I have a major gripe with Vintage Motor Cars...
A while ago I posted that I had been rear ended by a bubblegum snapping 25 year old who was texting and ran right into me. She was uninsured and I thought I was done. As it turned out Hagerty covered all of the damage to my car and were really super nice to deal with.
I called Roland at HB Aircooled at the time and asked what he thought I should do. I figured the motor was toast so he was the place to start. He said to take it to Greg at Vintage Motor Cars. I know a lot has been said about Greg on this forum and you would have thought that I would have listened but... I took my car to Greg anyway. Why? In or around 1998 or 99 I went over to Vintage to look at a Speedster. Greg's shop was right next door at the time. I walked around the corner and I saw what Greg was doing. There were Playboy magazines spread out across a table behind a fence. No that's not what he was doing... He was building Spyders on really well made hand-built chassis. I was very impressed. It impressed me enough that it halted me buying a speedster as I had to reassess what I really wanted in a replica car.
When I bought my car from Will P. I had to have the motor rebuilt and during that time I had discussions with Roland about Greg's Spyders and the subject of paint and finish came up more than once. Roland was impressed with the quality of finish on my car and said Greg's shop rivalled that.
I had my car towed to VMC the next morning. Greg and Alex took the car in and I had Hagerty contact them. After they assessed the damage I was very happy to hear that there was no frame damage or engine damage. They turned in the estimate, it was approved, and they began working on my car. I didn't go over there to look at the progress because, well, frankly I was sick about it. After a month I finally dropped by. I could not believe what I saw... there it was. Engine out, deck lid off, and the rear all patched up and sanded. It looked perfect. How in the hell did they do that?
During the process I had conversations with both Alex and Greg about cooling issues that I had with my car and that I felt it was bad enough I could not drive it in the summer months here. Alex made a couple of recommendations and I agreed. I posted some pics early on of the deck lid Carrera screen that Greg put in. Since the deck lid needed to be reworked anyway I thought it was a perfect time to put this screen in as I have always felt the engine needed more air flow from the top.
Greg runs a very busy shop over there and I had a lot of ideas while the car was apart like getting the gears ratios modified, getting a 1/2 inch lift to the rear of the engine to align the engine tin with the compartment for better sealing. Alex had to order a new Cal 56 custom license plate, and my fathers license plate frame was broken and had to be redone. I had put Euro tail light lenses over American wired tail lights so the brake and running lights were not correct. They came up with some very nice Euro lights and got them wired in correctly. Fact is I had a long punch list of things that I wanted done. These guys fixed everything and they put in a lot of extra effort and time in to complete the job so that I could attend the SLO meet. I put no pressure on these guys in fact I said I would rather put the SLO trip off to get the job done right and I am a stickler for done RIGHT.
So what does Greg do? He wants to get the car out of his shop and get payed so he rushed it. I know Alex was burning the midnight oil to get this done before SLO and you probably can all guess what the outcome was...
The car was, well, I went over there to pick it up. My first impression of the rear end of that car was that of total disbelief. It was like a magic wand had been waved and it all went away. It wasn't just the workmanship on the outside finish, when I raised the deck lid and looked inside at the workmanship there was not one sign of previous damage. It was perfect. In every way. Now... the gear ratio test. I had been looking at gear ratios for the last 2 years, had conversations with a few of you over it. I pretty much knew what I wanted and they got it done. Folks I cannot tell you how nice the right gear ratios make these cars drive.
So, in closing here are some pics of the car. The folks that attended SLO who knew I was in an accident can attest to what I am saying here. Greg, Alex, and crew were super attentive to my suggestions and many, many phone calls - even after hours! The cooling modifications, and I could not believe this, I checked and triple checked. We drove this car in 100 plus degree heat and the car ran at an unbelievable 200-205 degrees.
So what is my major gripe with Vintage Motor Cars? Well here it is... Greg let me test drive a Spyder that had similar gear ratios as the ones that I wanted for my car so I would know what I was getting myself into with the transaxle mod. The Spyder had a type 4 engine in it, it was beyond fast and it felt like a race car and now want a Spyder but I cannot afford one and I think he knew that would happen to me. It's cruel and it was down right mean given my personality type.
That aside - Thank you to all of you at Vintage Motor Cars. Job very well done.
It's the madness man, the madness...
