Huge Dilemma

[Andy_R]

So I've been a bit quiet on the forum recently due to my daughter having a seizure and needing a lot more support than normal to recover.

However just before this happened my wife gave me permission to buy my dream car ... an AC Cobra. Now I don't have the kind of money needed for an original model but my wife kindly gave me a budget of £50k to buy a brand new replica. After going to the various factories I settled on the Pilgrim model and this is currently being built for me. Collection should be early June and to say I'm excited is a massive understatement!

As part of this agreement with the wife I was told my Westfield had to go as we only have room for one car in the garage ... I even started getting it ready for sale (honest)! However as time has been on my side I've managed to get this caveat put back. I haven't found an owners club as friendly as the WSCC and I really enjoy driving the SEiGHT so I don't want to get rid of my Maverick (especially considering the work I've done in the last year fixing oil leaks and generally making the car more desirable). 

So I have a dilemma as to where Maverick should go when the new Cobra arrives. There are currently two options open to me and I was hoping for some advice ...

1. I have a long (ish) single drive that leads to a large single garage and I plan for the Cobra to stay in the garage as it's the most expensive of the two. So the first option is to put Maverick on the drive under a Hamilton Classic outdoor cover (which I already own) and get a gate at the top of the drive to keep prying eyes out and make it a little bit more secure. This causes me problems when it comes to going on a drive as I have to move vehicles around (we own two day to day vehicles so the Cobra will mean 4 cars) but that's not the end of the world as I won't be using either Maverick or the Cobra that often. My questions for this option are whether keeping Maverick outside all year round (even with the cover) is okay in the long term and will the insurance company have any problems with this as currently they insist on it being garaged?

2. I rent a shipping container storage unit (we've got a local company we used before for a similar reason) until such time that we hopefully move to a bigger house with double garage. I already know the extreme heat & cold you can get in these units isn't ideal for the vehicle so the question for this is all insurance ... will an insurance company let me do this?

As my current house is a new build we aren't allowed to extend for the next three years so I can't increase the size of the garage. I don't have room to put a lift in the garage. We also aren't allowed those portable type garages although at a push I could erect one in the short term as our neighbours wouldn't complain. I've also looked at renting council owned garages but these are all in less than desirable areas and I'm not keen keeping the car there.

Thanks for any advice in advance.

[Steve (sdh2903)]

I think I'd prefer to keep on the drive a. Where I can see it  and b away from the awful conditions of the inside of a shipping container. Unless you can modify the container to deal with condensation.

@Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Secretary might be your man here as his lives outside I believe.

Other than that very jealous of the cobra build as it's the one car I really want to build in the future. 

[Rory's Dad]

.My, my! 

Firstly good luck to your daughter (the most important thing)! 

My Westy has been under a Hamilton cover most of its life and under a cockpit cover for the rest! (Looks a bit tatty though)! 

[Weekend Warrior]

If you’ve got room for a shipping container could you not get a wooden shed come garage .

[Andy_R]

3 minutes ago, Weekend Warrior said:

If you’ve got room for a shipping container could you not get a wooden shed come garage .

Should probably have said it would be off-site ... it's one of those shipping container storage companies that have 100 of the things on land a few miles away.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Yep, all of mine have lived under cover on the drive.

Hamilton Classic covers are the best I’ve found out of all of them; critically, they do allow the car to “breath” and get rid of the condensation that can occur. This is not an instant process though, so if you’ve seen my build thread at all, you may have noticed that I very publically, (as I’m sure I’m not the first, possibly just the first to be open about it), went to some trouble to treat the Westfield more the way a modern car would be, from a rust prevention point of view.

So mine has all the box sections cavity waxed, and the underside and part* of the rear chassis undersealed. As it is, I’m finding I didn’t go far enough, during the current rebuild.

Hence the emphasis on the “part”; I’ve always used ACF50 through the winter, but my experience, is that a lot of the horizontal rear chassis surface around the diff cage, that you can’t get at from below, and crucially, can’t see from below, have weathered really badly.

In hindsight, the diff cage areas that I left, (I thought underseal would make service etc tricky), I would fully underseal all rear chassis areas now.

Part of the problem, (poor quality powder coat aside), is that stored outside, and used over winter, althose horizontal surfaces hold and collect moisture, that doesn’t evaporate quickly like it would in a decent garage. 

So, in your situation, if you can’t get full underseal in - tricky with all the diff etc in place, and you wanted to use over winter, I would pop the boot box out every few months over winter and reapply ACF50 over everything, this will keep issues at bay. (Note this is if you’re carrying on using the car).

Other than that, I always store the car with hood and widescreens in place as a second line defence, and it’s been fine.

As far as insurance goes, A Plan and previous companies have had no problem with the on-drive storage, though with the S2000, A Plan did specify a Thatcham approved immobiliser. I use a Sterling Excel, which frankly is completely “invisible” in normal use, so I don’t even notice it’s there, other than by the flashing red led, when it’s armed. (Automatic).

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

A shipping container on its own, is worse than storing outside with a tarp over the car!

It will alternatively bake the living daylights out of the contents and subject them to the same conditions as a tropical rain forrest, (minus the actual rain), unless measures are taken, such as protecting the container from direct sunlight, and de-humidification etc.

 

[BigSkyBrad]

Do you have a classic car storage facility near you? They can be as little as $25/week for dry, secure storage with a battery optimiser connected.

[bob25]

How about a curtain sided trailer, keeps it protected fro,m the weather but also lets it breath, mines full of somebody elses furniture and it all seems fine

[Andy_R]

Thank you to everyone that's commented.

@Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Secretary - that's really useful information and I'll keep that in mind especially after this winter when I find out which vehicle is used more. I'm very tempted to go for the removable hard top (although it costs an extra £3.5k + VAT) as this will make the Cobra much better as a winter vehicle. This would allow for Maverick to be a more summer vehicle but it all depends on how much my wife can be bribed!

@BigSkyBrad - we have some specialist car storage companies within 25 miles but don't allow access to maintain the vehicle and tend to ask for 48 hours notice before getting your vehicle so I'm not sure if this is the best option.

@bob25 - our drive is quite narrow so the trailer option limits how much room we will have especially when it comes to getting the bins out. It's certainly an option though and good to know your friends furniture isn't suffering.

@Rory's Dad - thank you for the kind comment about my daughter. She had a seizure while getting ready for school and I had to perform CPR on her while the ambulance was called. She was then in re-sus for 2 hours with so many medical professionals trying to keep her alive that I lost count. Really scary but luckily she's a lot better now and the consultants appear to understand why it happened which will help us in the future. 

[Robin Parker (Red Spider) - Yorkshire AO]

Do you have a neighbour who doesn't use their garage? I know that on a lot of new build housing estates cars are left outside and garages used for storage, I know my brother does. Perhaps one could be persuaded to rent out their garage.

Looking forward to seeing the Cobra. I knew it was coming!

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

That’s horrific to hear Andy, glad she’s making good progress, and even more so that the doctors have a good grip on what went wrong to trigger it.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

3 hours ago, bob25 said:

How about a curtain sided trailer, keeps it protected fro,m the weather but also lets it breath, mines full of somebody elses furniture and it all seems fine

That’s an interesting option, though how practical would depend where it had to be parked, of course! Security would be my biggest concern; both of the contents, and re someone just hitching up and taking the whole thing, car inside and all, gift wrapped Westfield, so to speak!

[Robin Parker (Red Spider) - Yorkshire AO]

4 hours ago, Rory's Dad said:

 (Looks a bit tatty though)! 

Is that the car, cover or you?

[jeff oakley]

Andy, glad your daughter is on the up, as others have said that is the most important thing and being the Father of a Dr in the NHS you are right, when something like this happens there are good people all pulling for her.

Now back to the car, I would say you need to have a long hard think about the practicalities of having two open topped cars especially when you haven't got home for them both. At one point I had two Westfields and trying to use both, completely different cars meant neither got used enough. 

You then have two lot's of maintenance, two lots of insurance and tax as well. 

You are correct about the club but having a Cobra will not stop you being a member and joining in as before, I know how you feel the thought of selling my Westfield was awful, actually doing it worse but right at the time.