[Claytopia]

So by this stage my car has been sitting idle for a few months and its starting to bug me. So I started talking to a few more people, rang a few shops and chatted to a few guys, I even considered the option of just giving the car and all my parts to one of the GT restoration shops and saying “here give me it back when it’s done”. To be honest I had called them in the past and the sort of money they were talking about put me off, besides I pulled her apart and I want to put her back together!

And so I jumped on the phone and stated playing the game, you know the one, you call a panel shop and say “this is what I want to do” they go yes or no, if it’s a yes I ask how much, if they give a figure straight off I worry, When they ask a few questions and then give a price, I worry a bit less, when they say “listen who knows what well find but this is how we charge from what you have said it should go this but if it’s bad here, here and here as well you could be looking at A VERY LARGE AMOUNT”. Now if it was a phase 3, you can spend that sort of money on panel work as it’s still a lot less than its value, especially when it’s a unique combo, but the old XB doesn’t command those prices and in reality it’s just not worth it, well at least not to me.

And then it happened I had a PM response to my post 23 here, you know how it goes -I know a guy I’ll get him to have a look at your thread and get in touch with you – and that’s what happened!

The first time we spoke, I could tell he was the guy. Sure he wasn’t the cheapest but he sure wasn’t the dearest (seriously some of the hourly rates I was quoted blew my mind)but he seemed to know coupes like the back of his hand, in fact as were talking he tells me he likes to specialise in coupes! It seems he’s just like me in that the first time he saw one, he fell in love with the shape (just like us all. It turns out that not only was working on falcon coupes part of his job it was his passion.

So I sent him a few pics of the car and we talked in detail about the work that I wanted done, you see I know the car has had a few prangs in the past, in fact the front left hand side just behind the radiator support panel is a centimetre shorter than it should be, and while it doesn’t sound like much it really messes with those panel gaps. It was also obvious the left hand rear had had some work too.

If I wasn’t convinced yet that this guy was the guy for me, we had two more conversations that sealed it for me. He called me one day to see how I was going finding a donor car (having previously mentioned it being the cheapest long term alternative) and when I said “No I haven’t” he replied “don’t bother, I just found the perfect car for your needs, it’s a sedan but the engine bay and rear end parts you need are the same, even if you don’t want it I will use it for another car later on.” That’s pretty awesome I thought.

Then his next call (remember I hadn’t given him the go ahead yet). he tells me he has been out getting parts for another XB and came across a guy. Now you all know what we’re like, get a bunch of car nuts together and we’ll talk for hours, well in his conversation my car came up, and the other guy says “Oh yeah, I know it, I use to own that car”. He then went on to describe things about the car proved it, like the short left front. So he put us in touch with each other and after ringing the previous owner I found out he and his wife sold it to the guy that I eventually purchased it from. Talk about fate!!

Those two calls later and I said to my wife “I have found the guy (guy’s) that are going to do my panel work”. Now I believe the saying that “when one door closes another opens” I really feel that the local doors closing was just so I could find this new guy.

Now I know it has been a while with no pics but sorry, I just have to tell this and the next story and then more pics I promise.