Guys- today is one EXCITING day in my life!
Well, you'd know the saying "What goes around comes around". Now that's what seemed to have happened in my case- literally!
Most of you would remember this car I'd come across some 6 months ago:
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/830235-post360.html
Well, to cut a long story short, I didnt succeed in picking it up then because the car happened to be sold by someone in the owner's family without their knowledge and they at once forcibly took the car back from the scrapguy, getting him into a loss and spot of legal trouble as well in the process!
Now a week ago my mechanic told me he got a call from a dealer who told him about a companion available for what sounded like a rather cheap price (by today's "standards") and curiously it struck both our minds that it could be the same one that got away!
And sure enough, on calling up the guy who was said to've bought the car and mentioning details viz. the number, colour etc. we came to know it indeed is! And he also mentioned that he got the original RC with it so off we went to take a look at it.
Its (thankfully!) pretty much in the same condition as was when I first saw it, except that the air-filter was intact the last time!
Upon coming to an agreeable (sort of!) price, we agreed to meet the guy again on his bringing the RC if not with the TO forms so we would pay an advance.
However things didnt go well initially with the guy showing us only a xerox of the RC and demanding 1/2 of the payment!
My mechanic smelt a rat and cautioned me not to go for the deal. Later on working out a plan I had him tell the guy bluntly that he'd either want to get us the actual RC and close the deal with us making the FULL (final) payment in one go, or just forget it!
After a bit of dragging his feet, the guy agreed ('turned out there was yet another guy involved, who kept the RC with himself!) and finally today was the day we successfully took her- well, not home, but the same workshop where my Pennant was (& Herald still is being) worked on.
The guy claimed the car is good mechanically and that he drove it down to the garage where we picked it up from, although I havent verified it so to confirm!
I plan to do a full stripdown resto on it (at kind of glacial speed mainly due to $ome con$traint$!!
)
It was originally black with inevitably red interior, registered in 1962 as MSV 2219 & first owned by a lady in Kilpauk, Madras.
An interesting coincidence is that the 2nd owner (who also was the one who brought the car to Hyd. in 1972 and sold it shortly later) happens to live in our township itself!
I first showed him the RC with his name/address on coming home today and boy was he thrilled (& of course astounded!) 'caused him to reminisce about the day he bought the car from the 1st owner in 1968 for 12k (a good price back then!) and memories with it.
He infact told me that the "Companion" rear badge had fallen off while he had the car and that he'd intended to fix it back but didnt bother when he was selling the car. Yet he had it lying around a long time in his ex-house, eventually lost! He'd driven the car down from Madras, selling it in Hyd. as these cars fetched more here than in Madras so he'd sold it for 15-16k in 1972 after which it was re-reg'd as AAY 3131, changing quite a number of hands since. Curiously all of them had the car for not more than 2-3 years!
It was last reg'd in a Muslim lady's name in '82 (although I understand it still did pass through a couple of unregistered owners, at one point even purpotedly bought by Rashid Mody, only to be bought back by the previous "owner" a year later!) and RC last renewed '95-2000.
Now for another reason for my excitement- its the first CAR that I've ever bought using my earnings (well, partly!)