MOT time....plus a bonus existential crisis.

[corsechris]

Just took the Midlana for an MOT. All good.

 

Now comes the thorny issue of me actually using it. Fundamentally I have become something of a recluse these days, so we have to make an actual effort to go out, and then we have to decide Westy or Midlana. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, I'm a misanthrope at the best of times, so the real question is why the heck did I build the thing in the first place.....

 

 

If I can't put some decent miles on it this year then I think I need to face up to the obvious and sell it - simply no point having it sit in the shed all year doing nothing. Last year it did 142 miles, the year before just 24 - to and from the MOT.

 

For years now I've made the remark that we barely need 1 car, but we've had 3 or more for as long as I can remember.

[Richard (OldStager)]

37 minutes ago, corsechris said:

Just took the Midlana for an MOT. All good.

Fundamentally I have become something of a recluse these days,

You and me both.

 

The Westy has been my only car now for the past 13 years, over that time it has left the driveway very little. I do prefer to tinker with it rather than drive it, and when I do drive it it's to test the tinkered bits, lol... Before Westy life I had a perfectly good Volvo Estate, the Westy came along and I then spent more of my time on the Westy than driving the Volvo - that got sold..

 

Wind the clock forward from 2011 and things haven't changed I still play with the Westy in the garage , but just of late a health issue arose meaning that life may have to end prematurely, a more "sensible " car has been purchased and hoping that may get me out more ( we will see) .

 

For me cars, or perhaps kitcars are more about the engineering side, I love building new bits for it, see them fail and build a better one. I guess it depends on how much you would miss that side of it should you part company with either car. I too will have two cars again by this time next week, although quite which one I end up playing with the most is anyone's guess.

 

 

Eta

Your post has made me think a bit more on my own situation, and I reckon what I will do is to wait till most of the road legality expires and then SORN it ( the Westy) that way I can't really mess with it much as I will be unable to test anything. My now freed up time can be spent on the new arrival and actually driving it, something of a novelty for me that - just driving for the heck of it... 

 

[corsechris]

I like the car well enough, I simply don’t really have a use for it. I might even go as far as to say I prefer the way it drives & rides over the Westy. Never had any interest in track days or the like, no particular desire to ‘show it off’ although if I do happen to attend a club meet and anyone expresses interest and asks, I’ll talk about it, no interest in the ‘show & shine’ type of gatherings. 
 

I think the best way to describe it would be “it’s not you, it’s me that’s the problem”

 

I clearly gave absolutely no thought to what I’d do with it once it was finished. Had I done so, I doubt I’d have bothered. I just got caught up in the notion of a scratch-build retirement project. No denying I derive more from building than driving though. 
 

Anyhoo, I’ll put RFL on it next month and see if I can find some places to go and things to do with it that I enjoy, or expect to see it in the ‘For Sale’ section. 

[jeff oakley]

I understand where you are both coming from. At the moment I have motorhome, motorbike, Westfield, Volvo XC 60, Mini cooper and I have to rotate use otherwise to some what is the point.

 

For me they are like my watch collection, I cannot wear them all at once but I get joy out of ownership as well as using them in rotation.

 

Can you imagine how difficult it is for those with many more? Harry Metcalf comes to mind how do people like them chose

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

Jay Kay lives quite nearby and he has a legendary car collection. He is often seen in the nearby town never in the same car twice. A local pub was his favoured watering hole until it closed down. If there was a an 'interesting' car outside you could be sure Jay Kay was inside. How he chose which car to take out boggles the imagination.

 

I found that my Westfield was on its trailer in my garage where it had been since my last trackday at Hullavington in 2015 (closed down and built on now). Only a fortuitous request for a Westfield for a project that passed under my nose stimulated my latent need to get it running and sold. It left in February along with its trailer. I was more than twenty years younger when I bought it, partly to satisfy my long standing desire for a Lotus 7 S3 which I had wanted since the kit was about £650 delivered. Also partly because my student son had owned a few cars and never sold one intact or running to date and I wanted to persuade him to buy a sensible car for commuting and to exorcise his need for driving fast with a track day car. He loved the Westfield and would still be doing track days in it except he married an Australian girl and now lives in Sydney. Track days without him were unappealing, my wife developed health problems, and I grew a little older and became more nervous of the exposed nature of the Seven style cars to serious injury to my aging skeleton. So it had to go. I have a late model, low mileage straight six Z3 Roadster in the garage for summer sunny day trips, and it has some integrity in its bodyshell. Ex-pat son, who now has two children, left a car with me for use when he visits and that now occupies the space the trailer/Westfield was sitting in. The Z3 does fewer miles for each of the fifteen years I've owned it and it is in danger of being SORNed half the year. 

 

I could never do what Richard (Oldstager) did and keep just a Westfield as my sole car. Perhaps it's a legacy of my 50k miles per annum working days in the 1980s and knowing a solidly reliable all-weather car is part of life, or simply growing old! In the really early days when my sole car was a 1970 MG Midget, I kept a Triumph Tiger Cub in the back of the garage for use on the all-too frequent trips to the BMLC parts department at weekends. That's the limit of my wish to be exposed to the vagaries of car ownership for real necessity. 

 

One weekend's nasty surprise!

 

 

[Richard (OldStager)]

Oh, I have had driven plates like that as well, although it was my fault doing clutchless changes on the rally stages, at least you managed to retain the cush springs all mine used to either fall out or snap ( or both LOL ) .

The story regarding the Westy being my only car stems from being single, so no pressure from others to get shut or get something else as well and the fact cash was bit scarce for me. The car used to go shopping once a week with my bags in the passenger seat/ floor area and the rest of the time it was in the garage being played with ( as is my want) . The impending new arrival which will double my tally on cars is only due to a very recent health diagnosis meaning driving live axled , relatively hard sprung sports cars are a thing of the past for me now. As mentioned I will SORN it at the end of June and that car will be going to a recent new member on here at some point in the future ( when I have no clue but it will one day) . The replacement car will be the only car I have from then on, so nothing will have changed other than perhaps my own personal comfort and the knowledge that all being well I will still be walking in 5 years time. 

 

 

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

I wish you the best for your health Richard. I'm looking after my wife who has skeletal fragility problems so the Westfield would be unsuitable anyway. My only comment about Heralds and their kin is watch out for rear suspension undertucking! I got into a couple of hairy moments in my 1960 Herald Coupé engined saloon in my madder days! The one below wasn't mine (802 AXT) but it might well have been!

[Richard (OldStager)]

Thank you for you wishes, not that I am after sympathy, far from it as it seems the vast majority of my problems appear to be self induced. Years of removing engines for rebuild every other event - and yes no crane.... What a plonker I was .

 

Oh and regarding the tuck under, lol, well the cars I used to campaign were indeed a Spitfire, then I moved to a Vitesse, so this sort of behaviour is nothing new to me, in fact on the tarmac stages I would use it to my advantage , pile into a hairpin, then lift off - instant oversteer and far more effective than a handbrake , lol... There are numerous ways to get rid of this and after quite some time I did, but for a road going car I think that's unneeded . Great photo that, I remember it from 30 odd years ago.