....remember Brian showing me a picture of a pink metallic car he built, I think for a Saudi.....anything for a buck!
He told some very entertaining stories of customers and some of the requests they made, some got a price quote reply, some got a "I don't think we will be doing that" answer.
I had a customer order a MK IV in BMW Anthracite metallic, a dark gray metallic color with all brightwork done in black. Angliss told me of how Brian Burford, the works manager, dis-assembled the hood locks for black plating and had a hard time re-assembling them! The car was not to my tastes and the guy who ordered it never replied to my call after it arrived....he walked away from a $10,000.00 deposit. It took a year for me to sell it, I had considered ordering all the brightwork to install as I thought it would have been a stunning car in the color with the chrome/stainless on it. Another car that didn't sound good but was nice in person was a car in Mercedes Dunkelblau (dark blue non-metallic) with magnolia leather. I delivered it to the buyer in Queens, New York when the New York Auto Show was on, he invited me to attend with him and what did we find? A Ferrari Mondial Cab on the stand in the same color scheme! BTW, this customer never drove his car, he paid me to fly to New York 10 years later to appraise it for a potential buyer...it had 2 miles more on the clock than when I delivered it!
I guess short of the factory guys, I have driven more different MK IVs than most as I test drove every car we sold myself after Jim, our designated AC tech had prepped it.
Brian also told of sending a car to Saudi Arabia and having it turned away at customs when they spotted the Ford logos on the engine....Ford was a banned, blacklisted company in the Arab league at the time as they did business with Israel. Brian's solution was to ship the car back to Weybridge, grind off all the Ford castings and paint the motor Chevy orange....re-sent to Saudi and the wogs let it right through as it had a "Chevy" motor!
Rick
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