Side business car repair shop - or - the Alfasud mishap
12/12/2014
We were young, studying the art of mechanical engineering at the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences, and sponsored our livelihood by working in our own garage. It was a barn that even the Russians would laugh at today: A cowshed used as a spare parts store, the smell of which had regrettably not quite successfully followed the conversion.
Following the trend of the time, we collected our tools and mountains of used spare parts there, as well as a jack with an enormous lifting height of 90 centimetres, which was an excellent substitute for a pit and lifting platform.
The work area was outside in front of the barn and had three protective walls. We made up for the lack of the fourth wall by adapting our working time. This consisted of adapting to a high workload in summer and thick maneuvering clothes from all the armies on top of each other in winter. And if there was no other way, for example when welding work was being carried out on a customer's car that had suddenly rusted through, then the shaggy yard dog was lured under the car with cookies from the supermarket. There he would lie, providing the welder with a suitable slipstream against the sleet from the north-east. And if it suddenly smelled like a blacksmith's workshop, as we soon learned, we had to quickly extinguish the dog, whose thick coat had caught fire from the underbody protection, which was constantly falling off in crumbs of embers.
In this idyllic setting, an Alfasud TI entered the field; it must have been in the seventies, because it was by no means fresh as a daisy. "It no longer brakes and needs an MOT," was the wish of the respectable lady from the circle of acquaintances. And so the job was done: We cursed like woodchoppers over the front disc brakes, the last remnants of the tiny pads had thoroughly seized up in the calipers. We made a mental note of the poor accessibility and consoled ourselves with extensive test drives of the chic model, which, after replacing the ball joints and steering damper on the front axle, really did exhibit quite inspiring handling.
The MOT appointment flew by, although the inspector frowned at the advancing corrosion on the floor panel. "It's coming soon...." The demigod in blue orated in view of the Alfa's oxidizing flared edges. We filed the comment under "typical sourpuss" and were heading for the garage at home with a fresh MOT stamp when disaster struck: First, a lady stepped onto the zebra crossing ahead, but pulled her foot back in the face of the approaching Alfa, encouraging us to drive on. Then her companion pulled her onto the road in front of the approaching Alfa, forcing me to brake hard. The Alfa came to a safe stop - we had been thorough and successful in repairing the brakes, as we should have been. But the windshield came loose from its rusty frame and flew off the two ladies on the crosswalk - thank God, not onto - but in front of their feet. The shock was great, but the ladies quickly calmed down, as nothing had really happened to them. The Alfa windshield could only be removed with a brush and a piece of wood, the windshield frame could no longer be removed: it had simply rusted away.
With a lot of patience and some hairy welding maneuvers, which put our knowledge of working with almost non-existent thin sheet metal to the test, we managed to solder a few hooks and bars to the roof and A-pillar in such a way that the new windscreen was able to cling halfway in place. The vehicle owner stoically accepted the cost of the windshield as well as the high cost of the MOT plus consequential damage. But she strictly adhered to the recommendation to sell the speedy sweeper quickly before the process was repeated in view of the next emergency stop.
She soon came back with a Ford Thunderbird, which she had had repaired at the same dealer with a substantial discount because of the battered Alfa. And the T-Bird was of course good for several more anecdotes, because as a demonstration car from the Schwabengarage in Stuttgart, it had already experienced a few things that would have been better spared...
(Drawing: Stefan Rogger)
