Greetings everyone from sunny Vancouver Island. The saga of Snow White, my '69 280SL has entered a new phase. Purchased originally at a yard sale (I'm not kidding), I woke her up after a ten year slumber with copious amounts of parts, time and Maguire's Ultimate Polish. It was my intention to sell her once this process was completed, but no one would give me the $33,000.00 I wanted at the time, so I made the delicious mistake of starting to drive her about and fell completely in love with the car. At that point my rather feeble efforts at making a sale were nixed and I couldn't be happier with this decision.
My kids grew up, my youngest son graduated from university, I looked around at Toronto where I'd spent my entire life and asked myself if I really wanted to die there? The answer was no, so I packed up, sold off, and took exactly what would fit in the back of the aptly named Lucky, my Toyota Highlander, the gracious Oz my boat in tow, Snow White on the train and moved to Vancouver Island. What a place this is! I love it. Best of all this is a rocking fine place to motor around in my Pagoda.
Since I woke Snow White up I have done precisely nothing to the car to speak of. Although being counseled that replacing the heater levers was sure to involve a systematic rebuild of the entire cabling system under the dash, all I had to do was replace the levers (a rather fiddly job truth be told) and away I went. The cables despite goodness knows how long years of inactivity were still free, and whatever valves and nameless other devices they are connected to were also still happy, so now the entire heating system functions just like everything else. I had the seats re-done, but only that part where the mice and time had damaged them, namely the panel in the seat where your butt goes on either side. I had them re-stuffed, but the guy that did them said that the rest of the seats were in such fine shape there was no need to do anything else and that because only a small panel of vinyl was being replaced it would take a very trained eye to tell they'd ever been done. I had the two clip in carpets on either side made at the same time, as the mice had really done a number on them, and doing this and the seats made a world of difference to the cosmetics of the car. This cost me $450.00 in cash. I also recently changed the points, condenser, cap and rotor to feel important. Other than changing oil and fluids I've done nothing else in almost four years. Now I just drive the car.
Since I brought her out to the island Snow White is my preferred daily drive. I take her to the golf course, the supermarket, up the winding roads to Tofino, everywhere. The climate here is perfect for a convertible (at least in the summer), and Snow White is a car not a showpiece and she is happiest when driven. I drove her from Toronto to Virginia to the rally last September before moving here last January. All told I have put 16,000 kilometers (she is Euro spec) on the clock since I woke her up, not a lot really but probably half of that in the last year alone. She fires right up, hot, cold, rainy, whatever. Has never refused to run in four years, never even missed a beat. Pulls like a freight train. I'm not crazy about automatic gearboxes in general, but I do admire the way this one shifts properly when I beat the snot out of the car. Doesn't overheat in traffic. Doesn't leak any fluids from anywhere. Uses oil but not exorbitant amounts. Likes the very best premium fuel I can buy and drinks it up in healthy doses, especially when I'm flogging along the highway which is my favorite mode of motivation. In short this is one totally rocking piece of rolling real estate, and I grin like an idiot every time I drive her, which is why I drive her every day if I can.
On a final note I wanted to call upon the expertise of this fine forum for a couple of things. Firstly I need to swap the ownership of the car from Ontario to British Columbia, which requires a safety check and a current valuation appraisal. If anyone could recommend a shop on Vancouver Island (I am just north of Nanaimo but geography isn't a big issue) who would have the slightest idea what Snow White actually is I'd be indebted. The car needs nothing mechanically. Everything functions as it should. I know this so don't want some mechanic looking to making a quick buck telling me otherwise in order to get my safety certificate. With regards to valuation I found that the appraiser I had in Ontario knew less than I did, and I didn't know anything at the time about what Snow White might be worth. He simply waved around a couple of recent copies of Hagerty's and a few E bay ads and pulled a number out of his hat. What I would like to do, and if it is okay to do so on this forum, would be to lay out in another post exactly what I know of Snow White (including pictures if I can remember how to post them!) and to ask the members to judge the realistic value of the car in today's market. I have lived with the car for four years and I will thorough, honest and explicit in my description, and then you can all go at it and tell me whether the firewall pad is original and all that good stuff. In this manner I could then tell the appraiser what rabbit to pull out of his hat and pay for the insurance coverage I need, you could all get into brawls over grommets and clamps and we'd all have a rocking good time.
Cheers to you all. It is fun to be a part of this community, I love all the thumbs up I get driving my car, and every time I pass a sign for a yard sale I smile.
Oh, I was going to put a new picture on my profile but the computer wouldn't load the new one and ate the old one, so I'm picture less for now.
My name is Michael. I'll be in touch.
