Description
My 2000 sat on a grape farm in Prosser, Washington, with no top or cover of any sort from 1982 until July of 2002 when I bought the car and towed it to Seattle. The car belonged to the friend of my father's friend. When he moved from Eastern Washington to New Mexico to begin his career, he left the car on the farm with the intent of driving it to New Mexico someday. That never happened so the car sat. A few times during high school I visited my friend at the farm. The car interior was destroyed, and the car was about half full of garbage and rat nests, so we proceeded to use the car for BB gun target practice. One day I decided it would be a fun to pry the trunk open to see what was inside as the keys for the car were lost. We found some cool relics from 1982, but now I don’t think it was worth all the work its going to take to fix the trunk.
Going through college, I became very interested in cars and decided I wanted to purchase a very cheap project car that I could use to learn more about cars. The 2000 came to mind as a simple car to learn on. Over the course of a few months, I was able to convince the previous owner to let me take it off his hands and free up some space on the farm. Once I learned that the car was so rare and collectible, my plans for the car changed completely.
Currently, I have the car in decent mechanical condition after a lot of work. It's now in drivable condition, but I haven’t started work on the body or interior. I will be graduating college in June of 2005, and should be starting a full frame off restoration sometime after that when I have a garage to work in. From the time I first got the engine to run to the time I went on my first drive, this car has been a thrill. Hopefully in a year or so I can drive it as a beautiful restored classic!
Grant Goodall (3/19/2005)
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