Classic Velocity

I didn’t mean to do it. Honest. Purchasing another vehicle was not in the plans. What’s that, you don’t believe me? Well I understand. If you are a regular reader, then you know that an unplanned purchase is not exactly a strange and foreign occurrence. However, in my defense, the vehicle purchased was one that was on the watch list. The opportunity presented itself, and a vehicle long desired, or perhaps desired again, came home. The main facilitator was usually a great financial deal. Who can resist a deal on something you are looking for?

I have read about completely unexpected vehicles in magazines and even from fellow gearheads, but they sounded strange to me. “I was looking for a Maserati, but I ended up with a Citreon DS” or “I really wanted an MGB, but I ended up with a Miata”. In each case, there is a common thread between what was sought and what was ultimately purchased, but it can be a very twisty and tenuous thread. A thread which puzzles your gearhead friends, and may even sound kind of defensive. “Well it has the same headliner material, so it’s practically the same.”

So there I was, not looking for anything, when a conversation at work uncovered something sitting in someone’s garage for a long time. Someone should save it for the small amount of money it would take. It was a sports car of some kind, and had an engine in the back. Volkswagen maybe. The ears perked up, like the proverbial antelope at the watering hole. “Did someone just say Volkswagen?” Five days later, I pushed a car off the trailer and into the garage. A car I was not looking for, and had only come across a couple times before in decades of roaming around shows and swap meets. A car not from Germany. A convertible. A car that was not running. Wrong in so many ways (at least for me). A car not from the 1950s or 1960s, or early 1970s. A Puma.

In many ways it is ludicrous to try to justify an old, non-running vehicle that is not going to be your daily driver, but I find myself (defensively) saying, “Well, it has a Volkswagen chassis and motor, so it is actually German.”