#1 Another E-Type makes it to Oz
Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 10:26 am
For many, many years I've wanted an E-Type. Always when the kids asked what I wanted for Xmas, I would answer an E-Type, a red one.
Four months ago I found this really nice RHD primrose 3.8 OTS in Sweden. I ended up buying it and have waited patiently (not really) since.
First I had to get import approval to bring it in to Australia. This took a month.
Then it took them another month to find a container in southern Sweden.
Eventually it was loaded onto a ship and made it's way to Hamburg where it had to wait a week for the ship to bring it down here. There is a tracking site for ships - marinetraffic.com, so every now and then I would get an
email as the ship entered a port along the way.
It finally arrived 3 weeks ago and made it through customs and to a workshop to get complied. No major problems except I had to have sun visors and a door mirror.
(Actually there was a major problem. Bonnet support subframe had been hit from underneath and cracked - new one on the way from etypefabs)
I found a clip on mirror and had the bracket adjusted so it
would fit on the door. I never came with visors, but the engineer refused to reason, so I found a set of SII visors which could be fitted with the help of a custom made bracket. Unfortunately they ended up right in the line of sight, so they came off quickly as I got home.
So last Saturday I went out to Penrith to pick it up. The drive is about 70 k's and was a bit scary at first. Several times I tried to take off from the lights in reverse, but I eventually managed to figure out how to get it into first.
The car was fully restored 20 years ago. The paint is very good and all the bodywork has been done to a high standard. Interior is ok, mechanically pretty good. Soft top is usable but pretty ugly.
I have a long list of things to do. Change of all fluids and check of all the mechanics are first.
Car has not been driven much and all effort seems to have been spent on making it look its best. Electrics are a bit of a mess, underbonnet shine where it is easily reached but rest is messy.
There are a lot of things that can be done to it, but not an awful lot that must be done so I'm going to take my time to make it a nice driver.
Stefan
Four months ago I found this really nice RHD primrose 3.8 OTS in Sweden. I ended up buying it and have waited patiently (not really) since.
First I had to get import approval to bring it in to Australia. This took a month.
Then it took them another month to find a container in southern Sweden.
Eventually it was loaded onto a ship and made it's way to Hamburg where it had to wait a week for the ship to bring it down here. There is a tracking site for ships - marinetraffic.com, so every now and then I would get an
email as the ship entered a port along the way.
It finally arrived 3 weeks ago and made it through customs and to a workshop to get complied. No major problems except I had to have sun visors and a door mirror.
(Actually there was a major problem. Bonnet support subframe had been hit from underneath and cracked - new one on the way from etypefabs)
I found a clip on mirror and had the bracket adjusted so it
would fit on the door. I never came with visors, but the engineer refused to reason, so I found a set of SII visors which could be fitted with the help of a custom made bracket. Unfortunately they ended up right in the line of sight, so they came off quickly as I got home.
So last Saturday I went out to Penrith to pick it up. The drive is about 70 k's and was a bit scary at first. Several times I tried to take off from the lights in reverse, but I eventually managed to figure out how to get it into first.
The car was fully restored 20 years ago. The paint is very good and all the bodywork has been done to a high standard. Interior is ok, mechanically pretty good. Soft top is usable but pretty ugly.
I have a long list of things to do. Change of all fluids and check of all the mechanics are first.
Car has not been driven much and all effort seems to have been spent on making it look its best. Electrics are a bit of a mess, underbonnet shine where it is easily reached but rest is messy.
There are a lot of things that can be done to it, but not an awful lot that must be done so I'm going to take my time to make it a nice driver.
Stefan