Birdie...

I heard there was going to be a Cabby, as well as a 1969 VW "SW" at an auction, so of course I *had* to go.

I had hit a deer the previous week, and my local body shop had been unable to get the Expedition in to fix the little mess the deer made, so I had to kinda hold it together for the time being with a little duct tape, and get the two radiator punctures fixed up with some JB-Kwik. Nothing was going to stop me from going to the auction.

Sooo...with the duct taped Expedition, and my trailer in tow, I set off late Friday to be able to get to the auction by Saturday morning.

Made it to Seattle just as the sun was coming up behind me...


Aside from the VW's, the only other car I was hoping to bid on, was a BMW.

The owner of the BMW showed up just 20 minutes before the auction began, to pay his fines and fees, etc., and so it was taken off the auction . *sigh* Might have made a decent profit off that one.

Also....even more unfortunately for me, the owner of the "SW" (which I later learned WAS in fact a VW micro-bus) showed up the morning of the auction shortly before I arrived, to pay his fees and fines as well, so he was also able to take it home, and it was removed from the auction .

Ah well....I went there with one main goal in mind anyway...

To save the little beauty on the right from the crusher.


I was stoked to see that it wasn't a crashed up cabby. You never know until you get there what condition the cars are in. You can only find out the make, model, and year of a car, so you can only hope it's a decent one.
I was also excited to see that it has the highly desired BBS / Zender body kit on it already. Groovy.

So I wandered around the (wet and rainy) auction for a bit, checking out the other cars and such, and came across a few worth pics and mention:

I have a feeling the driver of this Toyota probably didn't escape without any injury. It was a seriously mangled mess.

This car made me laugh, and laugh, and laugh...

It also made me re-think my LV interior for Bandit and Trixie. I don't want to be even CLOSE to ^^that lame.

These cars were only of interest to me, because a friend and I often talk about American (white trash) muscle cars and such, and this was as close as there was at the auction . I honestly had NO plans or intentions to take EITHER of these home....but we'll finish that story in a wee bit....

There were also several motorcycles and a scooter at the auction this time around. (see right)

So the auction begins, and I'm kinda waiting around for them to get to the Cabby. About halfway through it's time to begin the bidding war.

I was bidding against 2 other people, both men who own car parting/salvage businesses, who buy cars, part them out, and crush them. That's ALL they do. So of course I was willing to go as high as I needed to go, to save the poor cabby from the crusher.

After the bids reached $200, I didn't even bother to put my number back down. I just held it up, letting the other bidders know that they could just stop bidding, because that car was going home with me, no matter what.

At that point, the auctioneer laughed and said, "I think we already know who is taking that little Rabbit home!"

So finally, at a final bid of $525, she was mine.

As soon as I won the bid, I walked over and talked to the guys that were bidding against me, and I told them they should be ashamed of themselves for considering crushing such a classic beauty as a Cabriolet.

However, should another cabby show up at an auction , and should I go to it, I'm fairly sure they aren't going to bother bidding against me again. I promised them I'd bring them cookies to the next auction to bribe them to just let me have it for cheap.

Well... while I was talking to the mean cabby-crusher-boys, I sorta accidentally won another auction , that I hadn't planned on winning, much less even bidding on....

As I mentioned previously, it was raining that morning...and as I was talking to the boys, I reached up to brush the water off the bill of my VW ballcap, and I wasn't even thinking about the fact that there was an auction going on, and I still had my bidder number in my hand....

Sooo....as I brushed the rain off my cap, seems I bid $200 on a 1985 Camaro .....and won.

The Auction Rules state that anybody who doesn't follow through on a bid, will be banned from any future auctions, so I was completely stuck with it.

UGH...SUCH a good thing I had another driver with me, because I don't know what the hell I would have done.

At this point, I still wasn't sure what was going to happen, because I could obviously only tow one vehicle, and I wasn't sure if either of them would start up and run, so I was really concerned about how the rest of the day was going to play out.

I had checked the oil and fluids in the Cabby, and the oil was BONE DRY, and the coolant was BONE DRY, so I really wasn't counting my chickens on that one, because, well...that might be why the car was at the auction in the first place. Blown head, or whatever....abandoned, tags expired months ago....impounded, etc....yeah....big chance of it NOT running.

Well...once I found out I had won the Camaro bid, I went over to check it out, and right away, I knew I had won a mess similar to the VW Van when I saw this on the rear window:

I peered inside the windows, and could see a syringe between the seats, crazy f-ed up wiring and crap all over the place, and not even an ignition on the steering column. SO...I was a wee bit concerned about that one starting right up as well, even though the previous owner more than likely had lost the car due to driving while on drugs or something. Anyway....I'll finish about the Tweeker Camaro later...back to the Cabby.

Once I got the locksmith guy to come over to the Cabby and make me a key, I closed my eyes, said a little prayer, and turned the key... She fired right up on the first try!!!

I had my companion run to the gas station on the corner, to purchase some oil and coolant, and filled them up.

Started her up again, to get the oil moving, and then drove her out to park next to the Expedition, then drove in with the trailer, to load up my unplanned Camaro purchase.

The original plan, was to drive straight back to Montana, but my companion and I were really beat after driving all through the night before, and since I didn't know what exactly any issues might be with the cabby, we decided to stop in Issaquah, a town just outside of Seattle, and spend the night at the Holiday Inn.

She was making funny sounds when getting rolling after changing gears, so I wondered if transmission fluid might be needed, so we checked into our hotel, parked the Cabby, and headed to Target to pick up some stuffs for the car.

This was when my companion asked, "Do you take pictures of EVERYTHING???!"

So I kind of had to explain the internets thing to him.

Anyway....so we got some rest and such, and got up the next day to get things squared away, and head back to Montana.

The new Cabby was running like a champ, chugging right along...
Here she is on the right, getting some more fuel in Spokane.
And me towing the stupid Tweeker Camaro ...

Aaah...then we were back in Montana again!

That wonderful feeling of Home...that safety net....that feeling that I am back in Montana...the safe and warm place... in the home-stretch now....nothing can go wrong!

WRONG. 75 miles from home...the Cabby decided she didn't want to put out anymore.

Thanks to Dean and Brian, we were pretty much able to narrow it down to the in-tank fuel pump, which we will find out in the next day or two for sure if that's it or not. So...unfortunately, I had to park the Cabby on the side of the road, in the rain, under some power lines, and head home...

The adventures don't end there...........

I'm sure I've already bored you to tears, so I won't tell the entire story, but I hit another deer... messing up my duct tape repair job... and it lived.  

So if you should see a little doe wandering around Montana in a wheel chair, you'll know why.

Updates...

Birdie has far to go before she's anything pretty to look at, both mechanically and cosmetically, but I don't think it will take much to get her running smoothly again, which will be step one, before any cosmetic mods.

Mechanical Repairs     • Replaced fuel pump     • New battery

Hopes and Plans...

  Inspired by a beautiful metallic light blue Rabbit, I decided I wanted to have a similar color scheme on a cabby. This is where the name "Birdie" came from, because the theme reminds me of a blue bird.

Performance...     • New seals, filters, belts, etc.     • Get her running to optimal performance     • New tires Tunes...     • New speakers for door panels     • Install speakers in headrests     • Amp and subwoofer

Cosmetic...     • Complete body work and paint job.     • Shave side markers     • New top and headliner     • Complete custom interior including carpet     • chrome side trim     • Blue halo headlights     • Custom gauge faces     • Add various chrome blingy bits     • Wire wheels

Peekshers...

Unfortunately, I don't have any other pictures of Birdie, mainly due to the fact that there hasn't been any real progress to speak of.

(click to enlarge images)