Reply to "Longchamp so far"

Long time no hear...

Well, since my last post I had the best day ever as a classic car enthusiast. My Longchamp was entered in to the largest classic car show in Finland as entry by the main sponsor. This was due them finding out the story behind my car and the fact that Tom Tjaarda was the guest of honor. They kept my car as a suprise for Tom, so you can imagine his suprise when he saw it... "What the... But this car doesn´t exist anymore?..." When interviewed in the show Tom engouraged everyone to check out his favourite car on the show, my Longchamp.

I met Tom after the official program, and I showed him how I made the my clone via all the pictures I managed to gather. Tom was flabbergasted how I was able get it so right with only magazine pictures("It´s perfect"). He had some great stories about some of them (especially about the drawings..). He signed the original promodraft of the Longchamp for me, and we spoke quite a bit about flying (Tom´s an enthusiast, I´m a pro), and then we wished the best for both of us when we departed (Tom requested proper photos of the car, which I naturally complied with). After Tom departed, I was left standing by my car trying to take it all in, all the blood, sweat and tears finally validated by the authority unlike anyone else, when an unknown beautiful woman woke me up from my stupor By saying "It can´t get better that that, can´t it?".

It sure can´t.
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Unfortunately, the role I planned for my Longchamp did not materialize (As a Grand Turismo between Helsinki and Lago Di Como), so I was planning to sell it, when a teenager rear ended(200 meters from my garage) it while a friend of mine was driving it back from a car show that I had created (with my friends). The end result was that the car was totalled by the insurance company, for the price of the paint job, exhaust system and some body work. I got a fair price for it ( a fraction of my investment, though), and the insurance company sold the car in less than a day...

Unfortunately the insurance company managed to break the front bumper too while transporting the car to the new owner, so the prototipo was no more, as the new owner bought my 3000-series bumpers, and restored the car back to stock (with the exception of the front end modifications, that you have to be an expert to notice).

So the 2133 lives on, but not as a prototipo clone, and I´m a Maserati and a Lotus man nowdays. The reason that I´m writing this post is (in addition to the Seagrams VO), that I couldn´t never have accomplished what I did without the help of this bb (+Roland, who is no longer here, and Santiago).

I really do hope that you appriciate the special community that you have here. I sure do, even though I´m not a part of it anymore.

Thank you.

P.s. Oh, I almost forgot... Thank you George!!! I am perfectly aware that there are almost no Longchamps and Deauvilles in the States. Thank you for providing the platform for these discussions. I am certain that you have saved quite a few of these cars from oblivion..

P.p.s. The main sponsor was the premier classic car magazine, that did a lead story about my car car and Tom Tjaarda on the following issue. So my car is immortal. Especially, as a local modelling enthusiast made a perfect replica of my car from an eighties Thunderbird in 1/24 scale...