Alright, I’m an overreacter. In my previous Aztec 7 entry, I mention that I let mine slip out of my hands because I couldn’t find a cheap windshield — turns out there may be sources in the $1000 range although I haven’t confirmed it. Anyway, here’s Rob’s car when he first bought it back in 1981, in trade for his Bugatti kit (and some case, and a lot of it for a poor college student):
Rob has a far less “easy to fix” story about his. Clearly, the previous owner had walked away from it, but it was still very much completable. Rob finished it off (well, it was just primered and had no real interior, but it was enough that he could drive at 180 kph and occasionally autocross it), and enjoyed the 1600cc VW-based kit riding on 205 and 225/60/15 BFGs immensely.
However, Rob was lucky to walk away alive from what eventually happened. At a bit over 120kph, the rear retaining bolts pulled through the fiberglass (always, always use washers or wood backing), and the rear bodywork went flying off the car, ripping part of the wiring harness off with it. Rob somehow didn’t crash, and unaware of either the sparking electrical short or the leaking fuel line, decided to limp the car home. Not much down the road, a “pop” noise, and he realized the rear end of the car was on engulfed fire. Even though he managed to get the fire department there in about ten minutes, as he says, “fiberglass burns fast”, and there really wasn’t a whole lot left for them to save.
State Farm Insurance were pretty pissed about it, given they thought they had just scored writing some fool a $7000 policy on a ’69 VW, but after a bit of back and forth, they begrudingly gave him $6800 and sold the charred remains at auction. I doubt they got much.
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