Hello Everyone,
I wanted to check and report on one of the final IM builds. My 75 year old mother-in-law decided last year to commission an IM (!) and has been anxiously awaiting it's completion. Due to all the changes at the company it is running a few months behind but she still hopes to take delivery of it this summer. And she now knows that she will have one of the final internal combustion engine cars built.
Due to serendipity, last year I was buying a part for my car on Craigslist and wound up chatting with the seller when I picked it up (it was just a glovebox flashlight). It turned out the seller was an electrician and further in to the conversation he revealed he was the electrician on staff at Intermeccanica, building wiring harnesses and various other things. This lead to an invitation to visit the new location in New Westminister, as I had always been interested and been a fan.
After my visit I had an old brochure given to me as a souvenir and it was on my dining room table when my mother-in-law was visiting. She asked what it was, I told her about IM and she flipped through the brochure and thought it was interesting. A few weeks later she was off to Ireland for a trip with my wife. Unexpectedly, during a call to check in from Ireland, she got on the line and asked me to send her 356 photos of various colour combinations. I was quite surprised and asked why and she said "Well, I'm thinking about having one of those built and I want to see how it looks in different colours."
When she returned I took her and her husband to IM and Robert gave them a tour and explained the process and they left with more information and lots to think about. After another trip they met with Henry and went over a lot of possible details like carpet and trim colours, special options etc. Much to my amazement they decided to go ahead with a build and got very much in to the details, learning about all the options and tailoring the car to their vision.
You can see some of the early photos here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/...ms/72157673567373647 (there are more photos than this in the overall album but for some reason you can't see them here... I'll see if I can get IM to make them public).
The car is now back from paint and looks amazing in a deep dark Porsche/Audi blue like this earlier IM (she is also going with the blue top like this one):
The car will have a darker tan interior, chrome over riders, a Derrington wheel and a few other touches like Intermeccanica script on the tail as well as a custom "2 5 0 0" badge where the 1 6 0 0 would have been.
Power will be from an FI Subaru 2500 engine. As she doesn't drive a stick, she has opted for an automatic. The plan is for the car to get a Subaru auto but apparently Henry has been waiting on an adapter for the rear engine install of the transmission and it hasn't materialized. A company in Australia is supposed to make it but Henry intends to deliver the car with a VW auto and swap it if the adapter does become available in the future. It's a bit disappointing but it's more important that she have the car to enjoy now than wait on the part for an unknown amount of time.
If anyone has any final suggestions about things to be aware of or add, please let me know. I also have a question I want to ask and will make a separate post in this thread about it.
-Jeff
nice car
