Last week, I wrote about the whirlwind sale of Bertha to Craig B., who flew in from Austin on Friday and set sail that evening for MidAmerica 02Fest in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We swapped a few messages on the way regarding his discovery of wetness on the back of the transmission from a leaky selector shaft seal and a few drips reaching the ground, and his concern that the fluid level might get low enough to damage the transmission before audible whining alerted him, but it never erupted into a problem, and when Craig arrived at MidAmerica, jacked up the car, and checked the fluid level, it wasn’t down by much.
Craig assuming the position in the hotel parking lot at MidAmerica. Photo by Tom Clark.
If Craig’s intent was to keep the purchase of Bertha under wraps, show up at MidAmerica in my car, and have people going “Wait, what?” he was remarkably successful. My head (supplied of course by Paul Wegweiser), even made an appearance.
Paul even harasses me when I’m not around. Photo by Craig B.
Bertha had a few other small issues with fluid loss (coolant weeping from the hose on the back of the water pump, and the brake fluid level inexplicably down slightly), but she and Craig made it back home to Austin without incident. I’m so glad Bertha is back where she began and off having new adventures instead of being back in storage in the Monson warehouse. I give Craig enormous credit for listening to his right brain when it said that it wanted him to “have an adventure,” and not letting his left brain overrule it, as it so often can.
Having missed The Vintage, MidAmerica, and Southeast SharkFest this year, I was itching to get my butt in a vintage BMW and do something. Fortunately, this weekend was the annual Nor’East 02ers Spring Meet and Drive. Originally a rag-tag unaffiliated group with the wonderfully-accommodating moto “If you can drive it, you’re in!” and now a part of the BMW CCA “2002 Forever” chapter, the annual Spring Meet and Drive is sort of a 2002-centric cars and coffee (and if you show up in something else, that’s cool too) followed by an hour-ish drive to lunch somewhere.
The joke on me was that, having sold Bertha, I was in the rare situation of not having a 2002 at the house (Hampton and Louie—the Ran When Parked car—are still out in the Monson warehouse). I planned to drive the red E9, and did a long-delayed installation of an Alpina shift knob that good-guy Miguel Frances had gifted me last year at The Vintage. I swapped it for the knob with an inlaid top that had been in the E9 for nearly all of the 40 years I’ve owned it, but that never really felt right in my hand. The Alpina knob instantly became the nicest looking thing in the whole interior, and reminded me that somewhere in the garage I have a new reproduction a/c console center faceplate and a vintage Blaupunkt radio to plug up the big cut-out.
Me and Miguel Frances at the BMW CCA Foundation last year.
Out with the old…
…in with the new. Thanks Miguel!
However, when I woke up Saturday morning to rain, I almost took the fiberglass-bodied Lotus Elan +2 instead just to test how welcome I’d be if I showed up in something British, Lucas-wired, and with no Hofmeister kink. However, my weather app showed the rain as giving way to clouds by 9am, so I waited it out, and hesitantly soldiered out in the E9. When I hit the highway, I was driving through a light mist kicked up by the traffic. Zero moisture is always preferred when driving a rust-prone E9 (in fact, it was the Nor’East 02ers own Scott Sislane who coined the now frequently-requoted quip “Aren’t the E9’s inner fenders made from confectioner’s sugar?”), but by the time I arrived, even that was gone, and the rain remained at bay for the rest of the event. Big thanks to longtime Nor’East 02ers organizers Peter Rodriques and Scott Sislane, and route-planner Gary Hamilton for a wonderful job putting it together.
As vintage BMW fanatics in New Jersey say, “I got her Hofmeister kinks right here, pal.” Okay, maybe they don’t. And yes, note the vintage Land Rover at the edge of the lot. The Lotus would’ve been in good company.
We did butts. Now we’ll do noses.
Looking at the world through a windshield. What a lovely place to be.
After a lovely lunch at a brew pub in Newburyport, I checked the weather, was alarmed to see more rain moving in, and excused myself to beat it on home. About six others elected to do the same. If the official Spring Drive was a carefully curated leisurely stroll through leafy communities with caution encouraged due to low speed limits and law enforcement, the drive home on I-95 felt more like the drive to The Vintage with all the urgency of “miles to go before I sleep and before it rains.” I was on the E9 at 80 to 85 most of the way back, and a couple of 2002 guys were on my tail for most of it. The funny thing was that one of them was my frequent Vintage road trip caravan companion Jose Rosario, so burning rubber on an interstate and seeing his Pastellblau behind me almost made it feel like I hadn’t missed the trip to The Vintage at all.
So, even with Bertha gone and no big road trip this spring, things are starting to feel almost normal.
And hey, I have an E9 center console faceplate and vintage Blaupunkt radio installation ahead of me.
—Rob Siegel
____________________________________
Rob’s newly-expanded book The Best Of The Hack Mechanic™: 40 years of hacks, kluges, and assorted automotive mayhem, is available on Amazon here. His other seven books are available here on Amazon, or you can order personally-inscribed copies (including the new Best Of) from Rob’s website, www.robsiegel.com/books.
