I had a pretty slow day, so i managed to type the rest of the Polish ordeal ;-D
Guessed the name yet? ~ "The Poland Ferry".
At this point, I had spent an already silly amount of money, and LOADS of time on eBay, buying and importing the needed parts to make the car "a very decent driver", and decided that it should be sent to Poland, for a proper and complete paint, and interior restoration down to new fresh chrome, and some NOS emblems". It was my intention all along, to save this yacht.. and restoration in Poland was super much cheaper back then, as EVERYTHING in Denmark is ALWAYS crazy expensive. As "EU" came along opening up for cross boarder services and such, having restorations done in Poland, was very a good way to save money.
I found a Danish "Poland-broker", and to make sure everything would go well for my baby, I searched out THREE of his previous customers. They all were nearly 100% satisfied, so based on these findings, I agreed to his terms paid about 5000 USD, and off went the car.
About a year og missed deadlines later it was clear, that everything went wrong. At first, the Danish / Polish married broker lost all his company funds, as a middle eastern customer simply drove off without paying him for a VERY costly restoration. As a result, I had to drive down there, and arrange for the car to be transported from one garage (where he owed money), to another. I also had to have a lawyer write threatening letters before they would give up the car. It was not only tedious work, but also a complete waste of time. THIS was what I was paying the broker to arrange, but at this point, he was to far out in debt, and acted like a little child. The garage was closed, so I had to dump the car in the yard of another company, near the "new garage", and unload the parts in another private garage, in a big old house, owned by of the mother of the brokers wife. After unloading, I went back to Denmark, and thought that now everything would be OK.. but no..
The broker was bankrupt, and about two long years of frustration later, (and after several attempts to help him back on his feet) he suddenly died. It was a sad, and unreal experience. I realized that with his passing, the almost 14.000 USD I had invested, was lost. (At this point the total cost of the car was about 22.500 USD), so of course, I was deeply frustrated when this happened. He had just arrived back from Poland, and wrote me on Skype about a "breakthrough in his fight with the Polish garage about funds", and then he went to bed to rest after the long drive, and passed away. I went to his funeral to get some sort of closure to the whole ordeal, and ended up at his wake.. comforting the widow. (Very kind and sweet Polish lady).
Some time and a few letters later, I got word from some other "victims" that the Polish garage was closed, and after nearly another a year later, trying to find the car through emails with the polish family and lawyers, I freaked out one night at 22:00, filled my cooler with ice and cokes, made some sandwiches, jumped in my van, and drove down there again.. all the way down to the Polish / Czech boarder... a 12 hour drive.
I had never been in the actual garage, and thus I didn't know where to go exactly, so at first, I just drove around, asking random in the town (in broken German) about a "garage somewhere a bit outside town", but no one spoke a word of German, nor English. I did however remember, us driving by the garage two years before, to see if anyone was there.. at night.. not knowing that I would have to find it by myself two years later, so my memory was murky.
I went back to the family house, shut the engine off and just sat for a while. The house where the widow had lived before, was a big old apartment building, and like so many other buildings in that town, it was mostly abandoned. I just sat there for an hour or so.. looking at ppl passing by, kids playing, dogs running around, while I tried to reconstruct the route in my mind, from what I COULD remember from my last visit, and then patch it together backwards.
Luckily, I had some pretty good ones, like "a long straight, going up hill out of town", and "crossing a river, followed by a right hand/left hand combination", "crossing the main road going south", "a railway crossing", and "some big sinister looking abandoned factory buildings", marking the industrial area, and a few blocks away from the street where the garage was. After driving around for a while, I finally managed to track down the garage.
The garage, had been converted into... a popsicle factory.. , but I immediately recognized some of the mechanic's from my previous visit to Poland.. now wearing white aprons, producing Popsicles. I managed to learn through more broken German, that the owner of the Popsicle factory, was identical to the owner of the now closed garage, and that he knew where my car was.. So I got his address, and found his house. I brought some gifts from Denmark, to lighten up the mood, and after a good talk, I managed to get the address, and an agreement to how much I should pay to have the car released.
I had to pay him about 1300 USD extra for the body work he had done, (as the broker took my money to his grave), and the guy took me to the location where they towed all the unfinished cars. When I arrived to the farm where the car were, I was happy at first, to see my car. The "guy" had promised that all my parts were there, but I got a bad surprise.. All the parts I had bought, and had shipped from the US to Denmark , and paid stupid import tax for, was either stolen, smashed or simply misplaced in other cars...
Here is some of the (very fine) bodywork that was done...
Looks great, but unfortunately, the car was dragged outside, and left under that tarpaulin for a year, after the death of the broker, instead of contacting me.. When found, there was plenty of other parts in the car, but not mine.
Looking for my own parts, I found a 1970 Charger in the "chest high grass", belonging to another Danish "victim", with whom I later became friends. Inside his Charger, were a bunch of my parts, but "inside" my 300, was only a HEAP of "Euro-crap-car-parts", (and about 15 cm of rusty water). The hungry Polish mosquitoes attacked me vigorously the next 3-4 hours , while I was packing the two Mopar cars, with all the parts I could find. Unfortunately, it was only my 300 that was parked on grass.. the other cars, were parked in some super tall weed, that covered up everything laying on the ground. I did find my seats, gas tank and some other bigger parts, but as the dark got darker, I shifted my attention to the two cars. At that point, I already needed a bath, and missed my bed.
Seen in the rear view mirror, (and from a financial point of view), I probably should have left it right there... but as I mentioned in the beginning of this "brief introduction", I REALLY LOVE C-Bodies... so I didn't.. and what can we learn from this.. Persistence CAN work against you sometimes. :-D
I finally got it home again, (and the Charger too).. on the same transporter. Those two cars, told each other some cool stories on that transporter, I'm sure.. ;-)
