Rain on the roof and on---everything else!

As I said earlier, it rained. Did it rain? All the boxes got spattered and so did I. At my age rain is not what you need in your garage.
I started to feel the effects quite soon and knew the WD40 would be needed. My sticky door stuck and the flat tyre welded itself to the damp chip board floor. Spare parts and household goods oozed slowly from fat damp cartons and formed extra clutter on the floor.

The old currugated roof was supposed to be in a type of waterproof concrete but it was way out of guarantee and little pin holes dripped dusty stains onto poor old me below.
The garage had been added to by various owners over the years and consisted of the main garage some 25 feet long by 9 feet wide and a once smart wooden shed tacked alongside. The rear half of the garage had been removed at one side to join the party with the shed and a flimsy 4 x 2 beam held up the roof. The front of the shed was made into an office with a separate door. The shed had more windows than it really needed and spiders took advantage of the flies and moths attracted to the light. The whole place was festooned with webs. So was I pretty soon! Urgh!
The new owner was tall and the shed was low so progress was slow as he didn't like spiders any more than me. When he started to work on me he had to clear a space first.

That's what has taken the time to get me repaired. The boxes gradually went off to live indoors and shelves were put up. One week he set to and cleared a large area at the back of the garage and began taking bits off me and crawling round in the dust beneath me. An angle grinder was produced and sparks and bits of steel flew in all directions. Small fires broke out in the detritus on the floor. God, that was sore! I moaned but he took no notice.

After lots of cleaning and probing and removing bits of me it went quiet for a week or two and all was peaceful. Time to doze and remember my old handbook and nice times on smooth roads in the sun.
Then he arrived home with a large grey boxy looking item with a long bendy tube sticking out of one end and an electric cable out the other. I gathered it was a welder of some type but not like the gas or arc welders that had been used on me before. This was a Mig welder. A thin coated copper wire slid out of the thick tube as a button was pressed. A large zap of electricity and a small cloud of gas forced a fierce bright flame to lay a little trail of molten steel to the given point.
I was that point! Did that make me jump? But it also improved my memory with stray voltages zapping around my crumbly steelwork.

It was all quite exhilherating for an old car! For several days I was knocked about,cleaned in obscure places and probed at. He even cut some of my front wing off to get at the rusty A post (that's car talk for the first upright bit where the front door hangs from) and inner wheel arch. I have some lovely Fiat manuals on my bodywork and spare parts if you'd like to see them sometime!
I had a length of steel tube welded  into the gap where my door had been to stiffen me up before the left side of my floor was removed and then things ground to a halt.

The garage was also occupied by a larger car, a strange chap who I had difficulty understanding. I think he came from Malaysia but he seemed to be made with Japanese parts. He had a very nifty looking twin cam engine that he was very proud of but his trim inside was not much better than mine and I'm pretty basic!
He left the garage after a while and I could hear him outside in the drive in all weathers for a few months.

 My new companion was another car about my size-a red Lancia Y10. He kept arguing that he was actually called Ipsilon Day-chay, which I still think is a rather silly name but Lancias have always had odd Greek names. He never explained what the 10 stood for!
He had all sorts of bells and whistles and could tell immediateley if one of his bulbs had gone out and could wipe his own headlamps. I loved his remote control opening rear side windows-I wish mine even opened.
I also had designs on his alloy wheels which I found would fit me. How could I get them off him? Humm.

The years came and went and I was left pretty much alone although the odd spare part arrived occaisionally and was stored away just in case.
The Y10 had grown old along with me but he was in constant use and finally he was told he was too far gone to repair and went off behind a Land Rover never to be seen again. A sad day, as he was a really nice little fellow even if he was argumentative.

The day after he went his wheels reappeared in the garage. Obviously my owner and I both thought I would look good in alloy wheels. They're a size too large but hey, who cares?

Back to life!

It's been some time, I'm not sure how long, since I was conscious enough to think straight. I think I was last compos' about sixteen years ago but rusting metal isn't much of a power source. I do remember someone connecting up my engine to a bursting, juicy battery and firing me up but it was short lived.
My new owner had re assembled the box of bits that sat where my back seat should be but became overwhelmed with the task of getting me on the road.

Old Fiats are renowned for rusting but then, how many Austin 1100s have you seen lately? We all get old in the end and without a bit of help, we all fall apart and rust in the same places. I had a set of new sills fitted once when I got a bit past it. Unfortunately, the welder didn't remove the rusty originals and the tin worms really got going in the dark and damp!
Another owner who liked driving around muddy fields didn't help as mud is excellent tin worm food! I'm not sure if he actually had a licence but I got tired of fields-ghastly wet places.
I digress.

The latest owner had been doing a bit to help me back on the road to recovery by buying parts for me. A nice pair of black sills, a new bonnet and two new floor pans appeared early on when he sold a rather smart Fiat 126. Nice Polish chap he was.

I heard the poor little devil complaining when he lost his garage to me and had to go and live on a hill in Sussex. I was quite happy lounging under a tree listening to the birds and looking at the modern cars passing by. Have you noticed that no one seems to have their engine at the back nowadays?

I digress again. Must be getting old.

After a few months I was put on a trailer and thought, "This is it for you Luigi. The great autostrada in the sky for you!" But no, we had a nice drive out into the country past smart cottages and fields full of sheep and then I was dropped off in a much bigger garage. Chuffed?
Not half!
Safe but not very sound I was the sole occupant apart from about thirty packing cases and various tools. Then it rained.