Sunday 12 January 2014

The Hunt Part XIII

The next one on my list was on my radar before and my 2nd attempt to make a visit. It was advertised earlier this year (Jan 2013). Getting in contact with the seller was slightly difficult as they were not very responsive. Once the appointment was almost made I got a mobile  text message saying they were withdrawing the car from the market and good luck with finding another one. End of story. Pfff. As you can imagine I was slightly annoyed by this as it was matching a lot of my criteria; color settings, carburettors, stainless steel exhaust, price tag and it looked clean on the pictures. In any case, I saved their contact number and tried again 2 months later. Reluctantly they were ok and I could come over to see the car. It looked very promising and a good specimen. The first thing that catched my eye was the missing fog lights - but not a big deal of course. Furthermore I noticed the car was resprayed. At first the owner denied it but I pointed out the spraying spots, he claimed it than had to be done by the previous owner. For me it's not a big deal as long as I understand why it was done, ie rust or damage? I noticed the left back must have had some kind of damage (I suspect a small parking incident). Furhtermore it had two small rust spots, apart from that the car looked very good in my opinion. The engine bay looked very clean, the only remark was the distribution chain adjustment screw had no room left - meaning expensive maintenance. The owner had a hobby garage so I was able to inspect under the car as well, which looked very good and clean. The interior of the car looked extremely good for it's age. Also the test drive did not reveal any issue - all sounded good and felt decent. Oh, the airco was not functioning. The owner could not show any history on the maintenance. When they purchased it they had put new tyres on it and a new stainless steel exhaust (bills available). I suspect they only had done the normal or minimal maintenance like oil, filters, belts and Sparks. The car came with papers from Kroymans where they purchased the car at the time. Also the original manual and service booklet was included. The service booklet revealed it had been maintained properly for each required interval up to 80.000 km. I knew for sure the car required a good check up with a large service undertaking but as far as I was concerned that was about it. But I still had a few others 400's I wanted to inspect. Since this car was no longer advertised I was not worried it would be sold meanwhile. So I agreed with the owner to come back with my outcome. And if so, I wanted to have the car checked by a specialist in case I had overlooked something.
 
 
 
Small bumper parking scratch

 
sprayed rubber:

 
more sprayed rubber:

 
one small rust spot:

 
and another small rust spot:

 
resprayed backside and small chip:

 
damaged backside but restored properly:


 
clean engine bay:

 
distribution chain adjustment screw:

 
all bushings looked good:


 
Clean, no findings:
 

 
 
extremely clean and proper interior:


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