My new car...................with pics.....

SimplyRed · Post by **SimplyRed** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 12:51 pm

The reason why the X5 has been a little unloved of late......

...well for starters I bought a new B-Class 2 months ago which makes the X feel a lttle heavy......

...but last week I bought one of these.................

I needed a weekend special car to give me my soul back, I always liked corvettes but as with many american cars, they were always nice to look at but very little could tempt me out German cars for obvious reasons etc. The only exception has always been the old stuff. Corvette Sting Ray C2 has always been a favourite in the looks department but I was always adamant, it MUST be red and it MUST have the sidepipes otherwise forget it. I more or less never expected to find one so 2 months ago I set about viewing and purchasing a Ferrari F355 or 360, I viewed a few and drove many but never really liked the image of the second hand ferrari man.

.....so when this came up I jumped at it. Its like it was made to my specs.

I don't know loads about these but I know its a 64 Coupe, at a guess I would say there are only about 20 C2's in the country (a C2 is a 63-67 in case u dont know) and from these maybe 6 are coupes. I have never seen another red one like mine with the sidepipes etc so I dont think I am going to be selling it anytime soon.

I know its not everyones cup of tea but I personally cant stop looking at it, oh and the noise, it doesnt disappoint.

Oh and 5.4 litre, 365 bhp and 5mpg.

Chris

graemeX5 · Post by **graemeX5** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 2:50 pm

Stunning car and just right to put a smile on your face at the weekend

surveysteve · Post by **surveysteve** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 3:11 pm

Love it

ianmaney · Post by **ianmaney** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 4:02 pm

I'm not jealous, honest !!!! lol

dirtymonkey29 · Post by **dirtymonkey29** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 5:01 pm

B******d!!!....I mean nice car. Always liked them myself

weirdfish · Post by **weirdfish** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 5:07 pm

Very nice indeed, a big fan of American muscle, had a couple of yanks in my younger days, Cougar/trans-am/Chevy vega.
Is it a restored model, or just very well looked after.

535dboy · Post by **535dboy** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 5:29 pm

Excellent. Like it

shadrack · Post by **shadrack** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 6:44 pm

:)l.ike it

.......5 mpg lol

jaynana · Post by **jaynana** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 8:15 pm

beauty.. although i don't usually like the american all power no good muscle cars..

Chief1409 · Post by **Chief1409** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 8:56 pm

Wow!!! Absolutely love it. Beautiful, beautiful car despite being American!

mogsyman · Post by **mogsyman** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 9:03 pm

Really nice

What engine?

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Whitey · Post by **Whitey** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 9:54 pm

Very nice indeed , lovely colour .

What other colour did they come in , take it not many

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 10:40 pm

Wow, love it. Love the look, love the colour, love he fact it's a V8 with 5mpg on sidewinders. 452cu?

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SimplyRed · Post by **SimplyRed** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 12:17 am

[quote="weirdfish"]
Very nice indeed, a big fan of American muscle, had a couple of yanks in my younger days, Cougar/trans-am/Chevy vega.
Is it a restored model, or just very well looked after.
[/quote]

It was restored 15 years ago as a birthday present for a priest in the USA. Restoration was about £50,000, the car then did the show rounds and won about 8 trophies. Car was then sold to a USAF pilot who got moved to Mildenhall in the UK, the poor guy bought it on finance and the law is you can't import cars that have outstanding finance owing. SO the guy begged, borrowed and stole to get the funds to pay it off and then pay the import cost and duty etc to bring it to UK so he can be with his dream car. As soon as the car arrived, he was told by his bosses that be must return back to the USA. So he was forced to sell it locally to a gent in Hemel Hempstead, who had it for 8 years who poured another £15,000 onto it on chrome engine bits and chroming the suspension and rebuilding the gearbox etc. And I bought it from him, last week, on my birthday.

The car turns heads everywhere I go, everyone wants to talk to me, if you have a flash BMW or Porsche etc, people dont seem to want to give you the satisfaction of respecting your car. With this the attention is very different. Everyone notices it and loves it, all ages, all sexes. Admittedly old bearded mean start rubbing themselves more than young ladies.

Compared to a modern sports car, it goes badly, it stops badly, it smells badly, it drinks badly, it handles badly. Would I swap it for any car at the moment. Hell NO.

Get this.

Insurance is £190.
Road tax is free.
Service is £70.
Depreciantion is non existent.
I can legally put black plates on it.
I can legally drive without a seatbelt.
I'll never be posing down the high street and see another one go past. (for me thats a big deal)
Its GRP so it'll never rust like E-Types etc.
It can only go up in value.

My home boiler cost more to service and more to insure than this beast!!!!!

When I think of what i nearly bought, F355/360. Ferraris need a £2,000 cambelt change every 2 years irrelevant of mileage and thats just service, thats assuming none of it goes wrong. The buttresses on the coupe are known to rust every 2 years. The exhaust manifolds will break, they all do from the heat and stresses and stupid italian underengineering. Then theres the £1800 at best annual insurance, and to rub salt in the wound.... I would be sharing switchgear and interior plastics with a 1988 Fiat Tipo. Now I see why so many used Ferrari's have so many owners, its a running cost nightmare.

The Corvette in many way is the most sensible car I have ever bought. I think classics are the future

SimplyRed · Post by **SimplyRed** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 12:32 am

[quote="Whitey"]
Very nice indeed , lovely colour .

What other colour did they come in , take it not many
[/quote]

Its strange because American cars at the time had this wierd system, every single year, the colours and options list would change and indeed small changes were made to bonnet shape and vents etc, every single year. A little like modern cars get a facelift but then it was yearly!!!

To answer your question accurately, Mines a 64 and the colour options for 1964 were....

Tuxedo Black
Ermine White
Riverside Red (mine)
Daytona Blue
Silver Blue
Saddle Tan
Satin Silver

Mine has electric windows which I am really chuffed with, it was a whopping $59 extra back then and almost no others in the UK have it. When I grew up more than 2 decades later in the late 80's my dads cars never had electric windows, in fact many E36 BMW's didnt have them and thats almost 3 decades later. Even today you can buy a new Jag with rear manual windows. Shameful.

To give you some perspective, tinted windows was $16. The performance exhaust was $37.

The whole car was $4,000 new. (dont know what the exchange rate was then)

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