History
Coming from a AUII LTD, it was hard to purchase a 1988 NA Fairlane as a replacement. I had originally planned to use that year to join the NSW Police Force and I just needed a car to occasionally commute from Goulburn to Sydney. I picked this one up for $950.
As older Fairlanes went, this one was great. Sure it looked like somebody had used a shopping trolley to bash in every panel and the front grill was missing, but everything mechanical and electrical about the car worked. I would challenge anyone to find a car this old and this cheap with working power windows, mirrors, climate control, central locking, and all the other other features that were top-of-the-line in 1988. The other cool thing was that the car had the "Star Wars dash" - giving it a digital speedo.
My police plans never went through however and I ended up getting a job where i was given another company car. The NA remained parked outside my employers office from the day I had taken my company vehicle until one day when someone backing out of a spot on the other side of the road managed to back in to my Fairlane.
The damage was really minor - a smashed headlamp and a bit of damage to the front quarter panel, bonnet and bumper - the car would have still been registerable if not for the broken headlamp. Once I claimed on the other driver's insurance though, his insurer deemed that the car was not worth repairing and paid me $4,500 for it. They even returned the "wreck" to me. I then put the car on eBay and picked up a further $1,000 from a guy who was restoring another NA and just wanted my car for parts.
Modifications
Any work I did on the car was simply to resolve issues. I did end up replacing the front grill using parts from Pick-and-Payless, but the new grill was damaged in the accident. I also had to replace the climate control unit eventually as the LCD display on the old one died - once again this was $40 and ten minutes at Pick-and-Payless.
