I found the car when Rudiger posted a link to Flickr at this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=9503 As the car looked a bit feral I nicknamed it Wild Rover.
I emailed the owner of the car and found it was for sale. As he was located about 375 miles north of me I had to figure out a time to go and see it to make sure it was worth buying. It took about three weeks to get my schedule to align with the seller’s, but eventually we planned a date and time.
The week before I was due to go north I was having dinner with the family – my wife had relatives over from England, so when the phone rang I ignored it. When I checked my voicemail it was the seller – he had tried starting Wild Rover in preparation for me picking him up. It didn’t go well. Something under the bonnet triggered a fire – the seller and his neighbour tried to douse the flames, but it kept reigniting and the fire department was called. They roundly soaked everything, and then soaked it again just for good measure – in fairness, they couldn’t take any chances. The seller told me that even after that the starter up and started cranking.
I had some photos of the damage emailed to me and after talking to a few folks, including Ian at Rover Classics, I decided I would still take a trip and see just how bad it was.
My mate Henry (another Londoner) agreed to let me take his truck in case I was towing the Wild Rover back. In the end Henry was able to come with me, so at least I would have the voice of reason with me (or not).
We left Orange County on Friday afternoon and headed to my friend’s house 300 miles away, near Yosemite. It was a bit of a detour, but it broke the back of the journey and meant I only had 150 miles to drive the next morning. I had opted to bring a trailer with me as a two day rental was a third of the price of a one-way rental.
We made good time up north and had a great evening at dinner and at a local winery - the evening involved a tattooed child, a horny blonde and a couple of lesbians – but that’s not really part of the Rover story… Except that it meant we had a later start than planned the next morning.
The journey across country took longer than planned and we didn’t arrive until about 1:45 p.m. The seller had made some progress digging Wild Rover out of his lair, but it still was no where near ready for the trailer.
The fire had melted all the bushes in the right front suspension and WR sat way low. The right rear brake was locked solid and we were unable to get it released. After trying everything we ended up dragging WR with the seller’s Dodge van. Then we winched him up onto the trailer with a come-along.
There were quite a few bits and pieces that came with Wild Rover, including a full set of original “S” trim wheels. I also picked up a set of red rear indicators and clear white running lights. I think that the whole package was a pretty good deal even in spite of the damage.
By the time we were ready to leave it was 5:30 p.m. – the direct route home was about 375 miles, but to avoid too many twisty roads and hills we went north another 30 miles before turning south.
Wild Rover made it back to my house a little after 1:30 a.m. and was left street side on the trailer for the night.
In the morning we positioned the trailer so that I could use the winch on my Jeep to drag WR off. As the wheel was still locked up I went and bought some wheel dollies to be able to move WR around.
That was pretty much it for the weekend as the relatives were on the way round so I had to tidy up and look presentable.
I did take a few minutes to put the running lights on and tried cleaning the passenger seat – I already had the red indicators in place; I also rubbed down and primed the burnt area on the front right wing – I know, lipstick on a pig and all that, but I had to do something even if it meant taking it all off again the next day…
