I like money. Perhaps that's not quite true, I like what you can do with money. Usually, money at my house is busy disappearing more than appearing, which is a bit of a bugger when you want to do something with it. Like be a cheque book mechanic.
I can see the collective sneers right now. "Cheque book mechanic" is a term of derision that I've used myself, usually as a result of watching somebody pay for repairs or upgrades I didn't have the money for. Because enthusiasts have a wide demographic range, this is a fairly regular occurrence if you want to run old European cars. I can't count the number of times I've stood at a parts counter, skinned knuckles covered in grease, holding some broken part and gritting my teeth while the proprietor tries to come up with the cheapest fix for me. Meanwhile, Johnny Chequebook rocks up, flips out an overstuffed wallet and pays four figure sums for his pampered baby, never batting an eyelid or, heaven forbid, getting his hands dirty.
It's easy to dismiss Johnny as a poser, somebody who never really understands his automotive trinket. There are those of us that are half convinced that particular brands of car are imbued with a soul that will only touch the grease monkey owner. It's self deception though, a twisted salve for a lack of funds but a taste for expensive style. While Johnny is gunning through second gear in cafe society, the true owner is reaching for the 13mm spanner, secretly wishing it was he sipping Latte, gleaming trophy machine parked outside.
Which leads me to the crux of this little tale. Money turned up at our house recently, not a huge amount, but a substantial chunk. The subsequent negotiations over the allocation of this chunk of money were always going to be delicate. Tina, my long suffering wife, likes houses, spending money on houses, thinking about buying bigger houses. I like cars, with a side hobby in deception. I'm sure if Tina ever really found out how much money has disappeared over the years on repairs, trade-in losses, insurance and car baubles she'd make me sleep in the garage.
So a large part of my money chunk disappeared into the roof of the house in the form of an air conditioner (actually, this turned out to be an excellent idea that I wish I'd thought of). Then we sat down again with our diminished stash, which didn't look so diminished. OK, next were some credit card debts. We still didn't feel impoverished. Then, before it all disappeared, I played my trump card; I produced a photo of our daughter and a couple of the neighbourhood kids playing in my dormant Alfa Spider.
Regular readers might wonder why, after all the brake work and near-religious experiences in welding, the car was still mouldering in the garage. The answer is, of course, that it was still broken. The car has turned out to be an experience much like peeling an onion. Fixing each obvious problem, peeling back another layer - it just makes you cry. Dodgy brake hydraulics which I thought would stop at the calipers, didn't. A month after I'd replaced the brake boosters and master cylinder, all the calipers started leaking. When the brakes did work, the car pulled violently in the last direction of travel, indicating some seriously worn suspension. The gearbox felt like it had been replaced with a 'crash' box from a Dodge truck. There was no gear synchronisation when changing up or down in the lower gears. You could drive around it by double de-clutching, but that novelty wore off pretty quickly.
The speedometer didn't work at all. The tachometer pegged at 8000rpm instantly when the car was started and made screeching noises, as if the hamster inside that made it work had fallen off his exercise wheel. Patching the rust in the frame rails had solidified the rear of the car, but every bump sent a sickening shudder through the front as if the wheels were connected to the car via loose Meccano fasteners. I was frightened to drive it. Worse still, it depressed me to look at it, thinking that I'd invested a huge amount of effort so far without seemingly making a dent in the car's problems.
Tina sighed. Rolled her eyes. She knew what was coming. She knew I was going to suggest that I spend even more money on parts and devote every weekend for the next 3 months on further repairs. I wasn't looking forward to getting intimate with the cold garage floor for such an extended period, but in my blinkered, greasy-handed Alfa enthusiast mindset, the idea of paying somebody else to fix it didn't occur to me.
So the first weekend arrived and I pulled on my overalls, hauled out the trolley jack and decided to start by inspecting everything. In my enthusiasm, I shoved the jack underneath a spring pan instead of the cross member, started jacking, then heard a terrifying thud, quickly followed by the car lurching downwards. The spring pan was so rusted that it had torn apart.
That was about enough. The last straw. I manhandled the car down again with a bottle jack, backed it out of the garage and graunched my way to the local Alfa place: Arnaldo and Pino, saint and saviour. "Steering," I said. "Oh yeah, gearbox too. All of the front suspension. Fix it, please!" Over the ensuing three weeks, they would call occasionally with some new, horrifying tale and I would simply reply "OK, fix that too". It was so easy. I didn't get dirty, I didn't drop a gearbox on myself trying to manoeuvre it out while the car was 6 inches off the ground on jack stands. I didn't struggle with 25 year old, rusted fasteners. I didn't make panicky, Sunday afternoon phone calls to auto parts shops looking for part number AR666OUTOFSTOCK.
Arnaldo and Pino did all that for me and more in their modest garage, a mini-mecca for the well heeled and impoverished Italian car nut alike. They knew which bits could be bought new and which needed reconditioning. They had hoists. They had parts right on the shelf. They had the special factory tools. They had my phone number to warn me how high the bill was climbing. I simply encouraged them to continue. I was tired of the "car as sculpture" pose that the Spider had assumed; I just wanted to drive it. I didn't care how much it cost, it simply had to be right.
The final list of replacement parts looks more like a handwritten copy of the parts book, starting at part number 1 and finishing on the last page. The prices? They look like they belong in the telephone book. There isn't a single ball joint or tie rod end on the car that hasn't been replaced - there wasn't a single one worth keeping. I was actually lucky with the gearbox, it was just synchro rings and not new gears that were required. In retrospect, the whole car as a financial prospect is now teetering on disaster, but I don't care. It was enough that when I picked the car up, they had replaced the broken plastic around the heater control sliders with a new aluminium piece, gratis, without asking.
That's how it happens. The slippery slope of backyard mechanic to chequebook mechanic is lubricated with money and easy convenience. The car now drives superbly, the gearbox slots around like the proverbial rifle bolt. I can see how fast I'm going and the hamster is now back on his exercise wheel in the tacho. Yes, it's a scary bill. Yes, I am now Johnny Chequebook. I should be ashamed of myself, but I can't muster any enthusiasm for that emotion. I won't be aiming the nose of the Spider at a cafe though. For the first time since I bought it, I can see a proper, twisty road blast occupying my weekend. That has to be better than contorting on the garage floor.
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