blogtribe

We got it!!

Picked up yesterday and driven all 367 miles back home from Cardiff by Bev, greedy bugger wouldn’t let me have a go! ;)

Here she is, love that stance!

12months MOT and runs sweetly. And now the work begins. More pics at Flickr

Pickup

The day itself was free of incident, we left the house at 3:20am to drive to Cardiff, brilliant drive down, so quiet and got there about 10:00ish where we were met by the owner.

A nicer seller you couldn’t meet, not only was there tea and cakes but when he heard we’d not had a Beetle before he showed us everything, took out carpets and seats and showed us welding that had been done, banged around and showed us it was solid. Told us all the good and bad bits, offered loads of advice and gave us his email address and told us to phone or email if we needed any advice.

He took Bev for a test drive, hmm, better rephrase that, he sat with Bev while she took the car for a test drive pointing out different things, then took us to a filling station and then took us to pick up some lunch (on him) before pointing us in the right direction home.

Wish buying a car was that pleasant all the time.

We left Cardiff, from the market at the Millenium Stadium, how I wish I’d remembered my camera or even got my phone out. We stopped quite a few times on the way home before we got too tired so we didn’t have to worry about finding somewhere to stop if tiredness set in. We had another uneventful journey, apart from part of the A1 being closed near Newcastle, and arrived home at 21:30.

Stats for the day:- 716m round trip, 55.9mpg (Fiat 500), 46mph ave spd, 18h30m out of the house, 15h29m driving time, I’ve also managed to work out the mpg for the Beetle, 40+mpg, excellent. And not bad that it travelled the 367 miles home without incident :)

Plans

To start with Bev has removed stickers from the inside and rear window, we’re planning on polishing the hub caps to see if the rust is just surface, we’re stripping the paint off the bumpers to see how the chrome is underneath. We need a new passenger door as there’s a bit of rot on current one, although you can’t see it. Seat covers are planned for now until the outside is done then Bev can start on the inside, we’d like some high back seats instead of the low back ones. Major plan is a new paint job, Bev has already booked in multiple overtime shifts to put towards it.

Keep watching, I shall update this as things go on :D