The Resurrection of #22579

You've obviously never met someone who's good at good first impressions to draw in the crowd. All would have appeared to be wonderful, and on the phone, all was.
As already stated several times, this was never a $60K all-in project, and the final $24K purchase of someone else's car I'd just paid to restore was a complete shock.

 

2a) Brett was acting as broker in exchange for getting the restoration job.
2b) Only after the $24K, but as already noted, there was no issue mentioned months earlier when I was going to try to get the registration in Texas started. I was about to be sent, when I found out that the car had to physically be here to start the process, so I cancelled it.....which I now know I shouldn't have.
2c) When I finally spoke to Larry and found out that the whole context of the sale situation was misrepresented, he told me that he had also only received $5K of that initial $17,500 transfer for which I received the BOS. I don't know if he ever received anything more in between that and the $24K that went directly to him at the end.

We did communicate constantly, and I received update photos of work being done on a regular basis, only a few of which I have already posted in the early pages of this thread.

You are correct in that the body/paint/reassembly was botched at each stage. In an upcoming email, I even make a case for how if we completely ignored all of the body and paint issues and assumed a fantasy PERFECT paint job, it was comprehensively destroyed during reassembly by the expert I had trusted, whether Brett did it himself or just oversaw it, and that were numerous examples coming through his shop regularly, in case the assembler had never seen one of these cars and Brett was nowhere to be found.
Brett was the "Gatekeeper" as full_garage put it, at every stage.

It all amounts to lots of time and effort expended to produce what's in the pics, and garage.
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As Brett just posted in #92, we're now back to $5,000 for the paint and body. A couple more pages, and it'll come out that it actually was MAACO.

Somehow, though, a couple of nice aspects to the drive now seem to constitute a change from an implied acceptance of the whole car, to a sudden case of displeasure and anger on my part now. Mind you, the comments on the engine is after James had done what he could with the jetting and timing, while waiting for bigger jets to arrive, and it still doesn't pull like it should, but as already noted, James only spent enough time on it to get to so I could drive it to get estimates. The engine really did sound like a hunting party and a huge flock of ducks with the Canadian gas........
The sound referenced in that email and in Brett's post above was actually a complement to his choice of exhaust to put on it. It was unnoticeable during the "Duck Drive".
As his pictures show, it really is stunning from the right distance. In person, that happens to be about 30 feet.

As for addressing the bow in the trunk, bonnet, door fit, etc.? Same way every body shop does. Panels should line up, even if gaps are slightly off. If Brett was under the impression that this was a $60K restoration on top of the $41K that only he knew about, or even the $17,500, and then backed out the additional $24K, as already covered a couple of pages ago, it's still a $42,500 remaining in the restoration budget of an unwrecked car. With such a budget in HIS mind, WHY would someone throw a $6,500 (or $5,000....what day is it?) paint job on this?
I was clear from before buying the car the first time that I wanted that "basically 30+ year old new car" for myself as a Driver, but in the Deflections and Stepping email of April 16, pointed out:

"...."Driver" is not synonymous with "110,000 mile Toyota Sentra"; to think so, to expect someone else to, is synonymous with Wrong...."​

Yes, I actually said "Toyota Sentra". Adrenaline and a furiously racing mind will do that.

Now, back to Shining The Light......On Quality!!

 

Heck, I didn't get the call until Sunday night. Any time you're up this way, give me a ring. We were so concentrated on what we were expecting to see that it never occurred to me that we might be down near your neck o' the woods; we were all the way down in Palmer. You should see this place - absolutely mind-boggling, and then they told us that the really nice places are in Argyl.

Instant Inferiority Complex.

We may go back again Saturday just to look some more.

 

My eyes.....They burn......BUT I CAN'T LOOK AWAY ! ! !​

Annnnnnnnd, we're back.....

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: B P 8
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2012 02:41:45 +0000

Continuing, with the right rear quarter window....

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- (0420) Both the mini-air scoop at the top of the trim piece, and the extreme angle of the top screw (look at teh angle of the head; its CL actually shoots to my left from this pic's vantage point) indicate just how severely this is twisted. The middle screw may be, oddly, the closest to correctly installed of all six on both sides. The trim against the glass gaps larger as it gets to the top, where the unfinished section is........not even sure how to describe it, other than unfinished, red and all.
In the background, behind the glass, you can see where I found some of that missing black leather - the rear package shelf, where an equal amount of the excess black UltraSuede that was left-over.

- (0432) A higher view, what one sees approaching the car. The amount of red increases as it nears the door, as the "unfinished-ness" just continues. Even at this perpendicular angle to the car, you still get a strong view of that top screwhead, the surface where the screwdriver inserts.
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- (0426) Front end of the rain rail, with another way-too-big screw head. Also, the jagged split as it rounds into the roof is another surprise for someone who's just been told everything that was done to this car.
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- (0402) A quick run down that A-pillar for a quick look at the opposite corner of the hood from the earlier-noted scraping and chipping (in B P 2)
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- (0446) Speaking of runs, this one, you can certainly see, formation assist by gravity to give it extra height.
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- (0449) Above that run, more burned paint on the wheel arch. Smile, the rear arches weren't burned (that I noticed, but I was focused on more glaring issues)
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​

I was wrong about the rain rail being ripped in pic0426 - it's not. It was off of the body just enough for the point to catch my skin as it slid over it after I took the pic of the oversized mystery screw.
The tape in pic0402 is holding the windshield trim so it can set, after being applied to the new windshield. Getting the camera to focus on this one point last week was nearly impossible, and this was the best I could get.
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The burned paint in pic0449 is difficult to see in that pic, even blown-up, because the white messes with the camera in bright sunlight. I'll get another pic, if anyone doubts it.

This stuff happened after it left Brett's shop? Huh?