Going to Florida

(Previous: Buying the Austin America)

So down to Florida we went, having made all the arrangements with the seller. We left on Southwest from Baltimore (50 miles away), because the equivalent flight from Dulles (5 miles from here) cost approximately $1800 more per person.

Because of the distance and because of the well-meaning but useless security measures at the airports these days, we had to get up at 6:00 to make at 10:20 flight. We wasted no time, and finished up with the security hooha just in time to eat a greasy breakfast and make the flight.

The flight was uneventful. You can see in the photo here that the lovely and talented Nicole had quite a good time.

At this point, I left my camera behind on the plane. There will therefore be no photos for the next part of this saga.

The seller picked us up at West Palm Beach, and we headed back north through sporadic but heavy rain.

Those of you who own one of these cars will see what's coming. The rest of you can wait for it.

When we got to the seller's house, we found that the car was exactly as described, and that it came with a boot full of spare parts as well. Now, the spare parts that you get when you buy an old car are almost always useless. After all, if they were the parts that the car actually needed, they'd have already been installed on the car, right? Right. Usually, the spare parts are the broken things that were taken off the car to be replaced with working versions. It's a good sign anyway -- it at least shows that the former owner replaced some of the things that were not working. I wound up with an extra torque converter, three extra transmission bell-housings, two extra steering wheels, one extra steering column, an extra gear selector, a radiator that needs a new core, extra hubcaps, a roof rack, a cover, and a bunch of other stuff.

We completed the formalities and drove off, heading up US-1 in the general direction of Orlando.

Next Page: Driving to Orlando