Car geeks
Many many years ago, back in the dark ages of my marriage, my now late father-in-law showed me around his collection of cars. He had a thing for Lincoln Continentals in particular. And back in the corner of his barn stood a hulking monster of a specimen- a 1959 Mark IV. Look it up for yourselves- this thing had a 400 hp engine, and measured 22 feet long. But this particular one had had a tragedy befall it- he had lent it to a friend for a weekend, who in turn sent his secretary on an errand in it, and it ended up plowing through a picket fence. I don't know why the friend didn't fix it, but ultimately Erle went out and found another Mark IV which had been in a rear end collision and bought it for the parts. He brought it home- and found out that the body panels had been spot welded on every 1/4", so taking them off would have involved massive amounts of drilling out little teeny holes. He then just shoved the entire mess back into the corner of the barn where I saw it.

Fast forward some years. Erle dies of a massive coronary, and his widow starts selling Lincolns. The Mark IV was one of the last ones, and she found two guys from Florida who wanted both hulks to do as Erle had planned and restore them. They paid a large amount of cash for the two of them, she signed it over to them, and they loaded the two hulks onto a truck, looking very pround and excited.

Just before they left I walked up and looked the cars over and said conversationally, "You know, Erle had taled of restoring that thing. There was just one little hitch..."

The expression on their faces as I told the story was truly priceless. But hey, they got the cars they had wanted...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 19 Feb 2007, 15:00, Reply)