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Vinyl's worst enemy is UV.

The more you can keep it protected from the sun, the better. So, there's another reason for a tonneau cover. Prevention is always easier than restoration.

Seven years in, our vinyl interior still looks close to new, and I've never used any products on it other than a mild soap and water.

Our tonneau is canvas, and that may have weathered a little better than vinyl would have. Or maybe it's that the look of 'patinaed' canvas sort of goes with these antique cars. I also clean that with mild soap and water.

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@Sacto Mitch posted:

.Yeah, it seems like just yesterday we were debating the merits of different brands of oil and what makes for proper gearing.

It does, doesn't it?

In these "unprecedented times", it's nice to have some things that stay the same-- familiar touchstones from a simpler age to reminisce over with old friends*.

*Your oil choice is idiotic, and nobody wants a 3.88/.82 with a 1.21 3rd. What's the matter with you anyhow?

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Bob, we need to be a little understanding of our less fortunate, climatically-challenged friends. They're especially vulnerable at this time of year.

The leaves are falling, the days are getting shorter, and then one day they wake up and there's frost on the windows. It's as if life itself is ending.

Soon, there will be no more driving.

It's a terrible thing to face that we on the more favored coast have never had to confront. They lash out at us in ways they may not fully understand themselves.

Please, show them some compassion.

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@Sacto Mitch posted:

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Bob, we need to be a little understanding of our less fortunate, climatically-challenged friends. They're especially vulnerable at this time of year.

The leaves are falling, the days are getting shorter, and then one day they wake up and there's frost on the windows. It's as if life itself is ending.

Soon, there will be no more driving.

It's a terrible thing to face that we on the more favored coast have never had to confront. They lash out at us in ways they may not fully understand themselves.

Please, show them some compassion.

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You're so diplomatic, Mitch!   You've obviously have spent a fall/winter or 2 in a not so favorable climate.  It's wet/cold here and most of the toys have been put away already.

I remember visiting the campus of the Univ of Wisconsin at Madison.  In early February.    As I was walking from the cafe after getting my morning Starbucks, I had to walk across a Quadrangle to get to the building where I was supposed to be.  There was a time/temperature/alerts sign flashing on the Quad that told me it was 0745 and the temperature was -20°F and the Quad was packed with people.   I could not believe that human beings would choose to live in that environment, but then I thought (it’s a long way across the Quad, there - you tend to think a lot on long walks) I thought, well, maybe those people in California would long for this weather in the middle of June/July/August, when it’s way too hot to take your convertible out for a ride, even in the evening.

Or not.

Either way, there’s no way in Hell I would ever live there, and here we have pretty leaves that weren’t Fire-charred early in the season.   I guess I can put up with an 8-month driving season.  Gives me a little time to do things like Armor-All my interior for the next season.  

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Every place has its high points and its not so highs.

Whether we see the glass half-full or half-empty can depend on serendipitous moments, and personal perspective.

I first visited the SF Bay area for a week in February, 1967, when I was on semester break in my freshman year. Like all of my previous 20 winters, things back east were pretty much all froze up when I left.

I stepped off the plane five hours later into a different place. Locals were apologetic about the rain and the terrible cold. The mercury had plummeted into the fifties.

"Yeah," I said, "I don't know how you cope."

Of course, other things were different in Berkeley in 1967 than they were in, say, inner city Philadelphia. And that may have also shaped my perception of the Golden State. I got back on the plane a changed man. It started me to California dreamin'.

It would be many years before I first heard the words 'dry heat' and a few more still before I discovered just what those words meant.

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Last edited by Sacto Mitch

I have driven my Spyder on or about New Years day on several occasions. They are the exception, though, rather than the rule.

I plan on bugging out permanently to the North Carolina Blue Ridge area. From what Carlos says, it's a temperate rain forest. My wife Michelle lived down there for 4 years. She absolutely LOVED the long outside seasons. That's where we're headed, in a few years or less. I had planned to move south after retirement long before we started dating, so it really worked out well.

I retired in December of 2019, and I'm pretty happy. I used to work outside every day. Now if it's too hot, too cold, rainy or snowy, I simply don't care. I mow the lawn when I feel like it. I plow the snow when I feel like it. I simply don't HAVE to do anything in any time frame at all, except my own.

What a great, free feeling it is.

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