Oh my, where do I start ? Maybe at the beginning....sit back, poor yourself a drink, this may take a while !
My training was in the hotel and restaurant business back in Germany starting at age thirteen. Cars where the furthest thing on my mind. After working in several hotels in Germany I spend three years in the Merchant Navy to see the world and I did.....
1965 I emigrated to Canada living in the East first and followed the motto: "Go West Young Man" and moved to Vancouver BC. It was during the long cold winters in New Brunswick, that I picked up Car Magazines for the first time, turning into a "Road & Track" fanatic lasting to the present.
Lack of public transit (Fredericton NB) "forced" me to look for a car. After a disastrous affair with a Nash Metropolitan ( I swear it was designed by Walt Disney....) and test driving several VW Beetles, the sensible choice, I fell head over heel for a fire-engine redTriumph TR4A. The bank required a co-signer for the loan and being new to the contry......well the car dealer was a customer of the bar I worked. so he co- signed !
Having moved to Vancouver BC I continued to work in several hotels and bars. My love for Dixieland Jazz helped me tuning the pub I managed into "The Jazz Bar". After a few years of that I was headhunted by the local Jazz Club The HOT JAZZ SOC. and managed that place for seven years....but back to cars:
The amazing thing here in the west is the abundance of older and classic cars, the mild climate is much kinder to the sportscars I loved so much. My next acquisition after getting established out West was a 65 Corvette Stingray that turned out to be imported from the rust prone East and lasted only a few month. Next in line was a 70 E-Type, a dream come true for only CND$ 6.500.- That turned into a love / hate relationship. It was a gas to drive but it turned out to be my apprenticeship. As my Brother put it: I was more under it than in it.
I sold the Jaguar for enough dough to cover all my expenses, busted knuckles not included. Still no regrets. Then.......I got the Kit Car Bug and successfully build five of them. Working mainly nights at the club I had tons of time in the day time. First up a dune buggy, Boy that thing was fun, even in the winter with a gas heater.
Next the TIGER by THOUROUBREAD CARS in Redmond Wa. conveniently located only a few hours drive from Vancouver. Next the MERCEDES 540K replica by the same company. I took that car to Monterey in 86 and was invited into the infield of Laguna Seca Racetrack over my objections that it is "only" a replica. Everyone complimented me on the work I done and no snide negative remarks about not being the real thing. I must give this to the Americans: you are very gracious hosts as I experienced also many times during my visits to several Jazz Festivals in the States to book bands for the club.
Correction, my first kit car before any of the above was a Kellison GT40 replica. A pictorial in Playboy of that car was all I had to work with and it triggered a lasting love affair with anything GT40. It was powered by a dual carbed, roller cranked souped up Beetle motor.That's when the Beetle-Bug struck. Imagine my reaction when Ford came out with the new Ford GT......:What took you so long....?
Much later when I build a Porsche Speedster replica at a friends VW shop just across the street from my apartment in the West End, after all the Jazz and Sailing-Instructor business and between jobs, I got suckered in to working on a customer car. At the end of the day My friend handed me some money for doing a tune-up on that Beetle. Well, say no more, you mean I can get paid for what I was doing as a hobby all those years ? The rest as the saying goes is history !
Well not quite, for reasons I still not know my friend disappeared just of a sudden and his mechanic and I where left to run the shop. I had a ball......later we where forced to vacate the premises and I found new digs somewhere else in town. That is when I met Tom, a shop owner / operater in the neighborhood with a huge place wanting to rent out a portion of i........ done. It was the beginning of a great friedship, as the saying goes...
Some years earlier my realestate brother made me buy a little house in the subburbs, promising to sell it for double the price after a few years.....if you cant trust your brother.....well after few years it came true ! I never forget the day he handed me a substantial cheque with the words: "Go ahead, buy your Porsche !" Well if that doesn't bring tears to your eyes.....
After checking out several candidates I got a 1978 911SC and a new love affair started. Finally getting over the "holiness" that seem to surround the car I got up enough nerve to work on it. How do you improve on a "perfect" design?
First you move the parking position of the wipers to a more convinenet place, like the passenger side.
Then you install two small marine blowers in the door posts to improve the dismal heating.
After removing, installing and having the alternator rebuild THREE TIMES I installed a plain-jane GM alternator in the space left by the non existing air pump: end of problem.
Well the list is endless and includes two engine and trany removal replacing the clutch to fix that awful "shifting-into-first-gear" problem ( needless in retrospect....that's just the way they are.....) and a very expensive engine rebuild, even though I removed, stripped and re installed the motor.
Well a few days before my Birthday in September 2002 I hit a Van making an abrupt and dangerous left turn in front of me....( her fault not mine !)
After lot of arguing with the insurance it was written off and I got a good settlement. Funny thing happened while I was waiting for the cops..... a pristine white Pagoda drove by....is that an omen or what....
ROAD & TRACK used to compare four high end sportscars every few years in the sixties and seventies, namely the Corvette Stingray, Jaguar E-Type, Porsche 911 and the Pagoda. It was just a natural progression that I would be looking for the missing car in that group that I had never owned previously.
So the search was on and the picking was very slim so I settled for the best (as I thought at the time...) and most expensive one available. After a few disastrous attempts by "experts" and some work of my own I arrived.........at my own shop that I had shared with Tom. Can you believe it, after I closed my business and moved out my successor turned out to be Steve specialized in......Pagodas. He put everything right and I am happy as a pig in....
Presently I am retired but work part time at the HOME DEPOT here in Langley ( he, it's funnnnnnn and keeps me in beer and sauerkraut.......) I am in the progress to strip the car and ready it for the paint shop.....guess what.....I opened another can of worms......But that's another story, I'll keep you posted.
CHEERS !
WITT !
