The journey back to the Midlands (~ 165 miles) went without a hitch (apart from the speedo packing up after 3 miles !) but as it's ~25 years since I last owned a 356, it was something of a novelty to drive a flat 4 again ...
As mentioned previously, I'd had the rollcage modified with the addition of a welded-on horizontal harness bar & had sent the period-style 4-point harnesses to Sue at FDTS to be re-webbed accordingly:
I have a long list of jobs to do on the car, the first of which was to swap the std black plastic 356C wheel over to the early '60's Nardi woodrim wheel that I'd previously carried out a sympathetic renovation on:
During the process of checking the car over I was pleased to find how much of the car was still original - things like the headlamp assemblies with their diagonal beam-adjusting screws (only fitted to later 356C models), all 3 of the larger gauges & original plastic under-bonnet cover over the fuel tanK, etc.
The car had spent it's whole life in Southern California being originally delivered to Porterville & ending up with the last owner in Burbank.
The car had been looked after for at least the last 15 years exclusively by Markham Motor Works in Burbank who are highly regarded within the 356 world in the States so that's a good sign.
I've written to the last owner - a lady who's now 76 - so we'll see if she gets back to me.
More later ...
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