What was I thinking? Part II
A couple of issues ago you may recall a photo in this column of a vintage Renault being installed in my garage with the optimistic comment that I was going to get it on the road for the Queen’s Birthday Weekend Irishman Creek rally.
Well, I came close, and with a little more application on my part I would have made the deadline but a month out I decided that it would be a close thing and I didn’t want to take on such a tough event in a unproven car… especially one I have been involved in bolting together.
So, as time and funds were short before the Renault’s arrival… why a few weeks ago was the ute again backing a trailer down my bloody driveway with another immobile car strapped thereon?
Well, sometimes a deal is simply too good to turn down and that is why a 1968 Peugeot 404 sedan now resides with me, and in my defence it isn’t all mine.
Photographer and seriously deluded Formula One aspirant Alex Mitchell has a share in the ownership of what will be decorated as an East African Safari winner (anyone got a spare 404 fuel injection head and manifold looking for a new home?) which is now refreshed from a 12-year slumber in a shed in Rolleston, up and running and providing comfortable and easily accessible transport for delivering E.S. Young to important appointments around town.
The real purpose will be for touring, and VCC sprints and hillclimbs.
Good, cheap and reliable fun which is easy to get bits for (should anything be needed) and did I mention cheap?
Finding somewhere to put the damned thing is another issue entirely.