Matt Drayer's Journal

"UNREAL..."

I've been stripping and degreasing the engine bay for weeks. I knew we'd need to do a bit of "carchaeology" with this five-decade-old vehicle, but what I'm seeing now blows me away. Once again, I'm covered from head to toe in a mixture of ancient petroleum and dirt. I've lifted the front end of the car about a foot using the engine hoist and my six-foot tall body is crammed inside the child-sized engine bay. The contortions were worth the effort to avoid leaning over the fender for the amount of time this particular phase of the project was taking.

After trying pretty much every degreasing product on the market with limited success, I've settled on a spray bottle full of kerosene. It's proven better than any of the commercial products. Thanks to the combination of the kerosene, a plastic putty knife, my trusty Anvil 6-in-1 painter's tool, and an industrial-size package of paper napkins, I've managed to clear away not just the thick layer of black gunk, but also the paint covering the brown front crossmember, which was now clearly presenting itself as a yellow front crossmember.

"HOLY MOLY..."

I crawled out of the car, stretched, and stared down into the engine bay. Just behind the crossmember I had uncovered two additional welds going across the chassis rails, attaching the crossmember to the original structure.

"What the heck happened to you, little one?"

Replacement engine...replacement crossmember...replacement passenger fender...wrinkled sheet metal and a pushed-up battery tray section...brazes and welds...

I closed my eyes and imagined the car's story playing back in my mind. There it was, sitting in a garage. No, there were TWO cars -- brown and yellow. The brown one had a face of twisted, destroyed metal. The yellow one was stripped, just a skeleton...a parts car. A plasma cutter, and then...sparks...heavy gloves...a welding mask... Someone was joining them together, making one working car out of two broken ones. Frankenstein.

My mind rewound the story further. Someone was driving the brown car. A collision! Smoke. Dazed driver. What happened? Did someone hit them? Oregon...it was registered in Oregon... Rain...that seems plausible. Heavy PNW rain...top up...windows up...slow-moving wipers...fogged windshield...hit a puddle...hydroplaned off the road...front crushed...steering twisted...engine destroyed...heavy chains and hooks...wrecker dragging it out of a ditch...in the rain...

"WOW..."

I snapped back to the present, amazed that anyone would have decided to keep this car going after what happened. It doesn't seem like it sat in a junkyard, either. It's filthy, yes, but there are no major holes in the rest of the vehicle, and there's no structural rust. So much of it is still original. Someone got right to it after the vehicle was impacted. Could the repairs have been covered by insurance? It seems unlikely that the verdict would have been anything other than a total loss, given the extent of the damage. No, this felt more like...

"JOY..."

Someone decided with their heart -- not their head -- that restoring this little MG was worth the cost. A rational mind schooled in classical economic theory would never have taken on this project. It was a complete time sink, and whether or not the owner did the work themselves, it was a money sink, too. They certainly didn't recoup those costs when they sold the car. Their investment could only be returned in the joy of wrenching it, tuning it, and whisking it along curving country roads with the top down on positively beautiful sunny days. What a dream to have.

And here I am, standing alone in my garage at midnight, cold, covered in filth, envisioning those curved roads, that warm sun, promising to a forever unknown number of forever unknown previous owners that I'll bring this car back to life once again, so my daughter can experience that same joy and understand what it really means to drive.