As I mentioned in a previous post, in February of 2024, shortly before my birthday, I came home one evening and saw a strange vehicle parked in our driveway. Strange as in unknown, that is. At first I wondered who was there to visit us, but as I kept looking, I realized there was a giant bow on the car. I sat there for a minute in disbelief, denying what my eyes were seeing.
To give you some background, my sister-in-law had passed away at Easter in 2023 and left a small bequest to my husband (her brother). Our son and his two cousins (from hubby's other sister) were beneficiaries equally of the estate, but for the bequests to my husband and his other sister. That year, on Christmas Eve, my husband slid off the road on black ice. His van ended up totaled. He and the insurance company settled on an amount after he was able to prove modifications and upgrades to the vehicle. The payout from insurance came in at the same time as the bequest from his sister. Her old Ford Escape was part of the estate, but needed a lot of work to make it saleable. My husband was without a vehicle, and was interested in having the Escape, however his other sister and her husband (not the executors, mind you, one of my son's cousins is) didn't feel that it was right for him to have it when he hadn't inherited it, and yet it had no monetary value as far as being able to be sold. To put an end to the argument, my son said he'd take it. Since his two cousins already had newer cars, and one of them lives in the US and would have had to "import" the car to take it home, neither of them wanted it. As soon as it was agreed that our son would have the car, he said to transfer it directly to his dad. They realized that they could transfer it to our son, but he could simply turn around and transfer it immediately to my husband. So hubby got the vehicle.
My husband received the inherited amount, as well as the old Ford Escape, and at the same time, the insurance payout for his own vehicle.
Over the years we had talked many times about having a summer car. My husband regularly buys draw tickets on various vehicles, typically what we call "summer" cars. These are the cars that don't see snow and are usually convertibles. My husband also regularly scrolls through Auto Trader and Kijiji looking at what's out there in the market. So it was mildly interesting to me one evening when he showed me a nice-looking convertible for sale locally. I thought nothing more of it. Really. It went out of my mind by morning.
So a few days later, in February 2024, I was parked in my driveway behind a bright blood red Mustang convertible and wondering who was visiting. When I realized there was a giant bow on it, my puzzlement deepened and slowly it dawned on me. It wasn't new by any means at 17 years old, but it sure looked pretty. OMG, yes, he had gone out and bought that car he'd shown me a couple of nights before. I was stunned. He told me it was my birthday/you beat cancer (for the second time) gift. Wow!
Now, you'd think the story ended there, but in reality it was just the beginning.
My husband had gotten a temporary license plate in order to bring it home and then to a mechanic to get it certified (as safe). Every vehicle needs to have a safety certificate on transfer if you want to put a license plate on it and drive. The guy who sold it to him had his own story to tell. He bought the vehicle from a guy in a larger urban city (we live small town/rural). He'd bought it already certified. Coincidentally he had bought it for his wife, but they had to take over full custody of their grandchildren, so mostly he drove it, keeping it in his garage in the winters and driving his other vehicle. Then shortly after being awarded custody of their grandchildren, his wife got sick and died. The Mustang is not a car that fits car seats, especially in the back seat, so he made the decision to sell it. He did sell it to a local gentleman who wanted it for his daughter who'd just graduated, but the daughter didn't want an "old" car, so he agreed to give the man his money back in exchange for the car. Before the man had sold the car, he'd had his mechanic certify it because you get more money for a car already certified. He put up his ad again to sell it, but the safety certificate expired before my husband saw and bought it. Still, it had very recently been certified, so it shouldn't have been a problem to get a new certification.
The next day my husband took the car to a mechanic he knew (since our regular guy was busy), and asked for a safety check. Bad news. The mechanic had the car on the hoist and showed my husband there was significant rust on the rocker panels. This alone is enough not to pass a safety check, but the next thing he showed my husband was horrifying. He tapped on part of the frame of the car, which sounded metallic - as it should. Then he tapped on another part of the frame, which didn't sound metallic. Somewhere along the line (probably with the first owner, since the guy hubby bought it from had a garage for storage and was doing cosmetic stuff like paint and touching up rock chips, as well as actually driving it, but storing in the winters), so somebody had used spray foam where the frame had rusted out and then cut it to shape, and painted it black. This told us the car had spent its first dozen years of life being driven through snow and slush where salt was used on the roads. No wonder the first seller had sold it "certified" and since his mechanic had a very similar sounding name, we wondered if it wasn't a relative of the owner who gave him a convenient safety certificate.
Rats! I couldn't drive my new car without a lot of work being done to it. First thing, my husband had done was order a new roof for it. The existing one was showing its age. He found a guy in a city a few hours' drive from us that specializes in convertible roof replacements, made an appointment, and we took it down. The temporary license plates are good for ten days, with one ten-day extension allowed. We had the new roof put on. Then hubby found a local guy that apparently does body work. We took the vehicle to him for a discussion and an estimate. We left the car with him. Weeks went by and the car was still sitting in his work yard, and getting through to him on the phone was nearly impossible. Finally we found another guy and decided to move the car. From getting the car in early February, we were now into April. The new body guy was a little more expensive, but said he could get right on the work. We left the car with him. More weeks went by and the car was still where we'd parked it in his yard. We showed up one day to ask about it and got what seemed to be a whole song and dance about some issue with getting the necessary parts, and about some insurance issue he had with his shop. As I said to my husband, his insurance issues are his problem, not ours.
Anyhow, he said we should take the car and drive it for the summer and bring it back in the winter. (In the intervening weeks I had reached out through someone I knew and made contact with a mechanic who would provide a safety certificate, sight unseen. We'd made the trip to the city (not in the red car) and paid the ransom for the certificate.) We left my blue car with him for a little rust repair to some spots on the wheel well on one side, and a spot on the opposite side where something had chipped off a chunk of paint the size of a small child's palm. More weeks went by. Now we were in mid-July when one day my husband had taken the convertible to town to pick up some takeout. He phoned me to come get him and said the tow truck was on the way. It had broken. Not the motor, but one of the underneath things that was all rusted. I needed my blue car back immediately. We went up to see the guy about when it would be ready and he promised it in a week. I drove my son's old Chev for that time. My husband went with my son one day to pick it up. Imagine our disappointment when we discovered the guy had used the wrong paint!!! My car was blue, now it had blue doors and the rest of the car was sparkly blue. Yes, he had used metallic paint. I was livid. Not only had the work taken a couple of months, but it was painted with the WRONG paint. I have a two-tone car now. It looks awful.
I told my husband we should take the Mustang back to the first guy because there was no way he would ever talk me into letting this guy near it again - ever! So we drove back to the first guy. By now I'd had my first of two surgeries for the latest cancer. We left the car with the first guy again in September. In early November my husband went to chat with the guy and he had it up on the hoist. Hubby took a picture for me.
It was very hopeful to us that the work would be done soon because the car was on the hoist. But there it remained. Apparently the guy didn't have a hoist inside his shop and so couldn't work on the car until the winter ended. Seriously? I wish we'd known that ahead of time. It sat there on the hoist all winter long, and it was a long winter. It was now 2025. The weather had finally warmed up. The guy had fixed the part that had broken, but nothing else. He had promised us in March that it would be ready by the end of May. I was very upset. Over the fall and winter I'd had a chemo series, and finally declared in remission (again). I was looking forward to driving my car for the summer, but I wanted a safe vehicle to drive. Even though we had paid for a safety certificate, and the car was technically on the road, I wanted to feel safe in it. When we asked why it wasn't done yet when he had promised it would be, he said he had other vehicles ahead of us. I reminded him we had left it with him in the fall and his reply was that since we had taken it back from him the previous spring, other cars were now ahead of us. Even my pleading that I wanted to be able to drive it before cancer came back again had no effect. Yep, he was punishing us because we'd dared to take it elsewhere after he didn't start the work when he'd promised the previous year. We paid for the work he had done, and left.
I said we should look elsewhere, broadening our search, because clearly there wasn't anyone local. Well, my husband found a guy who was too busy to take on the job, but he recommended another body guy, who had actually been his master when he was an apprentice body guy. My husband drove out to see the guy, and was pleasantly surprised when the guy said (1) he could do the work starting a week later, (2) he would also replace the work the first guy had done - incorrectly, and (3) he had just finished doing some work on the exact same vehicle! Not only could he start right away, he'd come highly recommended, and he was 1/3 of the total price of either of the other two. A week later we drove over and left the car with its third body guy inside 18 months. Two weeks after that we drove back to get it.
It looked amazing! I have been happily driving it everywhere this summer. It feels great and I have now worries about my safety. It's probably just as well it took so long because I really wasn't in the mood to enjoy it last summer, having been diagnosed with cancer that third time. Now I'm in remission and feeling great, and I have a summer car to zip around it. Life is good.
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