A True Mill Valley Native

I love classics - books, furnishings, clothes...and of course, cars. A true classic is timeless, and looks good on anyone. Take for example Converse. You may think a strange example, but I love that my five year old has a pair of navy Chuck's, and in the same day I can sit next to a 35-year-old guy commuting on the ferry and he is sporting the same pair. He doesn't look idiotic like, say, if he were wearing my five year old's bat man jammies with removeable cape. They are not classics - they are just cheap polyester $9.99 licensed crap from Target. Adults and kids alike can wear the exact same pair of shoes - and they both look cool. Real classics span generations - like Levi's, an old Rolex and our little 2002 tii. Many people have wistfully commented on yearning for this car when they were younger, wishing they had one now or smiling with the memory of having owned one in the past. Like many classics, this car has history. And her history was in a waterlogged manila folder that overflowed with articles and service receipts. I took the folder back to bed with me one Saturday morning and leafed through the yellowed, moldy pages to learn where our car had been, and what had been done to her. A chap from Larkspur originally purchased the car brand-new from Mill Valley Imports on 489 Miller Ave across from the 2am Club(a true Mill Valley native)on January 29, 1973. He meticulously logged all of his service appointments between Mill Valley Imports and BMW Autozentrum in San Rafael up to 64,000 miles in 1977. The service manual was so slim, so simple. It was not mind-bendingly complicated and huge with glossy, expensive photography like we have today. Just a very simple little manual that exuded it West German roots: here is your car, here is what you will do to take car of your car, now write your name in the upper left hand corner and do as we say! Done. Easy! This car was number 2,644 of 4,522 built between 1972 and 1973 for the United States. The second owner purchased the car from West Bay Bavarian in San Rafael, and then we purchased the car from them with an amazing 135,000 original miles (they live in Paris for six months every year). In the last five years that they owned the car they put just under 500 miles in the car which is amazing, but also meant she sat alone a lot, unused. Owners #2 are a wonderful Berkeley couple (we are biased since they are close family friends, but we think they are doubly amazing for letting us buy this car from them), and even though the car just sat a lot, they remained diligent about keeping her mechanically pristine. They also kept excellent records and great clippings about 2002's from over the decades. I almost wish they hadn't because it is here that I found a BMW 2002 tii that is the most fantastic, blue green peacock teal color I have ever seen. It is called agave green. Agaaaaave, it just oozes killer color. If that was not torture enough, it had the richest, perfect-shade-of-honey camel interior seats I have ever laid my eyes upon. Colin responded to my finding with "It looks like we'll have to get another." Ahh, the man knows me too well. Most of the articles they kept were written by people like me - remembering these classic cars - the smell of the interior, the shifting of gears and the fantasy of being able to drive one. A 1983 article deemed the 2002 the most practical car for lugging "kids and groceries around town and still provide great motoring on the open road." Our definition of that today? Range Rovers, Suburbans. Oh, my stomach turns. It is not that I have not fallen into the keeping-up-with-the-Jones-and-their-black-Range-Rover, I just gave it up when the town I lived in looked like a President was visiting at all times with the amount of black luxury SUVs traversing the single road in and out of town to simply get kids from school, to soccer and then home again. It is too much, too big and put so much in perspective for me. It was a time in our lives when we had worked really hard to get more, more, more. Thankfully, like an asteroid falling from the sky on top of our heads we got the message. Less is more. Park the SUV, lower the mortage, eat in, spend time together. So, here we are. Another week gone by, and lots more work under our belt. Colin has inherited a perpetual cough from the rhino liner and fiber glass he used to repair the spare tire well that had also rusted through (damn rust!). He completed the repair on the drivers side floor pan and got the accelerator pedal back in - always helpful for driving! He has started removing trim and doing body work in preparation for paint. This was exciting - until he found a whole lot more rust in doing so (damn rust!). So, the front lower valance and the lower front fenders where they meet the rocker panels will have to be un-rusted before we can move forward and do the pretty stuff. But you know what? It feels good. Making something old new again. Giving a classic what she deserves.