The project that never happened (archival)

[FairladySPL]

Unstarted Project
Good intentions fail to come to pass

A fellow Roadster owner in New York state recently landed a 311 that was configured just the way he wanted, It was a prolonged search, and he was understandably giddy that the car turned up, and that he could purchase it. Among the distinctive criteria, the interior. I was looking back on whatever happened to the red seats that came with my first 311, a 1968 1600. It too, was that sort of off-color white, with white visors. I didn't like either the visors or the seats, but the red door panels were fine.

So just now I was looking for a prospective high-res image to submit to Ted Heaton for the upcoming 2024 Roadster Calendar (details on 311s.org) and I found the destination for the red seats!

This particular 311 was a late 1969 SPL, although back in the late 1970s I didn't know that my own car, titled as a 1969, had some significant differences. I had bought this one as a parts car, and never took off more than the seats and a couple of taillight housings.

The story behind the car shown makes me feel nostalgic. I was still in college, didn't really have a place to keep it, but enlisted the storage of a high school chum of mine, who kept a bunch of broken down push mowers in this shed behind his mother's house. It was just big enough to roll the roadster in there, where it sat for at least five years. When his Mom decided to sell the house and property, I had to move it out. I sold it to the gentleman shown in these images, name lost to history.

The car itself has its own story. I saw it listed in a newspaper classified (remember them?) in the Washington Post. A somewhat anxious woman answered the phone, and said DC city government was about to impound the car because of an accumulation of parking tickets and expired registration. If I were to pay off the balance due, the car could be mine. Otherwise, she would be unable to renew her driver's license or the registration on her other car.

I don't remember that the balance due was much more than a couple hundred dollars, which was a lot for an underemployed college student. But I knew, even in the 1970s, that I would be a long term owner of the 311. She took my cash, ran to the government building, paid off the fines, cleared the title and signed it over to me.

So what was wrong with the car? Besides sitting for a couple years, it appeared to have a cracked block. When we arrived on the scene, we intended to get it running and drive it to my friend's house. But when we poured fresh anti-freeze into the upper thermostat fill, it immediately poured out from behind the manifolds, somewhere. Oh my.

But even as it moved to "parts car" status in our minds, the purchase price couldn't be beat. I could get to it later to explore more fully what the matter was.

Time got ahead of me, as so many of us on here can relate, and I was now out of college and starting my first job. My friend was getting anxious that I do something to get it out of his shed. We took a final look at it to get more details for a classified ad of our own, and we discovered it was only a freeze plug to blame for the leaking antifreeze. Stuck my finger right in the hole where it had popped out.

Sadly, it was now too late to start a project. The guy shown now arrived with cash in hand and a tow bar in the back of his wagon, and it went on to a new home.

(posted also to the FBRoadster page)