My Amazon Estate Rescue Mission
 

Thought I'd share a bit of this with anyone who wants to read it....

So I'm Andy,

I'm an Aussie - I live here in London and I'm married to and have a little boy with my wife, who is from Sweden.

A year or so ago the Swedish influence must of taken hold and I had a huge desire to get an amazon estate - it never faded

So very recently I went and got one.... :) from Scotland....

I had been watching a car that was for sale up there for a while but it did not seem to sell, an estate in Scotland with no engine/box and in need of some love...

http://i932.photobucket.com/albums/a...0jQBI60_12.jpg

But it looked solid enough in some of the typical places that I had seen a lot worse on the other cars I had seen - especially in the engine bay....

http://i932.photobucket.com/albums/a...e/2bc37e92.jpg

So I was very tempted - but it was so far away and what would an engine/box cost to sort ????

Then low and behold another car came up for sale on eBay ........

It was a 122s 4 door that was running and driving and complete but sorn and rusty

It was time to go for it - I called the seller of the estate, and committed to it - In fact I sent him the money for the car, and threw some bids in on eBay and came through !

I'd just bought two rusty old amazons sight unseen..... I must be mad.

This news needed to be delivered home at just the right time.... In just the right way....

So I come home one day with a mates trailer - moving some other cars around at home and then pop out for the evening to Hampshire somewhere - home late.

Over breakfast the wife looks out the window of our flat and turns to me to calmly ask;

WTF is on the back of your car ???

http://i932.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/15a90b65.jpg

So much for the right time/right way plan !

More to come.....

Thats the way to do it!

Thats what we like to see, spur of the moment stuff and sort out the practicalities later. Nice one :thumbs_up:

great story pal,keep those pics coming!
i remember seeing that estate on ebay,youre right,it does look solid in the pics.

keep us updated on how youre getting on with it.
good luck with it all.

cheers,pez.


p.s. youre probably heading for a divorce,but on the plus side....it will give you more time to work on the amazon!

Hi and welcome.Nice to see you are saving yet another classic which could have ended up scrapped.

Estate=GHU28B=First registered=12-11-1964.Engine 1783cc(missing).
Saloon=FHV749D=First registered=15-07-1966.Engine 1986cc.

Regards Brian.

A= A large sieve!

[QUOTE=Speedsnake74;1136177]WTF is on the back of your car ???

QUOTE]

She's probably thinking she's married to a bogan... ;-)

Good luck with the build, plenty of helpful folk on here when it's comes to advice and when looking for parts...

Great yarn keep it coming. Sometimes you just have to follow the dream!

(I thought I posted on here already)

Yes, a "large seive" indeed. Good thing it is a swedish car, at least. I guess now you have a harem of two swedish girls (well, three, but one is just a spare....)

You will continually LOVE the fact you have a parts-car. It took me seven years to get mine on the road, which waaas exasperating. Most of that was trying to get a very good body man to pull his head out of his a$$ and get some work done, instead of hiding in a bottle. I hope you can do it in less, but after something short of year's driving it has all been worth it (to say nothing of all the cave-time I got fixing it up).

Welcome, picture and problems always welcome.

Thanks for the comments guys,

Regarding my little lady- lets just say she knew what she was getting involved with from the start and is generally quite supportive - but now with the arrival of our little boy - her tolerance has taken a hit....

Anyway back to the "story of my estate"

So over a large, strong cup of Zoega's (Swedish coffee) I stood looking out the window of our one bedroom flat staring at the amazon on the borrowed trailer and her WTF question rolled around in my head, maybe she had a point !

I was literally making the plan in my head as I was verbally delivering it, with the pinnacle moment being the disclosure of the purchase of a second amazon that I'd already paid for which was sat in the scottish countryside.....

Bombshell seemed an appropriate word.....

The amazon saloon stayed where it was for about 48 hours ( parked in a residents only bay with a visitors permit on it ) While I figured out my movement plan to get the estate and saloon together at my shared workshop in Bedfordshire.

The one thing I knew was for sure - I was going to be travelling from London to Scotland with an empty car trailer and that seemed crazy, I posted on half a dozen different forums to offer a cheap transport option and bingo - I struck a deal with a guy in Glasgow that had bought a BMW 635csi on eBay that was in east London.

Right - off we go - road trip time.... I'll try keep this short.
I left work a couple of hours early on the Friday and fought my way through London with the amazon on the back and got to bedfordshire, dropped the saloon into its spot outside my unit, gunned it with empty trailer down to ilford to collect the 1800kg 635csi, a mate of mine caught the train out to there and met me at the yard where I was collecting the BMW, with that securely strapped to the trailer we set off up the m11 destination - Rochdale,manchester.

No my mate was not coming to give me a hand, we had spotted a cheap BMW 330d estate for sale that he wanted, so he convinced me to take him up 'on my way'

We got to Rochdale just after 10pm and test drove the beemer etc did a deal and bought the car, at midnight we fuelled both cars up and he abandoned me to head back to London, while I pushed on north in my 530d which has done a few miles..............

http://i932.photobucket.com/albums/a...4/ed83cd60.jpg

Cant beleive i missed the 'all the 2's kodak moment but 32mpg through the hills with that load on the back is respectable for an old girl, economical but not fast....

I pushed on to somewhere around Carlisle and somewhere around 3am before I pulled in for Some shut eye....


http://i932.photobucket.com/albums/a...4/82bf7604.jpg

Some well earned sleep.....