Some Children are Too Accommodating

I am blessed with wonderful daughters. Sometimes they are wonderful to a fault. I was very fortunate to land the two father-daughter project cars that were both affordable and exactly what Brianna and Ariel wanted. When it came time to shop for Victoria’s, she decided she wanted to be different and chose a LM convertible. Months of searching for the right candidate yielded nothing – the affordable ones were rust-buckets and the solid ones were WAY out of our budget. Then, by the extreme generosity of a fellow Corvair club member, we were presented with the opportunity to get Glinda for basically free. While she was a late model, and she ran, and she’d had a recent brake overhaul, and she was a beautiful color, she was not a convertible. I didn’t want Victoria to settle, and she convincingly told me she wasn’t. She really liked the car, so Glinda joined the fleet. Subsequently, I’ve come to find out that Victoria does enjoy Glinda as her daily-driver, but she’d still rather have a convertible. Hopefully, we can fix that with one of Phil’s.

Now I’m going through the same thing with Mikhaila. As I’ve shared, for a while she insisted her dream car was not a car at all, but a truck. She was meeting the requirement of our project vehicle being a Corvair, but she wanted it to be a Rampside. While her mom and I recognize the safety technology in the 50-year-old cars her sisters drive is archaic, we had to draw the line at letting a sixteen year-old (or later by the time our project is completed) operate a vehicle with less than a foot of front-end crumple zone. Mikhaila’s second choice at the time was an EM convertible, “like Brianna’s.” Then, a few weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to purchase a ’64 4-door for a VERY favorable price. I showed Mikhaila photos and she told me she really like the look of the EM 4-doors with their overhanging roof and lots of brightwork. The lovely Loriann was quite surprised her daughter would be happy with a 4-door. I went back to Mikhaila and asked her directly, “is a 4-door REALLY, TRULY what you want?” Her response was, “No; she really wanted a convertible.” I appreciated her honesty, especially since I was on the verge of hauling home a car that I’d be the only one to care about. Next, I drug her to the computer, where I’d arranged photos of LM ‘verts and EM ‘verts, both top-up and top-down. “Which one?” I queried. Without much of a hesitation, she pointed to the LM. “That one”

Now, I’m shopping for two LM convertible projects.