Thunderbirds are go... sort of...

Well ladies and gents, it seems that we have ourselves a diamond in the rough.

The guys down at Mitsi Art gave our little beastie the once over on Wednesday, and their conclusion? There's nothing significant wrong with it (that we haven't already found).  Looks like we have a solid car.  And a bargain at that.

The only thing they found that we didn't already know about was a loose anti-roll bar bush so, while there are things that need doing to the car, they are all things that we know can be solved quite easily (albeit not cheap for things like the clutch).

We will be getting the car booked in shortly to get all the major bits sorted, and then we can start getting our paint on.   Ideas on a theme are still many and varied, but some thoughts are:

• Transformers (Possibly Bumble Bee or Barricade)
• Stealth Bomber (Matte black, with various air plane decals on it)
• WellChild Pink
• Glow in the dark
• Tron style

Decisions decisions...

If anyone has any other suggestions, post a comment below.

Pictures of my Valentine

As you can see, the interior is a little worn around the edges....

....and she is even going bald.

But she has a good heart.......

...and she is ours. :)

Onward and upward....

I took a wander down to see the guys at Mitsi Art today.  We had a brief discussion about the run and the car, and they now have one of our fliers.  Hi there if you are reading this :)

The good news is that there doesn't seem to be an awful lot of things that really go badly wrong with this particular model of GTO.  The later models have a lot of electronic gizmos, and technical wizzardry that can break at the drop of a hat, but our one is very much "back to basics" for the most part.

They agreed that the clutch is probably well on its way out, but fixing it wont cost as much as we expected which is nice to know.

They also offered to give the car a full inspection to make sure there are no more "gotcha's" hiding under the road grime so I will be taking them up on that offer as soon as I get a chance.

A challenger appears !

So we finally decided that the Saab was mortally wounded... and went off on the hunt for some new wheels... and what a hunt it was.

Possible options included:

• Mercedes C320 - A 3.2 Litre Automatic cruising beast
• Toyota Celica GT4 - Very nippy, but a little outside our budget
• Lexus LS400 - a 4 Litre barge, with ALL the gadgets and room to park the Titanic in the back seat
• Skoda Octavia VRS - Hey if its good enough for the police....  but unlikely to sell for our money
• Toyota Soarer - 2.5 GT Twin Turbo...  ticks all the boxes, but too many people interested = high price

That list is, however, the "did not finish" list.... we found a car... and it was either a total bargain, or a complete lemon... time will tell.

The car? A 1991 Mitsubishi GTO - 3 Litre - Manual - Naturally aspirated - 4WD - All wheel steer.
The price?  A smidge over £500 !

So that obviously begs the question "how ?", well kiddies, lets have a look what's wrong...

• Paint peeling on the roof
• Paint missing on the boot
• Faulty antenna
• Missing front speakers
• Some internal trim is falling off in places
• Drivers seat has seen better days
• Drivers window is badly scratched
• Cruise control doesn't work
• The clutch is knackered
• Missing a few internal lights, a couple of external ones
• No spare tyre
• Rear seats are essentially useless
• Upholstery is faded and stained
• Central locking is a very temperamental
• Brake disks are scored and warped 
• Oil pressure is low

Apart from the clutch (which is still working at the moment anyway and apparently "relatively" straight forward to DIY if you aren't in a rush), and the brakes (which will likely only cause a bit more wear than usual ,  there's nothing which really going to affect us.  Cosmetically we always intended to spray whatever car we got anyway, and most of the other bits are fairly trivial.

So that's it.  Saab will be being scrapped for a grand total of £180.  Less than we paid for it, but still more than we thought we would get.  A lesson learned there... never buy a cheap car sight-unseen.

Photos of the GTO will follow shortly...