Sad news in the Parlevliet house. Our 1975 HJ Premier is no longer on the road. There’s a lot of bits and pieces she needs done, needs new brakes and calipers, has some significant panel rust that needs work. We had been toying with the possibility of fixing her up properly, a full cut back and fill and respray, sort out the mechanical issues over the next 12 months, but the final nail in the coffin was body rust in the chassis rails and other places that will just be too expensive to fix, if they even can be.

It’s a sad day for us. As I drove her for the last time today, my heart ached for such a classic old girl, part of me cried out ‘No, I changed my mind!!’ but there’s just too much to do for us to be able to afford to restore her. She’s got just shy of 495000 on the clock. So close….

Haven’t decided yet whether to wreck it or just sell it whole. Mark knows a guy who races HQs, he can use the doors off a HJ if there’s no significant rust, so if we wreck her we can at least be sure that part of her will have a respectable fate :)

Meanwhile, I now have a 95 Lancer that we got from our trusted mechanic so it’s as good as a 13 year old car can be, is plenty roomy for a little car and that’s all I need, and will be cheaper on petrol than the HJ was on gas. But it’s just not the same is it?