We met up with Steve in Witney and went off to a couple of shops to buy some bits for the journey. I had ordered most of what we needed from Amazon, but there were a few bits like a fire-extinguisher, starting gas and electrical bits to be sorted. Once we had this organised, we set off to Carterton to pick up my new pride and joy. On the way Steve demonstrated the capabilities of his Interceptor in perhaps not an entirely legal manner, but it took us considerably less time than normal to get to Carterton.

The Moment of Truth

Once we got there, we got the garage opened up and Steve demonstrated the starting technique. As there is no choke, the car is tuned very rich and cold starting requires liberal quantities of Start Easy. It wasn’t too hard a job to get her going and he rolled her out of the garage. This is the first time I had seen her and I was fairly pleasantly surprised. She shines up pretty nice but you can see that there is quite a bit of nastiness about to erupt through the paint. She looks like she needs a new outer sill and the front valence is more or less gone.

The engine runs pretty sweetly. The interior is all present and fairly correct but needs a good tidy up. A few bits of trim are not attached, the seats need a bit of work and the carpets need replacing. The electrics are not nearly as bad as I thought. The lights all work except for the hazards, there is one interior light, the foot-well courtesy light works but is detached somewhere inside the console, the ignition key and door skin lights even work. We are missing panel lights as there appears to be nothing behind the switch. The electric windows even work as does the fuel flap which is just as well as the boot doesn’t open due to being tie-wrapped closed due to a missing cable. We have no speedometer or rev-counter but the rest of the gauges and the clock work.

Once she has warmed through, we shut her down and Steve talks us through a few things we were likely to need to do. That being done, we said our goodbyes and Steve headed off. We nip over to the shops to pick up some nibbles for the trip along with a few decent bottles of bitter for supping if we make it. We arrive back at Jo’s Nan’s and pack the car. As one of the bonnet hinges has snapped, we have to resort to gaffer-taping the leading edge down to ensure that it doesn’t get any wind underneath it.

We head inside to have a drop of soup to send us on our way. This might be the last meal for some considerable time.