About six weeks ago a note was posted on this list about a Bavaria for sale in Woodside, CA - its biggest issue being its unusual paint job - sort of an Art Car. Well, I bought it for the host of really great parts available (Dinan Stage 3 - adjustable camber plates!!, good interior including Leather S seats, an EXCELLENT 4 spd with a butter like 2nd gear syncro, nice turbine wheels, and a very good body). The owner, Craig, picked me up in his BEAUTIFUL 1969 2800 - it was a wonderful sort of dove gray and extremely well cared for despite it's 200+K and ran as smoothly as a turbine.

Well, this is what I found when I got to the car:

http://www.geocities.com/piltdown_biker/Bavaria/p-art1.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/piltdown_biker/Bavaria/p-art3.jpg

A guy at a stoplight asked me if these were dolphins or porpoises - who the fuck knows:

http://www.geocities.com/piltdown_biker/Bavaria/p-art5.jpg

The car ran pretty well - it needed a tune up badly - but the tranny was as nice as any that I have driven in one of these old cars - my second gear syncro is virtually non-existant and this tranny will go right in there.

I drove the car up to my best friend's house, his name is Kevin and he lives in Chico - I was going to stop off and have lunch with Jonathan Bush in SF, but I just didn't end up with the time. When I got there Kevin was just finishing the last touches on his race car:

http://www.geocities.com/piltdown_biker/Bavaria/k2002a.jpg

That's Kevin's shop and yes, you would kill for it. He is a great metal worker (as a hobby) and made the air box and the shock tower brace you see here:

http://www.geocities.com/piltdown_biker/Bavaria/k2002b.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/piltdown_biker/Bavaria/k2002c.jpg

He made the full roll cage and a super trick aluminum exhaust system for the thing as well. If you live in Nor Cal look for him at NASA events at Thunderhill. By the way, he bought that car with a bashed in rear fender for $200...the final product:

http://www.geocities.com/piltdown_biker/Bavaria/k2002f.jpg

It features sidedrafts, a new motor with hi-comp pistons and a slightly hotter cam - its pretty nice, even though it is a '02.

So anyway, we tossed some tune up stuff in the car, fiddled with the wheel bearings and sprayed the whole thing with spray can primer (it takes 12 in case you were wondering, and KMart has them for $0.89 each), flushed the cooling system and cleaned up the interior - it looked as though they had been raising cats in there for the last nine years. Nothing is wrong with the interior, but it was as dirty as they get.

In the end we made a decision - my decision - to drive the car back. A parts car just isn't worth a shit when it's $2,000 miles away. However, I still had to be home by Monday night. Now I do a lot of endurance motorcycling (see www.ironbutt.com), but this was going to be a ride for sure. I got plenty of sleep Saturday night and was ready to roll Sunday morning at 7am - I had to be home Monday night - 2,300 miles away.

I actually did the first 1,350 in 22 hours - Chico to just on the other side of Denver - I really wanted to be past Denver pre-rush hour Monday morning.

Anyway, details to follow, but here are the stats:

A. 2,300 miles in 39.5 hours
B. Average speed - 58.23 mph, including 2 hour long breaks (see H below) as well as 1 hour of shopping at Sierra Trading Post in Reno.
C. hours of sleep - Z-E-R-O
D. quarts of oil used - 7
E. gallons of fuel - 129
F. number of deer seen - how many stars are in the sky?
G. number of moose seen - 1 huge cow, just east of the Eisenhower tunnel
H. number of women paid to touch my monkey - 2 (hell, I did cross Neveda)
I. number of tickets - 0, ZERO, NADA, NONE.

dj
http://www.slash5.com