>Paul wrote:
>Hi,
>
>Just wanted to let you know I'm here...
>
>This list will either inspire me to get this thing back together,
>or sell it as a project/parts car!

Wrong. This list will coerce you at gun-point to forsake all of your friends and family in the interest of restoring, to an obsessive, compulsive degree, your 2500. This list will also compel you to devote 95% of your disposable income to parts purchases, the other 5% being devoted to the purchase of band-aids and "adult" beverages.

This list will threaten you with bodily harm unless you purchase at least one Getrag 265 5-speed overdrive transmission, a set of rear headrests that don't match your interior, a set of used BBS wheels, a Suspension Techniques spring and anti-sway bar kit, a set of wider and lower profile tires, a Crane ignition unit, and an aftermarket sport steering wheel (probably Momo) even though you don't have an adapter yet. The threat of bodily harm will be for real, and must be taken seriously.

You will waste time at work calling three time zones away in search of a side-loading limited slip differential. In October or August you will drive a minimum of 300 miles to drink beer with, and look at the cars of, people whom you have never before met. You will do it again the following year.

You will subscribe to the CS Registry and First Fives mailing lists for no apparent reason. You will come to like and admire Bill Bowes for no apparent reason.

Within three months of starting the restoration, you will purchase a 1972 Bavaria as a parts/donor car. It will be Sahara with a tobacco interior. Within twelve months you will purchase a second parts car because you will have decided to restore the first parts car, rather than parting it out. The second parts car will be a '73 Bavaria. It will be either faded Fjord blue or faded Polaris silver, and it will have a very nice blue vinyl interior. The radio antennas on all three cars will be located in different places. You will lose sleep over this.

You will curse the previous owner ("PO") who failed to return tools to the toolkit in the trunk, unless you are a patent examiner, in which case you will wonder what all the fuss is about.

Within 6 minutes of getting your 2500 running, you will decide to transplant a later 3.3 or 3.5 liter engine from an '85-'89 E28 five series.

You will labor over the decision to transplant a fuel injection system onto the car, but you will eventually succumb, and you will rejoice in your decision. Thereafter, you will seek out E36 M3s driven by mere children, for the pure pleasure of racing them to the next corner. Typically you will win, albeit through sheer recklessness. As you drive away from them, you will realize that they will never amount to anything. They will come to fear you and all that you represent.

Paul at Maximillian Importing will put you as number 7 on his speed-dial. Jim at Mesa will know your children's birthdays.

You will learn to speak pidgeon-German. You will develop a taste for an obscure, caustic ginger ale which can be used in place of hydrogen peroxide.

On a business trip you will be seated on an airplane next to a man named Walter Eschelbach. You will bitch-slap him with no explanation, and then order an Orangina from the flight attendant.

Anyone on this list will tell you the same. Am I right, folks?

Ciao,
DHW

Wilkommen Sie to the Madness.
("Mad Gau Disease" as it is know by the afflicted)