Hello folks,
When I was a young dazed teenager one of my fondest memories was driving late on weeknights in my friend's little red spider and getting into too much trouble. I hadn't thought much about these cars in the intervening years and became very involved in Italian motorbikes and still scoot around on a bevel drive Ducati twin and a tattered Moto guzzi that is an indestructible farm implement. Anyway, a couple of months ago, I saw an ad for a 78 spider up in Washingon, and on a whim drove up on a weekday (playing hookey again) to check it out. I met a great guy who was the original devoted owner who took loving car of the beast. He possessed all the original paperwork and literally folders of reciepts on it. I purchased the car that day and am so stoked to drive a car again that feels and connects with the driver not so unlike a motorbike. Through the years of automatic transmissions and cars that have been just functioning cages to get to point A and B; this car is a revelation and a delight. For some reason I assumed that cars were a lost cause as far as sensory pleasure goes. Am I making any sense? I came upon your forum and just thought it would be great to share this with you folks. I just hope I am worthy enough to take as great care of this car as the previous owner did. The car presently has 204,000 miles on the original motor and the first clutch was replaced at 175,000 miles. Everything on the car is stock and original with many mechanical parts replaced and a repainting about 3 years ago; the compression is good and it doesn't smoke or leak. I realize I will have to rebuild the motor at some point, but in the meantime I'm just going to enjoy it. I am grateful for finding this site and of course I have a 36 ADL that I would love to install in it sometime and could probably use some advice on that. Thanks and cheers, Pablo
