble was after we settle on a [rice, turns out that we're short some flooring -and the guy cannot get any more. long story short, instead of taking a refund, i end up with this. a 1991 (again!) saab SPG with about 100k on it.. nice ride, solid car. i ended up turning it over within a month or two to a mechanic in south norwalk. -turned a profit on this one... go figure.

peace,

Joe

Saab story... THE RIMS! -oh and the car too.

2009-08-16T01:48:00.000-07:00

welcome back. -if you left.

okay, so remember those rims from the old toaster/covert 900T?

well, here is where they ended up/why i purchased them.

here's my next dabble into the topless arena.

she was a '91 900T in that kinda weird color green. NOT the goodgreen used on the legit SPGs. -hey! you can see our old G-WAG there in the garage in our

not-yet-but-so-damn-close-to-being-completed house construction... -but one blog at a time.

i picked this one up from a guy i knew selling/parting out his dealership. we made a deal on this old automatic that he had with (surprise!) a bad tranny.

so, we struck a price ( i wanna say like 2k?...and i wrote him a biz plan) and i went onto saabnet looking for a decent low mileage manual tranny. found one, had it shipped and replaced the old with the new(er). pretty easy swap from manual from auto.

added a set of aero skirts i found also i think on saabnet from a guy out in god's country mid-west. nice guy as i recall though. i think his name was Abe and he took them from his daughter's old rusted out SPG that had been sitting in his barn since she went out Cali, having gotten married -and left her old spent SPG behind.

man, what a PAIN IN THE ASS it was to put those skirts on. i'll NEVER do that again... (until my next one).

anyway, she was a GREAT CAR. but...we just had our second son. and Kells could not/does not -save for the practice time she put in on our 911 ;) drive a standard -and it really didn't make sense to keep her on with like 5 other cars already under our wing. so, rather depressed, i put her on the scalping block known as Ebay -and way she went...

*footnote: sold her to a self-proclaimed Saab FREAK from (gasp) Colorado. he flew out and drove her back. he then called me days later trying to scam me out some dough, claiming that the timing chain had snapped and the car was in the middle of a cornfield somewhere. REALLY? timing chain SNAPPED? -hard to believe on a car with only about 70k original...that i drove every day for about 2 yrs... NEVR heard of a chain snapping on a 900. neither had anyone else. be careful on Ebay...

**ANOTHER footnote to that footnote: found out the story was bogus about six months later when i was contaced by a woman who had just purchased the vehicle and was tracing the history of the car. she bought it. it is still running happily,. she was nce. i sent her any addnl info i had on the car. happy ending. :)

peace,
Joe

Saab story.. FIRST TOPLESS

2009-08-16T01:28:00.000-07:00

i'm starting out the convert stories here. so this one pictured was a NOTSOGREAT example. i purchased form a guy up in Barnstable MA for about 500 bucks. i wanted the rims, but made a deal with the guy to BUY THE WHOLE CAR for about 500 bucks.

seemed like a pretty good deal to me.

anyway, i took my chances and decided to try and drive her home. she limped the long drive. -drinking anti-freeze like kool-aide on a hot summer day... but she made it.

i owned her about a year-ish and drove her (BONUS) pretty regularly. -tough to kill, those old 900's. she had a cracked head (kind of rare for a Saab) and about 300k on it, veyr sloppy tranny (-you know the kind where you have to HOLD IT IN FIRST). trashed the car but saved those rims/tires that were taken from a 9000. -we'll see those again later.

dunno where she is now. perhaps a toaster somewhere out west... ride/toast on old girl.

peace,
joe

A SAAB Story... the start.

2009-08-16T01:26:00.000-07:00

okay, so it started out simple enough. when i was a kid, say 11 or so, there was a friend of mine in our small New England town of Madison CT whose older brother had recently come back form college out in Colorado. after 6 yrs of college he almost had his degree.

-anyway, his name was Steve and aside from being able to do this really cool flipping of his cigarette from his middle finger and thumb, he was the best skier any of us had ever known. when he came back with his many pairs of skis strapped to his roof rack on his Saab 99 turbo, i just knew... this was (one of) the only car(s) for me.

here's a couple of pics. -btw how f*cking cool is that snow rally pict?

so that i think is what started it for me...

got my first 900 turbo one junior year of college (1985) and have owned 6 total.

i'll post as i go.

peace,
joe

WELCOME TO THE GARAGE

2009-08-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

Hi, glad you find the garage out here in the virtual universe. i set up this blog to keep a record of my ongoing obsession with certain cars -and my repairs to them. my wife Kelly indulges me on this quest... so stay tuned. THANKS!