November 2018
Faenza-Firenze-Faenza for the Pandolfini auction
403-1404 didn't sell at the Pandolfini auction held in Prato Saturday 24 November 2018, despite Marco Makaus' valiant efforts, due to various factors: the auction having been postponed from the initial date of mid-October and moved to a much less accessible location, plus the concomitance of 'Milano AutoClassica' during the same week-end, etc.
I published this picture, taken in the garage of the Pandolfini auction house during consignment, to show how deceiving can be photographs taken in peculiar conditions of illumination. This light makes the door and wheelarches look like they have been painted in two different shades of silver, the door seeming much lighter than the rear wheelarches...
An unpleasant surprise was that when I retrieved the car for the drive home Saturday afternoon after the end of the auction, the LH side window was fully wound down and wouldn't rise up again. And outside rain was hard, it was cold and I had at least 100 miles to drive to carry the 403 back in her garage in Faenza.... Having dismantled part of the door card, I saw that I could barely lift the rear portion of the window; the front part looked blocked by something and wouldn't lift up. We had to seal the gap the best we could (it's not pretty to see, but it worked well enough) to drive the 403 back to Andrea Bedosti's shop in Faenza. He will fix it
This is how the weather was Sunday morning, 25 November. Luckily, the engine, electrics etc worked perfectly so the trip was comparatively uneventful. On the other hand, the windscreen wipers of the 403 are the most ineffective I've ever seen on any car, British or not: they are pathetic. I need better blades...and I'm sorry to say that the spares I bought from Bristol Cars were absolutely awful, with the blade much shorter than the original one and of a very bad quality, with stiff rubber that simply doesn't wipe the water off the screen
