In November 2020, a day before I left, I saw that the Tumwater PnP got a convertible in. I knew I would be back in a month (for Christmas) and was hoping it would still be there.
I notified Jim P and Al. Even though they live further up north, I was hoping any parts that could be saved or needed, they would make the trek to get.
I then saw someone post it on the FB group page. There was a plan for him to go there since he lived 5mins away and was gonna grab parts for everyone. I commented on it.. but left it at that.
I didn’t know if the car would still be available when I got to WA, but I brought my tools and sawzall just in case I needed to grab parts.
December 20th I arrived in Olympia, where my mom lives. Tumwater is maybe 15mins south. While I had a full agenda for the day, I wanted to go to check out the vert for a couple of hours.
It was raining and I went to go look at the car. It was pretty much complete. 88k on the odometer and it looks like transmission failure (transmission parts in the back seat). After giving it a few minutes, I went back inside and asked to speak to the managers. I straight up said:
“I love this car and I don’t want to see it scrapped. I want to know if I can buy it AS IS”.
The managers said they couldn’t do it. So they said No.
Again, with limited time, I focused on one thing, taking the front end apart so I could the radiator support. Project Leopard’s support is tweaked from drifting. At first was okay with it being like that as long as we straighten it out, but I figured if I ever get a car that has a straight front, I should cut it.
I spent 2 hours in the rain, getting soaked and clearing the front so I could cut the radiator support. Once I had the radiator support out, I had very little time to grab the other parts I wanted, so I focused on the rear quarter glass.
Once I hit my time limit, I paid for my parts and asked when that row was planned to be scrapped. Manager said in a couple days at most. So I planned to come back in the morning if I had time.
There was many parts that I wanted to get. Front and rear bumper, spoiler, dash stuff. I was also gonna see what parts people need so I could grab them.
One of my friends saw my IG post and messaged me. He said he was going there the next morning. I wanted to go, but my family wanted to go to Mt Rainier, so I asked him if he could get the front bumper.
Next day he called me and said he couldn’t figure out how to get the bumper off and I remember Mark needed the bracket on the passenger side. He was able to get that.
I was planning on a final parts grab the next day, but I got a fever that night and the rest of the week I just stayed home. Later I found out I was COVID19 positive.
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- 88k on the odometer. Sorry for blurry
While I couldn’t work on my convertible (in Canada), my parent’s home is the home base for it. When Jim gave me the car, he also gave me a door for me to replace it (vert has damaged door).
I also grabbed the driver’s side fender and extra set of rear quarter glass for the vert when time comes (the rear quarter window I replaced in 2019 has a broken plastic slider).
Hopefully sometime in 2021 I can get my vert and start fixing the door.
