Totally agree with your sentiments on this, all the 2 litre cars I have were bought in the 70's and early 80's, by the end of that decade the classic car boom and Bristol prices were pricing me out of the market and for years the cars sat for that reason, later other distractions came along but the sale of a 403 and its replacement with a 603 project made me resolve to do something to redress the situation. Early retirement has helped as well, more time but less money! but at least there is no time to get bored, I always felt I only worked to pay the garage bills anyway!
Last weekend several enjoyable hours passed reading again some of the BOC bulletins from that period, cheap cars, cheap parts and talk of MG pistons, Alfa and Ford bearings and clutches finding their way on to and in to our cars, I have the 1968 Motor Sport advert for the 401 we are doing now, BRG perfect condition spare cylinder head all for £150, eight years later when we dragged it out of a field in Gloucester it had fallen on hard time with a terminally frost damaged and dismantled engine and badly repainted yellow and I paid £120, must have been mad.
The fact that it has just cost about 10 times that to complete the necessary welding repairs on the chassis makes me think it wasn't such a bad buy after all and the years of neglect gathering dust have actually helped to preserve it . If the worst happened and it had to be sold at least I would get back more money than I would have say 5 years ago, problem is a few years down the line I probably would not be able to afford to replace it so it will be another one not for sale and anyway after all the fun and effort of getting the old girl back on the road I want to enjoy it.
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