What was YOUR "Day One" like?

Anybody got a story about their first day as a Speedster owner?

got a ticket for doing 185 in a 75

got some land in florida for sale also

i picked mine up from the DAS terminal in san diego and on the way home, it ran out of gas... then both head lights fell out and smashed into a million pieces as I was leaving the station. mine was not the best experience.

We are avid sailors and had a Catalina 38' sailboat (named Passing Wind - my wife wouldn't let me name it Deep Float), long story short, I was 'over it' and sold it.

Looking for a new toy I bought the Speedster (after a 6-month search). One of my first drives was by 'Passing Wind' at the marina and gazed at the hole in the water that I used to throw my money into.

Peace - Out!

Well Cory, as you already know, I bought mine on ebay. I had to fly to Melbourne, FL to get it. The guy met me at the airport and I was on the road in about 20 mins not knowing how far I'd get before having to call the flatbed to get it the rest of the way home? As luck would have it I made it all the way home (1100 miles) without a hitch! After the anxiety of it breaking down wore off (somewhere in the Carolinas) it was the most wonderful feeling, realizing a dream come true, I actaully had a tear in my eye for a bit cruising I-95 north, with the sun setting, in my Speedster.
It was Good Friday and my plan was to drive as far as I was able, get a hotel room and get home by noon on saturday. After getting caught in a vicious thunderstorm (lighting, hail, downpour)somewhere in southern Virginia and without the top, I was not having any luck getting a room with the holiday travel going on. So, finally around 2:30am I found a room and with 3 hours sleep got up and made it home by noon.
Had it home for one day and the clutch cable snapped, I looked at it as a blessing.


Cory,
Sorry for the "no call" sunday. Apparently my wife had other plans for me. I'll call you soon to explain.

After coming back from Europe,I was sick with 103 temperature. I got the call at 6:00am to go pick up the car from the terminal. It was cold,cloudy with a very good chance of rain. The drive to the terminal was 25min from my house,and as soon as I put the key in the ignition,hail broke loose. It rained so hard,you could only go 45-50mph on the hwy. It took almost an hour to get home. The top was up with no windows. I froze my butt off.
When I got home,I changed my clothes,and with a blanket over me,sat in the garage looking at my speedster.

I don't have an amusing story to tell but I can say it's just great to see that car in the parking lot at the docks waiting for you! In that first drive with the top down you feel like James Bond; that's until it grows old because of people not only staring at you all the time but actually invading your privacy, sometimes with stupid remarks triggered by envy. That's when you start using your top up most of the time. Except here the past few days it's been incredible so I've used the car with the top down a couple of times, believe it or not!

My first day was a little different.

The guy I bought it from made a 900 trip from Fl. to drop it off. He shows up at Noon with a flatbed full of stuff in boxes and a paste white tub. We spent an hour or so throwing all the "stuff" on to my yard, and then 30 minutes talking about our projects. Then as quick as he show'd up, he was gone. I think he drove back to FL. I still can't believe he made that run. It stands out as one of the most insane things anyone has ever done in my book.

I spent the rest of the day with the tub upside down in my grass trying to seperate teh subframe for the tub.

2 days later I got a letter for my Homes Association asking me not to Play "Sandford & Son" in the neighborhood.

It is a good memory.

What did you do then Todd? I would've called them "Dummies".....

By the way, you car is coming along very nicely....looks real good!

I didn't get to be the one to drive my car off the hauler. Charlie Raines was driving the fire truck that day, and I was at work with my Navy job. He backed it off and parked it.
I'd have probably put a mile or two on it, if I was him. Man, but I was a happy camper when he called.

The spyder's Day One was pretty interesting...

We had been building the car in the garage. The car was unpainted, still in gel coat. No headlamps/taillamps, just big holes. No interior, no doors. There was no exhaust system. ZERO, not even headers...

We put together enough wires to light the monster up. No leaks, so we decided to drive it. We called my mother-in-law so she could document the event. After about 20 minutes of warm-up (and engine break-in), we were ready to go for a drive. STeve hops in and I get in the passenger side. As he is backing up, he says "wow, this is weird, the shift pattern is not where I thought it would be..."

Took a few tries to find first and then the problem was apparent. When the transaxle had been overhauled, the tech had flipped the ring and pinion. We had five reverse and one forward gear. Steve drove a few yards SUPER LOUD accelleration and then the steering went all funny. At some point, we had removed a lower suspension bolt to find a higher grade one - and forgot to put it back in- DOH!

Fixed that, fired it up again. As we only had one forward gear, STeve put it in reverse and began going REALLY fast assbackwards through the neighborhood shifting the car. People are standing in their yards looking at this WOOH HOOO!!

Now my turn. The mother-in-law (Linda) hops in. I can't reach the pedals so Steve throws a 12-pack between my butt and the firewall to let me get the pedals. All is good, I'm driving the spyder and then I ROMP on it. Car shoots forward like a tiger with a hot saki enema. Then the steering wheel comes off (no bolt securing it - just temporary sitting in position). I don't stop, just keep rolling along trying to line up the splines. Linda starts SCREAMING, I'm so startled by her screaming I nearly drop the wheel. Finally I get it back on and the rest of the drive goes fine.

Nothing caught on fire. Everybody lived. The neighbors cheered and I regained my hearing a few days later.

In hindsite, a few more days of "building" would have been appropriate before the drive. Appropriate, but no where near as fun!
angela

Cool thread!

I drove down to San Diego to pick up my Speedie. The week prior to picking up the car and the morning of was absolutely beautiful - Mid 70's all week long. The car was in Ocean Beach so driving it away for the first time along the coast was certainly a treat. Stopping for gas, I remember gazing at the car and literally couldn't believe it was mine.

After pumping the gas I thought I'd bring it by my buddy's house in Carlsbad on the way home. At the freeway offramp the car died - the starter solenoid had a hot-start problem and had to push the car off to the side to let the starter cool off. Luckily, I was able to pick up a new starter that day and as such, was able to replace it on my buddy's driveway.

By the time I was back on the freeway on my way home it was nighttime. Clouds seemed to form almost instantaneously and I ended up driving it home in the POURING rain (80 miles with NO top). Somewhere in the San Clemente area a Mercedes Benz 380SL Roadster passed me with his top down too and the guy also honked and waved as he went by! Ironically, I sold my own 380SL after 12 years of ownership to buy this Speedie.

The next day ended up being bright and sunny. I pulled the car out to clean it up and ogle a little more. Still can't believe I own my dream car... I'd been wanting one of these forever.

Not sure which "day one" to tell about so I'll do 'em all. The first "day one" was when I got to Carlisle this year and saw the car in the build area. I've been told that I was like a kid at Christmas. I couldn't contain myself. I also couldn't really believe it was mine.

The second "day one" was the next day when we fired it up for the first time and did the victory lap at the fairgrounds. Man what a rush. Of course there were a few things that needed adjustment, such as the steering which would go left just fine, but right turns required about an acre to complete :-).

And finally, the third "day one" was when Kevin Hines delivered the car to me in Charleston, SC after driving down from Bremen, Indiana. It was a work day and I took part of the day off to wait for him. It was in the 90's and humid as hell, and poor Kevin got lost. Once we got to the house and unloaded the car we sat inside and cooled off for a bit. He left and I went to work, although my mind was NOT very focused that afternoon. First very illegal drives that evening were wonderful. Happily I still get all excited when I have a chance to take it out for a run.

The car arrived on my 30th birthday last December - best present ever. During transport the horn button became lodged in the steering wheel so that as soon as you turned the key the horn sounded - and didn't quit. Fixed it pretty quickly, and pissed off the neighbors in the process. I couldn't drive it until it was registered and had plates, so I spent the afternoon driving it around my subdivision - top down and 36 degrees outside! Needless to say, a week later I had the flu.

My first day was last year in December. I got the delivery of my new Vintage on the day of my birthday. The car arrived absolutely dirty inside and out. The bumper was scratched from being put on the flatbed. I had to clean the car in below freezing weather just to make sure it was not scratched anywhere else. The picture below shows the car right after I washed it. You can see the water is starting to freeze up on the bricks.

I just stood there with my hands frozen enjoying the beauty for the first time. I then realized that the car was saying it had no gas. I figured something was wrong with the needle as how could it possibly be on empty?????

Drove it to the gas station with no plates, no registration and a whole lot of fear of getting pulled over. I then realized for the first time that quite often people want to ask you questions about the car.

800 smiles later I am getting it ready for a hopefully not to long winter. Lets hope for no snow and lots of mild weather and a quick spring in the Northeast.


Andres D.

oops wrong picture. This is the right one

Day One - kind of.

A friend of mine was already planning a trip cross country to pick up some parts so offered to pick up my speedster kit since CMC wanted a few thousand dollars to ship. He drove from his home in San Diego straight through to Miami, Florida 2700 miles in 31 hours, averaging 90+ mph (including stops) in a Ford Ranger pulling a car trailer. Yes, he

When I picked up my Speedster I had a few days in Vancouver to give it a shake down cruise before heading south to meet Scott Sloan and Terry Vallon on the trip to Knotts. I drove it east early in the morning from Vancouver on Hy 1 to Hope, BC and then north along the Frazier River Gorge on the old Trans-Canadian Highway 12 with two lanes dropping off into the gorge and the Canadian Rockies on all sides with snow at the upper elevations. This part of the trip was made top down. Turning west at Lillooet I pulled up the top and turned on the defrost as I climbed into the snow (roads were good) on a high road to Whistler and raced a BMW 3 series most of the way, leaving them behind on a sweeper above a glacier lake. The snow turned to light showers as I descended Hy99 The Sea To Sky Highway in reverse and pulled into IM's shop at dark to join Henry and his family at dinner. Over 300 miles of SEG driving on Day 1. Days 2 and 3 were spent on shorter runs and day 4 I drove it tagged, titled and Visa in hand into the US on my way south.

Visited John Steele's shop on Saturday, as was my habit. It was a two hour drive thru Los Angeles traffic just to get to JPS. John said "it's driveable, but not ready for delivery yet. Go put 100 miles on it." He directed me how to get from his shop to Mulholland Drive. Beautiful day, beautiful road. Drove Mulholand one end to the other several times. Took a few pictures. Wandered down one of the canyon roads to the beach. Cruised around a bit. Never thought about how distance can be deceiving in a strange city, and having gotten up at dawn, I was a bit tired of driving then. Brought car proudly back to JPS with "120" showing on the odometer. That's when John reminded that the instruments in my speedster were from a Euro-spec 924. In other words 120 KILOMETERS equals about 60 MILES.

Jim,
Was that the trip to Knott's where my son and I drove down in the spyder? If so - congrats - that was a wonderful first trip on your car. As I recall, you also meandered your way back home nicely after that.

Get well soon - your speedstah misses you (and we do too).
angela

I have two day ones. When I bought the red speedster it was in West Palm Beach FL. I bought it about six weeks prior to The big hurricane season but it didn't get on the the ttuck with DAS until the day before manditory evac was called. Man I was on pins and needles. After a few days it showed up here in MO. The guy called and said the battery was dead so a buddy and I grabbed the jumper cables and headed out.

Now this car had sat in a guys garage untouched for many years so lets just say it should have been towed home (Which was the original plan) but when I saw it I just had to drive it. I only lived 4 miles from the drop off so what the heck! The brakes were squishy, the gas tank was leaking (glad I paid for the top load, but the guys car below mine was a mess), one of the carbs was leaking, all the tires had flat spots and the car was gennerally rough. All things considered, that 912 motor was smoootthhh. Even after being unattended all that time. Anyway, ran out of gas within sight of the house. But it was great!

The second day one was when I bought the black flare. I drove 250 miles to meet the PO. We met in a Cracker Barrel parking lot. Another sad case of neglect. The poor car had flat black spray paint on the front apron and the car rattled everywhere. When I took a lap around the parking lot it left two trails of oil because the valve covers were leaking so bad. This is also when I discovered the Fiberfab Flaw. THe gas tank well was so deep that my foot hit it when trying to use the brakes! Bout lost it there. So I put it on the dolly and headed home. When I stopped for a break one of the front tires had worked almost loose from the straps holding it on the dolly. Whew! Glad I stopped. Rest of the trip was uneventful.

"Jim,
Was that the trip to Knott's where my son and I drove down in the spyder? If so - congrats - that was a wonderful first trip on your car. As I recall, you also meandered your way back home nicely after that."

That was the trip Angela. I drove on to Scott's where Terry Vallon joined in for the drive to Dale's. We met you and Eagle Point Bruce that morning.... it was great day for a drive, eh? Your Spyder sounded as good as it looks. Eddie Janis joined in when we crossed into CA. I have a few pics from Dale's BBQ that evening. Do you recall all the cars parked in his neighborhood and ON his lawn?!?!!! What a great trip that was.

Yeah, that was quite the scene on Dale's lawn! That exquisite IM with the whitewalls was there - whose car was that? I forget, but I remember it was being delivered to someone! And Henry was wrenching for someone else in the garage. It was also pretty cool that the neighbors kept coming over to check the cars out!

I hated that engine in the spyder. The current engine is WAY better. Absolutely zero drama. Alot of miles between Day One and now... Even more smiles!

angela

I have been fortunate enough to have 3 day one experiences....
#1 was a old IM Speedster that I bought completely disassembled but in a new Porsche Red Glasurite paint job. So, it came home on a flatbed. Every try to match up all the dashboard wires to all the correct locations when somebody has painted the entire harness red? Curse you Jim Adams! Oh by the way, when I looked at the odometer in the box it said 32 miles. I figured the thing didn't work. When I pulled the brakes, well rusted, they were brand new. The clutch was brand new. The engine was supposed to be 110 hp, I would guess 55 hp was closer, curse you Jim Adams. But the car was new, other than it had set in a field for 10 years and had only the rusted shells of floorpans.
#2 Was another old IM, bought it in South Houston, 30k miles, faded paint, faded interior, small dual carb engine, ran like a watch. Drove it home, had it painted, put in a new interior, put on a new top....great little car
#3 Spyder by TR, bought it without inspection from LA, had it trucked in. Door to door shipping means something different to Intercity than me...so I picked it up 2 miles up the road, truck wouldn't fit down our road....no electrical other than starter and ignition, truck dumped it right in rush hour, no turn signals, no brake lights...1600cc engine fired right, up ran like total crap...drove it home and then discovered one of the linkages had popped off a carb, so was running on one carb....installed the linkage, ran great, but immediately noticed 1600cc wasn't going to cut it....

All three were bargains, and all were great fun, but Jim Adams is still not on my Christmas list and I bought #1 from him in 1990!

Day one was....very exciting to go up to VS to pick up the car, the only sad part was that I didn't get to drive it home! I let Grant have the honors I figure I get to drive it all week if I like, so why not. On the way home Grant noticed some things that were wrong with the way the engine was running but they got fixed here by a local shop. That was our first day...~ Esther

A combination of excitment and "what the hell have I got myself into?"

Jerome

Seller was kind enough to trailer speedy up from San Diego. Took it for a 15 minute shake down everything seemed good, as we were doing paper work a business associate from a BMW repair shop dropped by to pick-up parts from seller (kill 2 bird at one time)he whispers to me had I known seller was selling speedy he would of bought it, than turns to me and offer 6k over the price I paid, of course I didn't sell but I do have his Phone #. Later that day after work I drove speedy home picked up wifey and went for a our first evening cruise on Pacific Coast Highway wind in our face, ocean view, sun setting perfect way to end a day. Cabanaboy - sweet memories!

Still anxiously awaiting my "day one"! Can't wait - it will be great to have a Speedy in my garage!

Sweet! Another one in the area! We're slowly building the Carolinas, along with Georgia and Tennessee into a hotbed of Speedy activity. I think you should plan a trip to the coast as soon as you get it - and email me so we can set up some sort of small gathering.

Will do Lane - How do you like your Beck? I think that is what I will be getting.

I'm very happy with it. This was the car that was built in two days at last year's Carlisle show. Take a look at my pictures in the gallery. I entered it in the Oktoberfest gathering of the local VW club and walked away with Best Paint, Best Custom, and Dealer's Choice (the show was at a local VW dealer). S'posed to be 65 here tomorrow and I may drive it to work. If you get a hankerin' for a road trip to the coast you're welcome to a test drive. PM me if you want my phone number. We can talk options, etc.

I proposed to my girlfriend of two years after a long first day driving it around; the whole time I was trying to get my nerve up to pop the question. Maybe the gas fumes helped her to say yes.

Hope you guys don't mind me raising this thread from the dead, but I noticed it searching for something else.

Glad you did. This is a fun one.

Stephen,
Yours is the best "first drive" yet!
angela

Stephan -

I think the thread is 'First Drive' not 'First Dive' (LOL)!

How could she not say YES after you gave her your best 'playa' move driving through Temecula wine country in your top down Speedster?!!
Here's wishing you two many more miles of Speedster nirvana!

Peace - Out!

Jim-- we did have a bottle of Temecula's finest; and a nice long walk through the vineyards too.

Got mine on eBay in early 2005. I was having a quarter-life crisis when I graduated college - the speedster was the only solution. I drove down to North Carolina with my little brother and a car hauler. On the ride down, the owner called to say that a valve spring had broken. This was a great sign since the motor was freshly rebuilt. Got the car back home and fixed the valve spring.

I had a milk crate as a seat and no windshield, registration, or rear deck lid. Just drove around the block. The car absolutely flew w/ the 912 motor in it. Once the interior was finished, I took my dad for a ride - with seats and everything. He had always wanted a speedster, but went through a bunch of 911s instead. We made it 4 miles when a horrible grinding noise occurred while driving up a hill - lost all power. Got the car back to the garage to find out the flywheel had fallen off. Obviously that motor was built by a real professional. After taking the engine out about 15 times to try to fix the oil leak that the flywheel had caused, I decided to get a different motor - a bone stock VW engine.

My first road trip was from Erie, PA to Pittsburgh when I started law school. It was about 6 months after I had purchased the car. Like many stories here, it was the worst rain storm ever. I had just installed the top, but didn't bother drill the holes for the side curtains. About 45 minutes into the trip, my passenger window blew out. I searched the side of the road for about 30 minutes in the pouring rain, but never found the window. Once I got started up again, the spring that holds the wiper to the windshield snapped on the driver's side, so I only had a wiper on the passenger side. I stopped at a gas station and bought 2 bottles of RainX. I had a bag of clothes in the back seat, and I used about 6 shirts on the trip to wipe off the windshield which was fogged up entirely. The next day, I used a bondo spreader and a bucket and got 3 gallons of water out of the car.

My hands are still pruned up from the wet and cold, and this was almost 2 years ago.

Adam - remember the Speedster mantra - "...the drive IS the adventure!"

Cool car!

Peace - Out!