does anyone NOT do this?

I remembered for the Can-Am at least - oh, and I showed a 'fix'

Ashamedly, I probably have the record for the longest build.
I ordered my GTR in September 1999, collected the first parts in April 2000, and eventually brought it to Germany (where I was working) in 2001. I then proceeded to work on it in dribs and drabs, deciding along the way to fit a (relatively new at the time and hence totally unsupported by the factory) LS1 motor, change the dashboard, and alter the chassis for ease of drivetrain removal.

Over the years, due to work, finances, girlfriends, and laziness, I didn't do a great deal. I tried to sell it unfinished about 8 or 9 years ago, but received such low offers that I stubbornly decided to keep on going.

I bumped into Ted Marlow 5 or 6 years ago at a show and he reacted so calmly when I told him how long the build had so far taken. "Everyone builds at their own rate. It's perfectly normal". he said reassuringly. He reminded me of a doctor. He didn't even look like he was suppressing a smirk. What a professional!

Since I started my build (I use the term loosely), I've been through at least 10 girlfriends, gone from washboard to cheeseboard stomach, and the build has spanned 3 decades. The Euro came and may well go before the car is finished. The Dot Com bubble burst, the World Trade Centre was attacked on the 11th of September, heralding "The War on Terror", the Mars exploration rover landed on Mars, there are now half as many mobile phones on the planet as people, and 02PRUV could have built 663 Ultimas in the time since I had the bright idea to purchase the GTR.

Last year a great weight was lifted from my shoulders when Steve and Paul from Southways Automotive came over and took the GTR away to finish it.

So, from the first order on the 12th of September 1999, my Ultima GTR build has taken 12 years, 8 months and 10 days, or 4636 days, or....etc. and still counting.

The ball is in your court, Steve_D.

Phew. I'm glad I got that off my chest. This is what Alcoholics Anonymous must feel like.

Harsh.




But fair

Prepare to add 80 hrs getting all the mods done so it properly passes IVA!

Roy Castle, me

Steve and Paul have had it for over 5 months and still not finished!!!!

If you had sent it to Australia, 02PROV would have finished it by March, so even with shipping you would have it by now!!!






Paul

Mods, can you change title of thread to "How many girlfriends did you go through, building your Ultima"

If you already have 'wife' im afraid you cant have 'girlfriend' you end up with a system conflict ............................ and your balls in a pickle jar!

I'm currently running the latest version of Girlfriend 5.0 and having some problems. I've been running the same version of 'Stoneleigh Weekend 1.0' for years as my primary application, and all the Girlfriend releases have always conflicted with it. I hear that 'Stoneleigh Weekend 1.0' won't crash if you minimize Girlfriend with the sound off, but since I can't find the switch to turn it off, I just run them separately and it works OK.

Girlfriend also seems to have a problem coexisting with 'FightingTorque v3', often trying to abort my program with some sort of timing incompatibility. I probably should have stayed with Girlfriend 1.0, but I thought I might see better performance with Girlfriend 2.0.

After months of conflicts, I consulted a friend who has experience with Girlfriend 2.0. He said I probably didn't have enough cache to run Girlfriend 2.0 and eventually it would require a Token Ring upgrade to run properly. He was right. As soon as I purged my cache, Girlfriend 2.0 uninstalled itself.

Shortly after that, I installed a Girlfriend 3.0 beta. All the bugs were supposed to be gone, but the first time I used it, it gave me a virus. After a hard drive clean up and thorough virus scan I very cautiously upgraded to Girlfriend 4.0. This time using a SCSI probe and virus protection. It worked OK for a while until I discovered Girlfriend 1.0 wasn't completely uninstalled!

I tried to run Girlfriend 1.0 again with Girlfriend 4.0 still installed, but Girlfriend 4.0 has an unadvertised feature that automatically senses the presence of Girlfriend 1.0 and communicates with it in some way, resulting in the immediate removal of both versions!

The version I have now works pretty well, but, like all versions, there are still some problems. The Girlfriend package is written in some obscure language that I can't understand, much less reprogram. And I've never liked how Girlfriend is totally 'object-oriented.'

A year ago, a friend upgraded his version to GirlfriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate-and-Stay resident version. He discovered GirlfriendPlus 1.0 expires within a year if you don't upgrade to Fiance9e 1.0. So he did. But soon after that, you have to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes as a 'huge resource hog.' It has taken up all his space, so he can't load anything else. One of the primary reasons that he upgraded to Wife is because it came bundled with FreeSex 1.0. Well, it turns out that the resource allocation module of Wife 1.0 sometimes prohibits access to FreeSex (particularly the new Plug and Play items he wanted to try). On top of that, Wife 1.0 must be running on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything. And, although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with MotherInLaw 1.0, which has an automatic popup feature he can't turn off.

I told him to install Mistress 1.0, but he said that he heard that if you try to run it without first uninstalling Wife, that Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before uninstalling itself. Then Mistress 1.0 won't install anyway, due to insufficient resources.

WARNING : DO NOT, under any circumstances, install 'Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3' . This application is not supported by Wife 1.0 and will cause irreversible damage to your operating hardware

If anybody out there is able to offer technical advice...?

+1 That had me chuckling and nodding with empathy.