Hi Bogart,
I too defied all advice, didn’t take an expert and bought the first car I saw. That was 18 years ago. I was a bit concerned that the car had to be bump started down the hill every day. I had heard this was unhelpful for gearbox life and queried it with the vendor. He reassured me it was fine. Six months later – bang! For the last 17 years I have had the satisfaction of driving the car with a gearbox I built from the best parts of two knackered ones. Morals – everything is fixable, and experts are more reliable than vendors. Otherwise very little has gone wrong. But when things have, parts are available. In fact parts are much easier to get now than they were 18 years ago. Like most monocoques, the big thing to look for is rust in the floor and sills, that’s where repairs cost serious time or money or both. Chris
Anonymous