Frankie the Fink

A C1 is the most fun I've ever head without having to get a penicillin shot.
But, they aren't for everybody -- as I suggested a test drive is very educational...
Some are too tall, some are too, shall we say, "thick", some too weak or infirm and some don't have the right mental attitude about sacrificing a bit of comfort to drive a classic C1.

Drive through a Florida monsoon with the window fogged up, the funky defroster not doing much, water droplets on the INSIDE of the gauges and water running into the cockpit and you'll get that last bit above...

GTOguy

Frankie has just about covered it all in this post. ^^^^. He had and drove one for about a ten year period, and did just about every type of repair/rehab imaginable to it. The guy who bought it still doesn't appreciate what a nice unmolested car he got. I would have to drive my own '61 hundreds of miles to even SEE a raindrop, so I'll have to be content with wind noise, gas fumes, rough riding, and a gas gauge that moves around like a windshield wiper.

Jim Rosenthal

But even in a rainstorm, and leaking, your C1 will get you home. You'll be damp, but you'll get there.

Frankie the Fink

Absolutely, you might develop a permanent facial twitch and wake up with night sweats for weeks afterward but the venerable C1 will see you safely home.

How it does that without something shorting out behind the dash I'll never know...

Jim Rosenthal

I don't think there's a lot back there to short out. I remember getting in a rainstorm in my '59, many years ago. The water was sloshing around in the footwells and the car just kept running perfectly. I was soaked, but I wasn't stranded.

Frankie the Fink

Yeah, I think that's been proven many times. I always checked that the zany wiper cable pulley system wasn't sawing through any wiring bundles every couple of months or so

Which brings up another issue if you want your car to stay original. With my 61 I sometimes felt I was in a race against the grim reaper. Experts in certain systems passed on, handed their work off to less capable relatives, got old and tired and just quit. Which, if you can work on those systems yourself is not catastrophic but some areas are just awful to get going - the C1 windshield washer pumps for example

59BlueSilver

That’s the one thing that doesn’t work on my car is the windshield washers. When I buy a car, I like to have everything that it was equipped with working. But it’s missing too many parts, the parts are expensive, and I would never use it anyway.
And the first thing I did was to tie the wiring away from that highly advanced cable system.

GTOguy

This is prevalent and will always be an issue to ALL of us crackpots who daily use obsolete items. I had a 92 year old jeweler rebuild the sprung case of a gold pocket watch I had....35 years ago. I had to learn how to rebuild my 100 year old fountain pens that I use daily....I lucked out and found a wheelwright within 120 miles of my home to 're-wood' the wheels in my 100 year old car. In 1989, my room-mate had a '55 Stude President Speedster....and it was loaded. First the trans went out (Borg Warner Auto)....he paid through the nose for a specialist rebuild. Then the fuel system and carb....I was the lucky guy there....and one day I looked at his hydroboost set-up, pointed at it, and told him: 'You'd better hope THAT thing never goes bad!" He asked me why, and I stated: "because everybody that knows how to fix it is dead." About 6 months later, guess what.....it failed. And on and on......with any obsolete technology, you have to find the last guy, or do it yourself. Now, we ALL need to somehow convince Frankie to go into the WCFB carb restoration business!!