Collaboration I dabble in a bit of photography and I keep hearing the arty folk liberally throw around the ‘collaborate’ buzzword. At work we recently dealt with a young company and their hip employees couldn’t resist using it in every paragraph of every email they sent. I’m not quite that hip but allow me to use it just this once. I’ve been collaborating with some amazingly generous and passionate people lately. Without their assistance my results would be sub par but I’ve come to realise that, outcomes aside, it’s the relationships built that are far more precious. Progress was elusive …
Spring 2017
A Beautiful Chronicle Spring brings new life as they say. They weren’t kidding! My wife started growing another little peanut this spring… high five! Elation soon made way for nausea – the all day type, not this morning sickness variety. A few years ago we went on a boat ride to The Great Barrier Reef. The seas were rough, unrelenting in their swaying. She’s stuck on that boat ride with the only relief coming from sleep. While I’m not physically with her, I am on board, trying my hardest to calm her rough ride. Not surprisingly this has sapped my …
Winter 2017
Distractions Around the time winter set in I realised the only way to get this car finished in under 10 years was to get rid of all my distractions. With that in mind, I bought an MX5… Bear with me now. My logic is sound. I purchased a huge distraction to get rid of all my distractions… It makes sense if you think about it. No, wait, I had that backwards. It makes sense if you don’t think about it. Just don’t think about it. Buy a car over the phone without inspecting it, with only half a dozen small …
Datsun 240Z Door Mirrors
Last weekend I was presented with an opportunity to buy a right hand door mirror – otherwise known as unicorn poo. If you have tried to locate one you know how difficult they are to track down. It was the very first item I started searching for when I bought my car in 2014 and I thought I had finally cracked it! Sadly the listing was misleading and the mirror I bought was for the left hand side. It did teach me a bit about the differences in right hand and left had mirrors though and I’d like to share …
Autumn 2017
Autumn has been a period of procrastination, contemplation and frustration punctuated by clarity. With any large project your best intentions often get trampled by procrastination. Lazy evenings spent on the couch melt into each other. Almost every opportunity to breath some rust dust in the garage is met by an excuse and of course, each excuse is justified and valid enough to avoid the guilt of procrastination. Excuses. They come so easy, rolling off the tongue naturally, comfortable and safe in thought. Easy. My favourite has been my first-born, Benjamin. I don’t want to miss a moment of these precious …
Datsun 240Z Shell Restoration Complete!
Two year turnaround and what a turnaround it is. Can’t say enough about the team at Custom and Classic Cars. It was brave of them to take it up in the first place and to follow through with this result is just amazing
Datsun 240Z Finally Under Primer
It is a glorious day over two years in the making. The shell finally looks more like a car and not ‘fine lace’ as someone put it to me the other day. Won’t be long now before we see some colour on the body. Happy Days. 🙂
Pushing and Pulling
The 240Z is coming along nicely with everything from the firewall back now repaired. This week the front section is getting some loving with the car all jigged up on a chassis bench. The rails will be cut and news ones welded in place. Beyond that there are some holes to be repaired under the battery tray, the radiator support needs to be replaced and we are just about done with plugging up holes! Happy days.
Starting to Resemble a Car Again
I receive photo updates every so often. Up to now the car was heading in the wrong direction as it was being stripped and cut up. Finally we are starting to see her come together and the excitement is building. I have booked a trip at the end of November to visit the car, Paul, and all the guys out at Adelaide. It coincides with their Datsun Day as well so it should be a fantastical auto-orgy of a weekend.