A week later I was on the train down south with the cash and a servo for my Innocenti stashed in my overnight bag. Trains are still one of my most disliked forms of transport with people having no regard for reserved seats, noisey kids in "quiet" carriages, and a half hour delay for a spurious safety reason.
Eventually I got to pick up the GT and drive it to Newbury. After a rest on Sunday to get over my train journey, I travelled back up north, via MiniMail, to Newcastle. I wanted to get rid of the centre exit exhaust so I picked up a side exit RC40 from Tim, along with the correct interior door handles, a new boot lock and a couple of other odds and ends. Amazingly Tim had a couple of original door seals with the correct Limeflower edging.
The GT performed well, doing around 35mpg at a steady 60mph. I had to stop for fuel 3 times though as it has a 5.5 gallon tank. It has a bit of a thirst for oil, but on closer inspection this could be due to the way the breather system has been done. When fitting the new exhaust on the Tuesday it was noticed that there's a breather pipe dumping oil to the near side of the subframe. Unfortunately the clutch has started to slip, so I had to call up Tim for a replacement.
I'm very happy with it and will be driving to a few events before the winter, the next major event will be the Gold Cup.
Here's a couple of shots of how the car looked the day after I picked it up.
Look forward to seeing it up close next month. 
but clearly a good one and I look forward to having a ride out in the car 
Niall.
