Some time in the mid 80’s, I responded to an advertisement on one of the DEC newsgroups – ’69 GTV, $25. It just so happened it was in the town I lived in, so I went to take a look.
The car had been stored in the guys mothers garage five years prior, and she wanted it out. According to him, the car was a complete piece of sh*t, and had cost him a fortune way back then. I convinced him to hop in, and I dragged it to my house behind my Rabbit Truck, then drove him back home.
I returned, pulled the plugs, noticed they were fouled, changed them, threw on a set of jumper cables, and the damn thing started right up! In going through the largest set of work orders I have ever seen with any vehicle, I determined that the engine had been rebuilt 15k miles ago, and the transmission 10k miles ago. Nice!
I then proceeded to do two of the dumber things I’ve ever done with any car. First, I stuffed it out in the back yard, to get to, well, later.
Well, that later turned out to be a few years, by which time the body had completely rusted out from sitting in the grass, and the damn engine seized (which I didn’t know at the time).
I decided to part it out and look for a sold shell to put the mechanicals into (see the section on the ’71 GTV).
At one point, shortly after I had bought it, Paul Glynn swumg by and took a look, and commented that it had a gasketed style windshield, which was very valuable and impossible to replace. He made sure to tell me that when I removed it, I should be extra careful to save the glass and trim.
So years later, I went to remove the glass, and had only vague recollections of that discussion. Gasketed windshield, valuable, make sure to save <foggy here>.
Too lazy to try to even call him, I did my best to pull out the whole thing, but when things started to go wrong I made sure to preserve the gasket. As the expense of the glass and trim.
DOH!