Monday 14 May 2007

Should I say 'not the Kingswood'?

So I'll set the scene for you. Down the bottom of the hill from our house, there is a 1971-74 vintage (HQ series) Holden Kingswood for sale. It's been parked out the front of that particular house for a while now, but lately it's moved to the footpath with a for sale sign taped to its windscreen. At least on a drive-by inspection, it is in excellent condition for its age, and my Darling Wife tells me that she's walked past it, they want $1000 or nearest offer, and the sign also notes that the car 'runs well'. That's not a lot of money at all for a seemingly well-kept car of its vintage, that is approaching the stage where it is about to start being worth more as it ages, rather than less. For instance, you can't buy a good condition 1963-65 EH Holden (the one I really want) for less than about $8-10k these days.

So, you would think, given I've been saying for some time that a project car would be an interesting diversion, and old Holdens are famously easy to work on and get parts for, this would be a no brainer. Go and have a good look at the car, and if it's in good condition without rust, then hand over some money and drive it home.

Yet I have a reluctance to take this on, and I'm not sure why. My first thought was that it wouldn't fit in the garage, and I wouldn't want an old classic sitting outside. Then I measured the garage and discovered that I could, just, make it fit with millimetres to spare. Now I'm thinking that with a baby on the way, there is probably not going to be the time or the money to look after an old car like this properly, and I worry that it would deteriorate under my ownership. I also tend to think that I will probably want to spend time with my baby rather than be out in the garage working on an old car. In any case, I probably wouldn't have time to ever drive it anywhere and I wouldn’t want to be shifting baby seats all the time between it and the Commodore so I could only really ever go somewhere in it on my own. And then, of course, once I had it registered and back on the road, I'd be paying money to register and insure a car I didn't drive all that much. Plus old cars tend to be a bit crap to drive, so I might get tired of it very quickly. And I've heard plenty of stories about older car restorations that started out as just a quick coat of paint/bit of engine work/interior trim work and end up being $30,000 from the ground up restorations.

Yet, the other half of me thinks 'yeah, but old cars are cool, you can just work on it when you have time…'

What to do? I suspect the answer might be to let this particular car go by, good as it appears to be, and re-assess the situation in a year or two, time and money wise. But it looks like such a good car...

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