Thanks for the nice wishes guys.
The Rain came and certainly helped, unfortunately Canberra didn't get drowned like the rest of East Australia but still a reasonable amount. The fires in the pictures I put up before are still burning but at least now under control.
Not really fire related but weather related due to the stupid hail storm we got, this morning my Insurance company NRMA wrote off the Silvia, the value is $10,500 and I get $9,650 based on my $850 excess. I can withdraw my claim and pay for the repairs myself or take the money and the car is written off, then I can try buy the car off Pickles but then it is an unregistered car that has to pass the inspections and will always be a write off so can only be registered in the ACT. Pretty annoying as other insurance companies are letting people keep the car and not writing it off for 10% of market value. So that would mean I could either get $9650 or $8600 but keep the car if I was with one of the other two major insurance companies.
Talking to the assessor his attitude is just accept the car is smashed, take the money and buy something like a MX5, you can still take out one grand child and they still love those cars. But talking to the repairers who did the quote which in my case was basically well that is too damaged to even think about they said they would keep the Nissan and not take the payout, MX5's are good cars but this car is really cool. However looking at the Mazda website and Australian safety websites it appears the MX5 is not allowed to have baby seats installed in the front at all so the assessors ideas are wrong and no fun trips with grand kids if I went the MX5 option.
I then went to a panel beater I know to talk to him, the guy behind the counter said the same thing, the car is cool but fixing it is too expensive if NRMA will not pay anything towards fixing it, also don't buy it from Pickles as a write off as it is often hard to get them registered, then the owner of the panel beater business turned up and said he has a bonnet and boot for a Silvia, probably $2,000 to knock out the dents in the sides, $6,000 to paint the car and then some parts so maybe $10,000. He wants me to talk to NRMA about buying the wreck again before it gets a written off status but I expect the story will be the same as the assessor said about all cars too damaged are written off and auctioned for parts, no buy back option at all.
My wife is just saying keep it and fix it, you can afford it now you are working but really that means spending $10,000 to the panel beater, say $4,000 on a roof and not taking $9650 from NRMA, meaning say $23,650 for a car that probably still has a market value of $10,500 where I could buy a 5 year old MX5 for around $25,000. Also it means spending $14,000 to fix a car that wouldn't have been damaged it I didn't go back to work so really I am back working after retirement to not be any better off financially than if I stayed at home. Working for effectively nothing would really annoy me.
What also annoys me is that I know my son loved that car when he was little and he still does, so I know my grand daughter will be probably very excited to get to ride in the back when she is a little bit bigger. Some people say just buy another 4 seater convertible, there is a 1981 Morgan 4 seater on the market for $45,000 only about 5,000km away. The only other 4 seater convertible cars I can think of are large Mercedes, BMW's, VW EOS, nothing that I really think of as sports car and a lot of money, or if old enough to get cheap probably a lot of expensive trouble.
My other thought is a MGB for about $10,000, means using the insurance money I get to cover buying the car and use it as a daily driver for a year or two until I retire again. Then get it restored to the Frontline Abingdon edition specification at Modern Classic cars, I visited them to see the car in this article and the quality of his work is certainly great.
http://www.speedhunters.com/2019/11/britain-meets-japan-restomod-mg/This would have to the worst summer ever, smoke so you can't breathe, next day clear but a sweltering 45 degrees, then smoke so thick you can't see the neighbours house, then hail to write off a nice 32 year old classic rare car, then fires 26km you can see from the next street.
