What The Fox Say...

Christ, it's been two months since I last put anything on here. It's been a busy couple of months. First off, the NSCC ended, in fine style. The last round was a corker, and John Peace sewed the whole season up in fine style to retain his championship belt - well done, John, you've earned it. And hasn't it been a tremendous year? Six weeks of solid sunshine at the beginning of summer, some excellent shows and events, and nine rounds of NSCC at York Dragway with not one single rain-off! That's some good going, there.

In home news, the MG Midget that has been occupying the back of the unit has been returned to its owner. Not finished, of course, that'd be silly. However, it will be back at some point for a coat of paint and some further reassembly. I got it rewired and running, but ran out of time. As I'd spunked a wad on hiring a trailer, I thought I'd best go and pick up another car that I was supposed to collect. It's only been 4 months...

I'd bought a pair of Fox Mustangs from a guy in Stevenage whose circumstances had changed. He'd seen a Fox on a driveway, and it had been there for years. It belonged to a little old lady, her and her husband had bought it while they lived in the States in 1979 and brought it home with them in 1982. Then, a few years later, he'd died and it had spent 12 years on the driveway against a hedge. It's a base-model 2.3 auto, but the guy finally persuaded her to sell, as he'd hoped he and his son could do it as a project together. Until they dragged it away from the hedge...

Hedge-side was as rotten as a peach. The top of the door, the top of the quarter, all round the bootlid, rotten. So he managed to scare up a bare, rolling shell from a completely rust-free 1979 GT V8. The project never got started, and when the old circumstances changed, he wanted to sell them as a pair, and quickly. I said I'd have 'em, paid 20% of the asking price by PayPal ... and that was in June. After the Mopar Nats, at the end of July, I went with a towing dolly to collect the shell, and paid a further 50%. Then, last weekend, I collected the ruin and paid the remainder.

Yes, this means I'd collected the bare, rust-free shell in July and left it outside for four months, while the already-rotten four-pot has spent those four months in a nice, dry lock-up. I didn't think that one through, did I?

Anyway, with the Midget out of the unit I can finally get the Fox shell under cover and start some work. The four-pot is beyond any practical repair - nobody gives two shits about Foxes when they're sweet V8s, never mind a shonky base four-pot, so I doubt anyone will take it on as a resto. It needs going by the weekend, ideally, but the end of the month at the latest, so if anyone can find a use for a Fox hatch, NO SUNROOF, let me know as the banger racer in the facing unit has put his bid in. It owes me about £200, all told.

In the meantime, I have a Bedford CF ambulance to begin dicking about with. And, having started out with sensible plans for Transit diesels and the like, I'm finally warming to the idea of a Lexus V8 and auto... how silly. So if anyone has an LS400 that needs intercepting on its way to the scrapyard, let me know. LPG would be even better, and wanting to PX against a rancid four-pot Fox Mustang would be better still!