Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

@BRM - if he wanted out, and you couldn't buy him out, then what's wrong with just selling your share?

Okay, so you would no long have the car, but you would have enjoyed it for a bit and hopefully made some money. Neither of which you have if you don't do it.

Surely the real concern is you buy it, don't get round to driving it, the he totals it, and you loose both 🚗&💷.

you are probably right. if only this was there in 12 months time, it would be an easy decision as the racer will be complete and the elan could just be purchased and tucked away.

the opportunity to own an elan may never come again, though...

nothing, except that i have a massive amount of time, money and work invested in the racer. i would love an elan, but at this point in life i would probably prefer a completed fia b racer than the elan. they'd both be about the same value (but the elan would prob cost less to finish!).

as for twatting a racing car, that risk never goes away. i'd be in a better position if it got twatted by him and we were sharing it as opposed to my twatting it under my sole ownership.

you won't own the Elan. the Elan would own you!

There will be another Elan that appears at a better time for you.
Multi-projects= no completion.
These are things I tell myself regularly.
@mcmyk BARS test in due course- probably next year after some experience gathering/ car prep.

I'd say try and do both @BRM but that might be due to my delirious state of not having an interesting car myself. Part of me feels like a cheap Elan may not cross your path again but the other part of me thinks that the B deserves to be finished properly and used with focus. The Elan might become a distraction to that.

don't get me wrong, the idea of owning an elan for mgb money is pretty tempting, but as we know, it will not be as simple as just rubbing it down, spraying it and putting it back together.

plus, there's the issue of getting it past management, as noted above...

I am going to see if he can store it at mine for six mnths and see what is happening then. i have professional qualification to sit in nov, so will hopefully be due a bit of a bump in salary/bonus...

Do fellow owners routinely uprate the rear suspension to cope with the change in weight distribution?

One on the right has the correct fitting for a Porsche seatbelt receiver, one on the left has the correct bolt pattern to fit to my seat base. See the problem?

There's probably enough room to slot the holes:

But it'd leave very little metal to prevent pull-through, which is why I'm loathe to go that route.

Latest pics of my chaser, still waiting on the DVLA to get the v5 to me :( just wanna drive the bloody thing.

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There’s quite a lot of talks on forums about adding air suspension to the rear. I assume it’ll stiffen it up and raise the rear end, but I struggle to see how it’ll solve the weight distribution issue?

Ha, I've never even driven a pick-up. I'm guessing the standard leaf spring suspension is rated for filling the load bed with 'stuff', not with an overcab 'Toppola'-style caravan.
Just thought uprated suspension might cope with the additional weight and moment(?) from the rear overhang better.

Been googling air suspensions all evening. Seems like the way to go. About £600 and it’ll level the car back up to normal height and also increase stability etc.

What is the added weight of the camper back? Surely not more than the ton bag of ballast my pickup regularly carries (you do know it's there!). In fact, every pickup I have owned handles better with 100kg or so in the loadbay, it stops the rear stepping out through bends, fun as that might be.

Thanks bud.....It's fun chavving a modern car!

https://angliacarauctions.co.uk/classic/saturday-15th-june-2019/1987-peugeot-505-gtd-turbo/

This looks ace... A very comfy cruiser right there

Yeah got a lot of time for that. V rare these days too

True that. An old mate of mine had a Ford P100 for a bit and it was hilarious / terrifying with nothing in the back. Backwards around the hammersmith gyratory more often than not.

The camper weighs 500kg unloaded according to the manufacturer, and I think we add at least 200kg of stuff with mattresses, clothes, food, water etc.

I weighed the whole thing when we were out and we totalled 2640kg incl passengers. According to some sites the car itself weighs 1400kg while others says 1910kg. I guess it's somewhere in between. Either way, we're withing the legal limits at least :)

Have you tried adding air suspension on a pickup?

still looking at honda jazzs for a small run about.
However, a friend's dad runs a garage and knows my criteria, and said I can have a 2L diesel mk5 golf (56 plate) with okay service history, 110k miles, newish cam belt and 12 months mot for £900. Seems like a reasonable deal and he's doing me a favour, so I wouldn't want to offer him any less than that.
Is it worth me trying to negotiate to get cost price servicing or tyres if it needs it or hasn't been done recently (oil change, oil filter, air filter, spark plugs ) so it will hopefully run perfectly for 1-2 years?

Can you not just get a seatbelt insert turned up and welded onto the other bracket?

It's just a top hat with a 7/16 thread inside it no?

My favoured air suspension fix has always been a few extra psi in the rears if I know I will be carrying a ton bag! Combined with not blasting around roundabouts at full speed, this works just fine.