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2000 in Mexico City
Hello Juan Antonio,
I flew down to Mexico City with the plan to buy this project, but after looking at it I declined. I suspect it is still for sale.
The owner is a genuinely nice guy, so I wouldn't want my comments to reflect on him, or the legitimacy of his offering. For everyone's benefit, however, this is what I found...
The body appears to be quite rust-free, although I suspect it had some in the past. The front floor boards are gone, and need replacement, and the "shark-gills" just ahead of the doors have been removed. I suspect this was done to repair rust in this area, and the previous owner just skinned over the area rather than find replacement "gills". Unfortunately, when the body repairman did this work, They did not produce a nice straight front door opening line. This means when the door is mounted, there would be a nice gap line until about 6 inches from the bottom, at which point a triangular gap opens up to perhaps 3/4". This is on both sides. A mystery why so much work was done without making it correct.
Also, the current owner used a pair of doors off of his parts car. Apparently the project car did not come with doors. He had a very nice lacquer paint applied to everything, but did so before test-fitting the replacement doors. Guess what? They don't fit. I suspect they can be made to do so, but it may require trimming the doors. Between the necessary revisions to the doors and the work required to fix the shark-gill area, the car will probably have to be repainted to get it all to match.
The engine is missing the oil pump and distributor. These can probably be found somewhere.
Although he has a parts car, there are a great many parts that are missing. Some chrome, interior parts, etc. The spare tire chamber is gone, although the parts car can probably donate a replacement. It will mean some welding in an area that has already been painted, of course.
The entire car is painted in red lacquer. To be correct, many of the interior spaces should be black.
It will probably need a new windshield, but these are apparently easily obtained in Mexico. The owner has obtained a lot of nice little pieces toward the restoration, such as various tags, new door glass, windshield rubber surround, etc.
So - in my opinion it is a reasonable starting spot, but not at the current price, and will require the acquisition of at least one more parts car, or many individual pieces.
Then there is the challenge of importing it to the US. Not insurmountable, but it adds a few wrinkles.
Enjoy,
Don
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Don P
Carson City, NV
past Alfas...
65 Sprint GT
59 102 Touring
102 Sprint
74 Berlina
61 Giulietta Race Car
86 Spider Veloce (1st time around)
86 Quadrafoglio (still struggling)
And
Stampe SV4C
Zlin 50LA
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