It is Definitely a Sickness

In partnership with my body man I have completed four frame-up restorations, and I am working on my fifth.

Lately I seem to get more frustrated than ever looking for tools and parts that I know I have, but somehow I cannot find them. Sometimes it just doesn’t seem to be as much fun as when I was younger. Maybe that is just old age. I say to myself that “I have to stop doing this and get rid of some of these cars” – I still have twelve. I don’t know why, but I always find myself looking at eBay and Craig’s List for other MGAs. At car shows I am always available to listen to someone’s story about the car they have been working on for many years.

This summer at the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix I met one of these people. This year I had a banner up for NAMGAR and was trying to promote membership in our club. A person named Bob came up to me and introduced himself. He said he had an MGA that he had been working on for thirty years. He told me the year of the car, and then told me all the things he had done to the car. It was quite a long list of work. He wanted to know what it was worth. I was not too encouraging. What I said was it is not worth what you have in the car if you do not finish it. I gave him my phone number but I did not expect to here from him.

Here I am, three months later and frustrated with the completion of my fifth restoration, and thinking I should start to sell some of my projects, when I get the call from Bob. I need another car like I need a hole in my head, but I just can’t help myself. On the way out to look at the car I tell myself, “he will want too much, or the car will not be what he said it was”. When we get there the car is everything that he said it was. Motor professionally rebuilt, carbs and transmission rebuilt by John Twist, and the body looks to be almost ready for paint. I am sure there will be some parts missing, that is always the case, but the question now is what is the asking price? Well the price wasn’t too bad so here I am with another MGA. Again I wonder how many of our MGAs are out there just waiting for one of us?