Cars in storage

[Will Owen <nashwill@domain.elided>]

Hey -

Adding to the anecdotes about cars that were kept in
storage before being sold: I may have told y'all this
before (as my wife tells me I tend to do), but my
first Alfa, the '74 Berlina, was offered to me in '78
with a mere 1400 miles on the clock. According to the
paperwork it was a brand-new car, though the dealer
was selling it "As is." That should have gotten my
suspicions going, but after they gave me the car to
drive for nearly a week I was so in love that I'd have
overlooked anything short of the doors falling off.
The story was that it had gone unsold for a year or
two, then was used as a factory rep's car until the
Nashville dealer bought it as part of a truckload. It
had, the man pointed out, a thorough refurbishing,
including a paint job from the folks at Lyk-Nu. Once
again, I mistook the alarm bells going off for the
Hallelujah Chorus...

Of course the car had sat in an outdoor lockup,
probably in a salt marsh near Biloxi or somewhere,
until the distributors thought it was time to flog it
off to some poor sap who'd fall for the brilliant
performance and air of solidity (temporary, as it
turned out). So I signed over my beloved-but-rickety
Fiat 128 and some $4500 plus interest, and enjoyed
hell out of it for the 3 1/2 years it took to rust
away to the point of actual danger.

I sure wish my current Berlina looked and felt as good
as that one did...but I am happy knowing that all the
important structural bits are fastened to each other
with unoxidized steel, and will probably stay that way
for some time.

Will Owen
Pasadena, CA
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