22 July 2016

There is beauty in hardship, there are poems in grief

In some sort of cruel irony, the body guy contacted me the day after I started talks to sell the car.  He sent me photos of the work that was done to date and explained that they could be done by the end of August...at a cost, of course.  While I'm tempted to just finish the car and get the body painted, start putting it back together, etc. there's a lot of money that needs to be spent to get the car done.  A lot of money...as in 'close to $10k', at which point, I could sell the car and lose the same $5k I'm going to lose now but with a whole lot of additional work and time invested in the car.  So, after careful consideration, I've decided to just let go.

I was conflicted for a few days - thinking about how awesome it would be to start putting the car back together and finally see some progress after all of these years.  But I simply don't have the time and now that the idea of selling this car has been tabled, I've lost all motivation to do anything but get parts out so that I can ship them to the new owner.  I feel like this step is necessary to gauge my tolerance for keeping Nigel - I've been seriously considering a complete/permanent exit of the hobby.  I'm not totally ready for that drastic a step just yet but I do need to divest a bit.  Letting Ferris go to someone who will eventually rebuild him is a good interim move.

I'll admit, I've been near giddy with excitement in pulling out old bins, boxes and opening cabinets - in search of the parts that go with this car.  Realizing that nearly half of all of the stuff that's taking up every square inch of my garage will be gone in 2-3 weeks...there's a sense of relief that I didn't expect to feel.  I always envisioned having the finished car and driving it to visit the girl who drove it through college (she now lives in Ohio) so she could drive it one more time.  The hatch glass still has the sticker for her college on it.  I'm sure it would have put a smile on her face.  But that unwritten chapter is not to happen and will remain an unmet goal for this car.

The focus, for now, will be to keep as much of this car together as possible (the buyer already has the original interior to Ferris), get him shipped to California and get back on making Nigel as reliable as possible.  At some point in the near future, this blog will end and all of the 'action' will move to Nigel's blog.

Thanks for following along for whatever part of this journey you've taken in...it's been a journey that both took too long and ended too soon.


2 comments:

  1. I can understand where you are coming from. I just sold my 1975 super beetle. It was eating up too much time and money and I felt burned out. For now I'm stepping out of the VW scene. Who knows I may return someday. Best of luck to you though!

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  2. Thanks, Todd. Bummer to hear about your car...but you do what you have to and find a better place. It's similar logic to how I reached my conclusion.

    It's a tough place to acknowledge-being in over my head but it's important that I focus on one car now. If I don't find the ability to enjoy this hobby again, I'll exit.

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