Questionable Motives

I had lunch the other day with a guy who has a business restoring and maintaining MGs.  I had assumed that us guys with petrol in our veins would share similar tastes in old cars, so I was surprised when he asked "What made you buy one of those?"  From the emphasis on the word those, the part of the question which he didn't vocalise was "Are you crazy?" Or possibly "...when you could have bought an MG?"

That got me thinking - what did lead me to buy that forlorn looking coupe?  Under the surface I think there are a few reasons. 

Firstly the purely practical (if there is any such thing in relation to buying a 52 year old motor car):  As I said in an earlier post, I wanted something interesting to drive which would accommodate both wifey and a 4 year-old, for weekend getaways and Sunday lunches in the Peak District.  My current "toy", a 356 Speedster of sorts, is missing the necessary rear seat for that purpose.  It's also better suited to solo blasts on back roads before breakfast, than it is for conveying people to a destination with their ear drums intact and their clothes dry.  The P1800 with (hopefully) watertight coupe design, solid construction, long-legged overdrive gearbox, and cosy rear seat, scores well in these areas.  Many of the motoring journals of the day hold it out as a comfortable sporting grand tourer, rather than an out-and-out sports car, and I hope that proves to be the case; grand touring is exactly what I plan to do in it.

Beyond the practical, it gets more complicated.  I'm just a little too young to properly remember The Saint so I can't claim to have been influenced by the suave Mr Moore and his crime-fighting / womanising antics in his P1800 (incidentally, he was so impressed by the car he drove in the series that he bought one as his personal transport too).  I do, however, recall very clearly a day back in about 1994 when I was at University in Stirling, Scotland.  My then girlfriend (now wife) came up to visit me for the weekend, and we went over to sample the sights and culinary delights of Edinburgh.  That particular Sunday morning we were over at Leith by the dockside, having a lazy brunch and reading the Sunday papers at The Shore.  As I stepped outside afterwards, I spotted an ivory-coloured early P1800 parked on he cobblestone quayside.  If I didn't fall in love with it immediately, then I certainly did when I peered inside it and my let my eyes absorb the incredible dashboard with chrome instrument hoods and all that red leatherette.  From that moment, it was on my mental list of collectibles.  

Maybe there's a deeper reason still that I find myself drawn to this particular Swedish marque, and that harks back to my childhood.  As a kid I was pretty much infatuated by anything with wheels and an engine, and that extended to taking a fanatical interest in what my Dad happened to be driving at the time.  My earliest memory of which was a pale metallic blue Volvo 144GL (registration number YWH 898). Wonder where that is now?  I bet it's still going... That car was bombproof!  

Whatever the underlying reasons, my answer over the lunch table stressed the practical motives, which on reflection will end up being a big fib.  Nobody pours money into these old cars for practical reasons - otherwise, being sane and rational creatures, we would just go and buy a small and sensible runabouts from Korea.  I bought it because it looks beautiful, and I like to have beautiful things.  And I'm not sure I need any more reason than that, do you?