Intro + Show Us Your Car

It’s 2023 and having been looking at getting a Montecarlo for a while, we were now booked to go on the 2025 Torino 50th anniversary trip so it seemed only appropriate to have a suitable car to go in.  Montecarlo #5778 (or RHD Spider build number 157 from the headlight panel) was previously sold as an eBay project in 2021 having been garaged since 2004 as an incomplete restoration.

Now back on the road, it was up for auction with Mathewsons, so with rose-tinted glasses firmly on (or should that be rosso-tinted?) we gave it a viewing and concluded it was worth a punt despite Dave commenting that the tick-over didn’t sound quite like he thought it should 😐

Except for a recent respray, it was otherwise original albeit with 15” compomotives.  But it’s a fine line between originality and reliability, so the decaying radiator, ominous engine oil leak and mouse chewed plug leads were all par for the course and the tip of the iceberg.  The auction was duly won and a red Montecarlo S2 was on its way to Suffolk from Pickering.

With a good two years before the Torino trip to sort a growing tick list – what could possibly go wrong?  Suffice to say, due to various unrelated reasons, 2024 came and went and Monte 5778 didn’t move.  Fast forward to 2025 and the Torino prep time is rapidly diminishing, but spurred on by attending the 50th  anniversary meet at Bicester, there’s a chance of it at least making the road sometime soon 🤞

Watch this space, hopefully for some progress…