I took Destiny to yearly inspection at the end of August. As it passed with no remarks, I was encouraged enough to prepare her for the review of the museum inspectors. But before that I did something I had waited for a long time. I carried everything out of my garage, drove Destiny to my parents' garage for a couple of days, patched and painted the walls, burned the oil drips out of the floor and finally spread the
floor epoxy.
The tone of the color became maybe too dark but gives nice contrast to Destiny's Zinnoberrot and the most important is that it's easy to keep clean either with brush of wash. I lost the count of days it took to carry everything back in as I washed and cleaned every single item before it was allowed to enter. Once this was ready I glued in the missing door weatherstrips and emblems and contacted the authorized inspectors to drop by for a visit. They first wanted to get a couple of photographs of Destiny to see if everything was in such a condition that the inspection was reasonable to do. So I did. Below is one of the shots.
I paid special attention to keep the boot top on in the pictures and while the car was checked. I somehow was disappointed that inspection did not take even one hour. But what I was glad about was that they did not take a look at the convertible top. Now, this inspection has nothing to do with what they call
concours correct restoration . This is all about money ! If a car is +30 years old and is
rust-free, has
shiny chrome and
unbroken interior and
resembles the condition it had when it left the factory, you'll get dispensation of certain rules as
valuable historical vehicle. In my case it means, that the yearly inspection has to be made only every other year (save 50 €). It means that the mandatory road insurance cost collapses from yearly 600 € to 34 € (yes, thirty-four). It means that Destiny is liberated off the yearly car tax (100 €). And what's most important is that the insurance company approves it for full cover insurance (for nominal 159 € per year) including collision, fire, theft, vandalism, a roadkill with a moose and towing back home. I consider this a valuable benefit if I plan to make longer trips than those to local events and
cruising nights what I did this summer.
Now that I had saved so much money, I felt like shopping at NPD's website. I wrote a list and ordered parts worth $500 to replace this worn-out cloth and blurred rear window. And once again, they had all the needed parts for fast delivery at their Florida exports stock.
