Sue has been using this car as her daily..
It is a brilliant Marina - 2 litre manual, lowered a bit, factory hotwires but I painted the centres black, sport steering wheel, nice seats, blah blah.
The paint is a bit garked, but I recently bought some paint to redo it - colour matched to the original.
I had a clever idea.
If I bought her a modern (reasonably..) hatch, it would have power steering, demisters that worked, could be in her name, she could register it and insure it, and I would be free of any issues involving her transport.
I figured I could achieve about NZ$4000 for this Marina once it was looking smart.
Japanese hatches are way too expensive here - but Europeans are quite cheap because everyone is scared to death of the inherent servicing costs.
I maintain our S60 Volvo T5 so I figured I could do the same for an Italian - because Alfas are the cheapest of all.
So I found this...
It is a 2003 Alfa 147 2 litre twinspark 5 speed manual - nice condition - upper and lower front arms replaced, timing belt and water pump etc replaced last month, along with a full service - and I bought it off the local Italian service agents.
Only issue is the remote door control, and it is the remote unit itself, and I can get it repaired.
I got this car for NZ$4000.
So thats nice.
Took the cheque in last wednesday and told them I would collect the car when the cheque had cleared - probably friday.
So.
On thursday, a woman driver managed to do a hasty right turn from behind a right turning bus into Sue's path, and slammed into the Marina..
The Insurance company cannot obtain a mudguard, or a bumper, or a grille, and have declared it a total loss.
They have yet to tell me how much money they figure it is worth.
I doubt it will be NZ$4000.
Sigh....
