My new girlfriend, (later to be the navigator), was unimpressed when I proudly opened the workshop doors to say "and one of these is what we'll do the Monte Carlo in !".
After cleaning off the grime, the broken bodyshell looked to be too damaged to repair. I had caused further damage just by moving it. The obvious solution, which was to use the V5, good chassis, good bodyshell, engine, gearbox, and axle to produce one car, had major pitfalls:
The good bodyshell was broken in several areas and the bonnet was missing everything under the headlamps, while the doors and bonnet from the broken shell would not fit straightaway. Also, the repaired chassis still required the steering rack mountings, radiator and bonnet supports repairing. As desperately as I wanted a Sabre, I couldn't bring myself to sacrifice one of the cars to achieve my goal.
I spent three months learning how to take moulds from the good bodyshell's windscreen pillars that wouldn't break when removing them from the car, and then how to make new windscreen pillars in them that didn't distort with the curing heat. While this was going on I was slowly stretching the roof back into the proper position.
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