Red kitted 300's look awesome! Great stuff Tom! You need the colour codes though, get them on! They made such a difference to Fake, more so than the kit.

As above for the bumpers, think it will look even better. Don't worry what anyone says. If having having a mid life crisis means messing about with cars and annoying your friends who would maybe not get away with doing what they really want to, then bring it on

If I worried what people said I wouldn't be driving a 300 in the first place My father-in-law uses every opportunity he gets telling me how fantastically cheap and reliable brand new Dacias are. To his credit though, he's the one who's getting the welder sorted in Romania.

OK Chris, I'll go for the all-red look then Polished up the red front bumper I have yesterday - will have a go at the rear one this evening.

Cheers

Tom

trabitom99 wrote: OK Chris, I'll go for the all-red look then Polished up the red front bumper I have yesterday - will have a go at the rear one this evening.

Cheers

Tom

Get goggles on for the rear Tom. Unless you like rust piercing your retinas. You have to be pretty much directly underneath to see the bolts.

*if youve already changed a rear, ignore my patronising advice.

I haven't, but I've heard it's a right pain The car's got a tow bar too, which won't make the swapping any easier - having said that the tow bar has only been on for about a year, and the bolts are fairly new.

I won't be doing that today though, just a polish up of the rear red bumper I picked up last weekend.

Tom

Looks great, definitely agree with the bumpers though I reckon some 440 wheels in 15" would be the best... 14" Leo's look a bit lost on Mk3's with a kit

As always I admire your perseverance!

Well - I am in fact "calling it a day". After having collected a hoard of parts together (doors from Sunderland, leaf spring brackets from Holland, new Klokkerholm sills) and put quite a bit of work in over the past year or so (new windscreen, A/C, rusty rear panels cut out) I'm throwing in the towel. The car is still parked outside, but in a week's time, it's game over.

The plan was to get the welding work done in Romania. Unfortunately, for work reasons, I wasn't able to go. 3 weeks car holiday were shrunk down to 5 days by plane, and unfortunately, you cant take a rusty 300 with you on a plane.

I need to backup a whole pile of old CDs anyway, so I'll be looking out for old pics of my 300 which I've taken over the past 11,5 years and write up a kind of "car obituary" for my faithful old beater. This is probably going to be more of a sentimental reminiscence, not of much interest to other people

We bought the car with 167,000kms on the clock (about 103T miles) in January 2000. It replaced an awful Mk1 Fiesta, which was a 6 month stop-gap between this and our previous 343. It started life as a dealer demonstrator, and was then sold to its second owner who told us the engine would outlast the car, and the exhausts were crap. How right he was. Two weeks later, the downpipe dropped off, and at 348,000kms the engine is still powering away whereas the rest of the car is falling apart.

The first pic: February 2000:
Unwelded sills, original hubcaps, no dents or scratches, but the original bumpers already going grey.


Camping with some mates, July 2000.
Steep inclines and off-road action no problem for the high-riding suspension!


September 2000, with the bikes in the south of France.
Don't miss the haircut though, always clogging up the plug hole and in the way. Missing decals due to early Photoshop experiments.


View from our old flat, July 2002.
Wish we could still afford to live in that area of town, no chance now with 2 kids!


More to follow, as I dig the CDs out.

Tom

Sad news dude.
But everything dies. It had a good innings and will be missed.

Rest in pieces. (which then go on other 300s).


Good job youve got a few others to keep you mobile a while yet!

Cheers VND ...

I don't part with my cars easily unfortunately A lot of this will live on in the green GLT, but to say I'm sorry to see it go would be ... an understatement.

Tom

sad news, sad news

Bright side, you'll be driving a GLT it seems?

Sorry to hear it bud, I know you are of the same mind as me when it comes to letting something go

Great shame. I'm rubbish at parting with cars too. Still have my 3rd car, even though it hasn't been on the road for 19 years...

Is weigh-in money good? Could I not just pop over and make a break for the border in it?

Sad to hear it mate, I know how you'd feel having owned it for so long! The old pics are cool!

Evoman wrote:sad news, sad news
Bright side, you'll be driving a GLT it seems?

Yes, but that car isn't full of "personal history" as this one is I've been driving it for most of my adult life!

macplaxton wrote:Is weigh-in money good? Could I not just pop over and make a break for the border in it?

I dunno about weigh-in money. The guy who fixes my Trabant is having it. He's going to do all the swap over work. It'll have to be a parts donor for the GLT in several places too so I don't think it will be driveable by the time he's finished with it.

SteveP wrote:The old pics are cool

Some more to come from 2003, visiting my brother who lives in Cornwall.
Note, the sills have been patch-welded by now, as you can tell by the black underseal along the side. Wish I'd had it done properly at the time



"Back in the day", every second car on UK roads was a red 300



You see that dent on the front wing in the pic below? One of my less-than-great experiences in motoring. We were driving from Madrid to San Sebastian (in 2000? 2001? can't remember, I think I've only got slides from that trip, nothing digital) and some moped driver overtook us on the wrong side, just as the wife was turning right. He hit the wing, flew over the bonnet and landed in a café entrance face down. It was right before "basque country" elections and the town was full with armed police. In about 10 seconds we were surrounded by people talking hectic Spanish, the ambulance arrived minutes later. My wife was sure she'd killed him, as we were surrounded with people so quickly we never got the chance to see if he was OK The insurance companies decided everyone was to pay their own damage, so we bought an indicator from scrap for ten Deutschmarks and the guy had to buy a new moped and pay for his hospital bills


Trip to a closed-down mine in the Ruhr area:


Fruit picking at Oma's (German grandmother, may she rest in peace too)


New Years' Eve in 2003 in southern Germany. First snow in years! How things have changed since then, that's global cooling for you


More random stuff to follow ...

Tom

Im enjoying pictures, its still however sad if its been much a major item in your life.