babying your baby

for all of you that build or restore your prize, I learned and important lesson a few years ago...back in the 80s I built myself a corvette, it turned out to be my masterpiece, absolutley perfect, running and appearance real fast, handled amazing, well I started to baby it to the point it sat in my shop for nine years with only a few miles put on her, then my landlord decided he needed some cash and one night had the place torched, corvette gone, burnt to a crisp,and because it wasn't tagged at the time, no insurance,and because of questionable cause of the fire, long court battle for the landlord,don't think anybody got paid, 20,000 up in smoke and that was just the vette,my total loss over 200,000, so now my philosophy is build it and beat it into the ground,there's a lot more good memories in excitement than just having it and being afraid to use it for what you built it for, when its dead rejoice in the great memories and build something else

I have restored / customized quite a few vehicles over the years. I tend to agree with your current mentallity. I will probrably never own a trailer queen. I find the most joy in doing the restoration .... maybe even more so than actually riding or driving the vehicle I'm working on. So I'm always looking forward to the next project.

In 1999 I bought a Pontiac Fiero and did a ground up restoration / mild custom job on it. It came out so nice that I now have several Local, Regional and National level trophies to prove it. I did park it in the winter but when spring came around it was on the road.

I sold the Fiero to my son last month I miss it ... but my current project (1980 KZ750H1 LTD) is coming out near show quality and it's filling the void very well I plan on showing it but I also plan on riding it ..... A LOT !!!

Pontiac had a good saying "We drive excitement" ... Key word DRIVE !!! If you're not driving it then it's just a inert lump of metal and plastic.

1987 Pontiac Fiero 2M4 Economy Coupe

Agreed, gents.....all my bikes are runners and get used whenever time is available. It's always nice to walk into the shed and say "Hmmmm.....what kind of a mood am I in today ?? H2 mood ??
GT550 mood ?? Bandit 1200 mood ?? Or (lately the most popular mood....) KZ650 mood !!!"
No trailer queens at my place....although I have a "bench-queen" H2 right now that is known to my buddies as the "Perpetual Project 2" since my first H2 took almost 10 years to get on the road. Hopefully this one won't be quite so long.....although it is getting on for 5 years now since I started this one.
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Yep!
I think that a restoration sets the clock back to zero, but then you should enjoy it. Take care of it, keep it clean, and drive/ride it as much as you want.

my philosophy is build it and beat it into the ground

Words to live by!

Then its all agreed, group funeral at half past october

Life isn't at the extremes anyway huh?

If you trash it too much, or baby it too much, on one level what is the difference.

Balance grasshopper.

first question, is the landlord still among the living???

I dont tend to ride or drive the restored vehicles quite as hard, but they do get used, and I will put my foot in them if I want, just not as often

I think he's still living but definatly amoung the missing, he dissapeared within days of the incident, leaving me to deal with his indiffrent family