Guest how Santa-Claus is going to deliver your gifts this year? In a Blakely of Course! Ivan spotted Santa in a fabulous Blakely.
Merry Christmas to all Blakely lovers.!
Friday, December 24, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
Buying a Bernardi
Many years ago, I was trying to decide whether to restore my 1969 Firebird, by this time carrying a couple of decades of wear and tear, or to try out a different impractical car. The restoration process for most old cars involves a serious investment in body repair, particularly for thin-skinned American cars built in the '60s. I had rust on all four corners by this time and needed the full jolt.
One wintry afternoon, I sat down in one of the local watering holes with all of the estimates I had so far. These covered approaches from American-made full body panels (expensive but basically bolt-on) to nameless third-world country half-panels (much cheaper, but not as good-looking and needing to be carefully welded into place) to "donate this beater to charity". The total project price was daunting, no matter which path was taken. After a couple of years of saving, I had the money in the bank for one of the cheaper approaches. But was this the right way to spend it?
I also had the local used-car classified papers and decided to do a quick experiment. I would circle every car I had even the slightest interest in owning that was posted with a price below the Firebird's most optimistic restoration cost. There were hundreds of candidates: Camaro, Fiat X1/9, BMW 2002, Roadrunner, MGB, Porsche 912 or 914 or even the odd skanky 911, Barracuda . . . The big problem was that pretty much any of these 10- to 25-year-old beauties would require exactly the same kind of bodywork investment I was trying to avoid.
Except for the funky plastic-bodied Corvette. An old Corvette would not be rusted through, although it might be pretty beaten up mechanically. The sweet spot for prices started at about ten years old, which was much fresher than some of the European exotics I lusted after. A ten-year old American car was just getting into its prime - lots of wrecks for spares, mechanics familiar with all their quirks, plenty of after-market suppliers to keep me poor. Genius!
So I started serious shopping. Every Thursday I bought the classifieds, found all the Corvettes in the right price range, called owners, set up test drives, and cajoled my sainted roommate into driving me around. We saw many, many Corvettes. Pretty much all of them had been rode hard and put away wet, most had power windows (!) and automatic transmissions (!!!), few appealed. At the end of the summer, though, we found a fine late-70's instance with the (laughably named) high-performance engine, four-speed, and no options. Perfect.
This started my romance with plastic-bodied cars. A few years later, a group of us bought a lovely Austin-Healey 3000 replica based on the venerable VW chassis. This car was a revelation to me, since I had equal fun driving it as the Corvette and spent about one-tenth per year on maintenance (and gas, for that matter). Plus, it was far smoother on the highway and had a certain social appeal the brutal Corvette would never develop. Though we sold it a few years later for a tidy profit, I couldn't get it out of my mind. Skipping ahead a few years, I found myself on Ebay making a Saved Search for "replica and kit cars".
Lovely Austin-Healey 3000
I wanted cheap fair-weather top-down driving fun in a plastic-bodied car. After three years of haunting Ebay, almost closing a deal on another Corvette, I found a fine red Blakely Bernardi for sale. I had never bought anything bigger than a fountain pen on Ebay, had never heard of the Blakely company, had no idea what I would be getting, and forged ahead in a fluffy cloud of ignorance and optimism.
The deal was done and I began the arduous job of getting a car from a distant state into my garage. The owner said the car had an overheating problem and I would not be able to drive it home, much to my disappointment. It later turned out that the car only overheated if you drove it too slowly, so it's probably fair to say that I would never have noticed the problem until I got into my own driveway. On the other hand, its dried-up old seals and gaskets are sorely stressed by travel at speed and joyfully leak about a quart of oil for every hour on the highway. But the car-shipping option worked out very well and one sunny spring morning a few weeks later I received a call telling me to jog pronto to the corner strip mall, the nearest the auto transport semi could get to my back yard.
The Ebay Bernardi
Think "Christmas for a six-year-old" levels of excitement. The tire straps were loosened, the papers signed, the keys found, and the car started. On the first try - FTW! I immediately noted one of the Bernardi's less civilized traits (well - depends on the beholder, I would guess) - a significant disproportion between the engine size and the muffler complement, writ large by being the only object inside a shipping container with the acoustic properties of an ogre-sized subwoofer.
The car rolled out of the truck with no drama, and into my garage a couple of minutes later. Many hurdles lay ahead before it would be licensed and on the road, but those are tales for a later post.
One wintry afternoon, I sat down in one of the local watering holes with all of the estimates I had so far. These covered approaches from American-made full body panels (expensive but basically bolt-on) to nameless third-world country half-panels (much cheaper, but not as good-looking and needing to be carefully welded into place) to "donate this beater to charity". The total project price was daunting, no matter which path was taken. After a couple of years of saving, I had the money in the bank for one of the cheaper approaches. But was this the right way to spend it?
I also had the local used-car classified papers and decided to do a quick experiment. I would circle every car I had even the slightest interest in owning that was posted with a price below the Firebird's most optimistic restoration cost. There were hundreds of candidates: Camaro, Fiat X1/9, BMW 2002, Roadrunner, MGB, Porsche 912 or 914 or even the odd skanky 911, Barracuda . . . The big problem was that pretty much any of these 10- to 25-year-old beauties would require exactly the same kind of bodywork investment I was trying to avoid.
Except for the funky plastic-bodied Corvette. An old Corvette would not be rusted through, although it might be pretty beaten up mechanically. The sweet spot for prices started at about ten years old, which was much fresher than some of the European exotics I lusted after. A ten-year old American car was just getting into its prime - lots of wrecks for spares, mechanics familiar with all their quirks, plenty of after-market suppliers to keep me poor. Genius!
So I started serious shopping. Every Thursday I bought the classifieds, found all the Corvettes in the right price range, called owners, set up test drives, and cajoled my sainted roommate into driving me around. We saw many, many Corvettes. Pretty much all of them had been rode hard and put away wet, most had power windows (!) and automatic transmissions (!!!), few appealed. At the end of the summer, though, we found a fine late-70's instance with the (laughably named) high-performance engine, four-speed, and no options. Perfect.
Typical Corvette
This started my romance with plastic-bodied cars. A few years later, a group of us bought a lovely Austin-Healey 3000 replica based on the venerable VW chassis. This car was a revelation to me, since I had equal fun driving it as the Corvette and spent about one-tenth per year on maintenance (and gas, for that matter). Plus, it was far smoother on the highway and had a certain social appeal the brutal Corvette would never develop. Though we sold it a few years later for a tidy profit, I couldn't get it out of my mind. Skipping ahead a few years, I found myself on Ebay making a Saved Search for "replica and kit cars".
Lovely Austin-Healey 3000I wanted cheap fair-weather top-down driving fun in a plastic-bodied car. After three years of haunting Ebay, almost closing a deal on another Corvette, I found a fine red Blakely Bernardi for sale. I had never bought anything bigger than a fountain pen on Ebay, had never heard of the Blakely company, had no idea what I would be getting, and forged ahead in a fluffy cloud of ignorance and optimism.
The deal was done and I began the arduous job of getting a car from a distant state into my garage. The owner said the car had an overheating problem and I would not be able to drive it home, much to my disappointment. It later turned out that the car only overheated if you drove it too slowly, so it's probably fair to say that I would never have noticed the problem until I got into my own driveway. On the other hand, its dried-up old seals and gaskets are sorely stressed by travel at speed and joyfully leak about a quart of oil for every hour on the highway. But the car-shipping option worked out very well and one sunny spring morning a few weeks later I received a call telling me to jog pronto to the corner strip mall, the nearest the auto transport semi could get to my back yard.
The Ebay BernardiThink "Christmas for a six-year-old" levels of excitement. The tire straps were loosened, the papers signed, the keys found, and the car started. On the first try - FTW! I immediately noted one of the Bernardi's less civilized traits (well - depends on the beholder, I would guess) - a significant disproportion between the engine size and the muffler complement, writ large by being the only object inside a shipping container with the acoustic properties of an ogre-sized subwoofer.
The car rolled out of the truck with no drama, and into my garage a couple of minutes later. Many hurdles lay ahead before it would be licensed and on the road, but those are tales for a later post.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
New blog contributor - WF1010
I own a late-eighties Blakely Bernardi and have been actively maintaining and driving it in the sunny months since I bought it a couple of years back. Philippe and Carey have kindly given me the chance to document some of my adventures on their blog.
The car is red in both body and fenders, with the optional "jump seat" feature behind the driver and passenger seat. It has a white convertible roof that defines the term "rag top" in spades. (I haven't had the roof up in nearly two years - thank heavens for a dry climate!) The engine is a Ford 302 V8, with a Holley carburetor to keep the petrochemical industry fully funded.
I have been in email contact with Philippe, Carey, and the other Blakely enthusiasts since buying the car. I would like to recap in this blog some of the information and adventures that I've earlier shared by email, in the hopes it may inform or amuse the broader community. The older emails will get digested and posted first, and I'll work forward in date sequence until I reach the present happy times.
I have been in email contact with Philippe, Carey, and the other Blakely enthusiasts since buying the car. I would like to recap in this blog some of the information and adventures that I've earlier shared by email, in the hopes it may inform or amuse the broader community. The older emails will get digested and posted first, and I'll work forward in date sequence until I reach the present happy times.
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