The project was slowing down. The summer rolling by, the tropic's schedule ending at the closing of August, the weather cooling; it all saw more activity in and around the mountains and the trails. And that in turn meant the workload of the offroad towing company Heavy Liftin' increased again as well - which meant less time to work on a new project.
There also was another reason. The puma woman Florence Beaumont, who owned and ran the company, did a lot of the work on the new project she had set out, to create a narrowed towing vehicle for work on the newly created side by side trails. With the experience she had, having modified and even fully built several of their fleet vehicles, the feline woman very much knew what she was doing, even if she was learning with every project she undertook. And although most projects were quite unique, she could lay out the basics pretty fast and get the bulk of the work done in a timely enough manner.
The sturdy box beams that had been purchased for the narrowed tow truck project had already been cut and welded into a functional frame. The dimensions for the vehicle were already more or less set. A number of parts for the suspension had been acquired, the engine that had been found by one of the employees had come back from the shop where it had been sent to for a full refresh and rebuild, and further parts were slowly trickling in. Mock-ups had been made and utilised to get a number of dimensions and placements correct. Ideas had been discussed and either dismissed as not viable for the specific project, implemented, or modified to fit the specific project.
The problem was the actual body of the vehicle. The donor vehicle they had purchased was close to perfect. A 1983 Datsun 720 double-cab mini-truck that was in pretty good condition both bodily and mechanically - even if they were not going to use any of its mechanical parts because all of that was being built from scratch. But Florence kept holding off on cutting up the cab of the vehicle to narrow it and fit it on the new frame they were building. Eventually it became so noticeable that she was stalling that both her son Thomas and her daughters Sonja and Marion as well as her steady camera woman Clara called her out on it.
Returning from a recovering a Toyota Prius that had slipped into a ditch, Florence went into the office to process the paperwork for the job while the raccoon woman Clara went back into the larger of the two workshops, the one with five bays in it, to film any proceedings in Bay 5 where the new project vehicle was being built. Thomas was welding a couple of elevated shock towers to the front sides of the bare frame for a pair of heavy-duty double-body Bilstein air shocks while the older of the two puma girls, Sonja, was welding gussets to several crossbars. Both of them looked up and stopped their work when Florence joined them.
"Hey mom, job went well?" Thomas asked.
"Yeah, it was nothing special," Florence nodded. "Just a Prius in a ditch, we had it out in a jiffy. How's things going here?"
"Steadily," Sonja said, taking off her welding helmet. "We're doing a bunch of small stuff, but really mom, we're about ready to tackle that Datsun body so we can figure out where to put the mounting points. We've been ready for that for over a week now."
"All in good time, kitten, no need to rush," Florence said with a light chortle.
"We're not rushing, ma, you're stalling," Thomas said with a small grin. "Seriously, what's the deal? It's almost looking as if you don't want this project to be finished."
"Now now, young man," Florence started, but Clara butted in.
"Not to take sides here, but he's right, Flo. There's been a good number of opportunities already to get started on that body, and so far you've not even let anyone take measurements. Is there something that's holding you back or something?"
Florence shrugged and shook her head.
"To be honest... yes. I don't feel good about this."
"What's not to feel good about, mom?" Sonja asked. "The work here is going really well, we're getting it built even better than the Sumai, so I for one am sure this vehicle will be absolutely capable and super safe."
"That's not the thing, kitten," Florence said with another light shake of her head. "It's more, well, the more I think about it, the more I feel bad about cutting up that car."
"It's just an old Datsun mini-truck, ma," Thomas brought up.
"And that's where you're not entirely correct, son," Florence said, pointing a finger at Thomas' nose. "It's not just an old Datsun mini-truck, it has history, and a lot of it. The woman I bought it from bought it in Australia to drive it all over the country in some kind of event, and she made it, too. That little truck has a lot of stories in it, and with how good a shape it's still in, I just don't want to cut it up. It deserves better."
"So what do you suggest?" Sonja shrugged. "That we take that whole pile of parts we disassembled that truck into and restore it?"
"That would be a better fate for it, to be honest," Florence nodded.
"Come on, Flo, then we'd just end up with a simple mini-truck in the fleet, what use would we have for that?" Clara said.
"There'd be plenty uses for a small pickup truck in our fleet, missy," Florence said with a light chortle. "And if not, I'm sure I can find some."
"Okay, then how about this?" Thomas grinned, also taking off his welding helmet. "If we do restore that old thing, then what will we use for the body of this vehicle? We'd be back to square one, having to find something suitable and then fully disassemble that."
"I actually may have found something suitable."
All of them looked around. From the break room, the youngest Beaumont daughter, Marion, had walked over to Bay 5 and had overheard the last part of the conversation. Stepping up to her mother, she held up her phone.
"Check this out, mom, I think this would do very well as a body donor for our new project, don't you think?"
"And what made you look for something, princess?" Florence said while taking the phone and looking at it.
Marion smiled and leaned up against Florence's side, folding an arm around her mother's waist.
"I was with you when you bought that little Datsun truck, mom, I heard the story that lady told you about how she got it and what she did with it. So when I noticed you kept holding off on even measuring the cab, I knew you didn't actually want to cut it up and I started looking around for a replacement donor." She waved a paw at her phone Florence was still holding. "Go on, look at what I found."
Both the two teenage pumas and the raccoon woman laughed softly, and Florence gave her head another light and amused shake. Darnit but those kids were getting way too clever. She did check her youngest daughter's phone, however.
It showed an advertisement listing a vehicle for sale. A silver-coloured 1994 Volkswagen Caddy, which was basically the cabin of a VW Polo up to the B-pillar, with a small cargo box attached to the back. The one in the advertisement on Marion's phone had been quite seriously rear-ended; both rear doors of the cargo box were missing and the box itself was crumpled and partly folded in on itself, both rear tires were flat and the right one had been pushed an unhealthy amount forwards. Being effectively total-loss, it was listed for parts at merely scrap metal value, a meager $280.
Scrolling through the listing and the photos that accompanied it, Florence slowly started smiling as well and every now and then gave a slow, short nod of her head. It wasn't a bad option at all, to be fair. The engine and transmission were said to still be operational, the entire cab was undamaged, and as the cargo box was just that, a simple metal box, there were no broken windows apart from the two small windows in the rear doors.
"You know, princess, we can actually work with this," Florence said at length. "It's not that much higher than the Datsun, it's a lot more common, a decent bit more modern inside, and it has pretty much no emotional value at all with it being just a delivery vehicle."
"And these are pretty comfy, too," Marion said, smiling happily at the praise. "My Take Five vehicle is the pickup version of this very car, so I know how nice it rides."
"Yes, yes," Florence nodded slowly. "You have a point there. Let's see... the Datsun is better because it has a double cab, I'd really prefer if we can fit more than one person in there once this vehicle is done, but..."
Thomas leaned over to look at Marion's phone as well.
"We can extend that cab easily," was his opinion. "Maybe not with rear doors, but we can take some of the sheetmetal of that box, straighten it out and make an extended crewcab. We could even fit a couple of simple windows in there, and the seats fold forwards, we could still get into the back quite easily."
"Oh! Oh!" Sonja piped up with some enthusiasm after also looking at the pictures on Marion's phone. "We could maybe even put rear doors in!"
"How d'you suggest we finagle that, sis?" Thomas chuckled, gesturing at the phone. "That there car was made to be a two-door, so there's no provisions in the B-pillar for hinges, and no provisions whatsoever for latches."
"Still easy enough!" Sonja chortled, poking her brother's shoulder. "That thing is based off the Polo, we could find a similar year Polo or Golf five-door hatchback that's crushed in at the front, graft the pillar hinges into the pillars of that one and transplant the latches into the cab extension. We'll just make it a bit longer than a crewcab, and we can cut the rear doors as well. We did something similar with the Sumai, remember?"
The raccoon woman Clara laughed cheerfully and nudged Florence.
"Your kids are way smart, Flo."
"They're also way eager to decide on spending my money," Florence chortled. "We already spent an amount on purchasing the Datsun, and while the price of this wreck here is low, that's still a couple hundred bucks extra to spend on the project we didn't factor in, and then even buying another wreck to cannibalise? Shoof, there goes another couple hundred bucks at least!"
"Oh come on mom, it's not the end of the world!" Sonja giggled. "We're saving money on using stuff we already have laying around for this project, like winches, and those are not cheap! And heck, if you're that tight for money, you can dock some of my and Tom's pay, too!"
"Whoa whoa whoa, sis!" Thomas protested with a grin. "Your pay, not mine, this is your idea here!"
All of them laughed again, and Florence gently patted Thomas' shoulder.
"We'll see what we can work out, so don't worry, tiger." She also squeezed Marion's shoulder with a smile. "You, I'm proud of, princess. This is a good solution, one I'm going to follow. Go into the office and use the spare computer to see if you can find another cheap wreck, okay? Similar year, five-door hatchback Polo or Golf, maybe even a four-door Passat sedan, something similar to this vehicle with usable rear passenger doors. Colour doesn't matter, I don't even care if the engine and transmission are stripped out of it, all we need is the rear doors and parts of the rear end of the body. I'll keep your phone with me for a few moments so I can call for this ad here."
"Yay! Thanks mom! I will!" Marion smiled happily.
She hugged Florence and trotted off towards the office on the second floor. Florence chortled softly, and after asking Clara to do more filming of the work Thomas and Sonja were doing, she stepped into the break room herself to call the number in the advertisement on Marion's phone, acquire the wrecked VW Caddy and arrange to come pick it up that afternoon. Not too long after, as she knew from finding the wrecked Caddy to look for salvage vehicles, Marion came trotting into the break room as well to cheerfully inform her mother she had located a red 1993 Volkswagen Vento four-door sedan which had been totalled from the front, in a local junkyard that coincidentally was only half a mile down the road from the salvage yard that had the VW Caddy listed for sale. The car was in the pick-a-part section so it had already been picked clean of a good amount of parts, but both rear doors and the rear seat were still on the car - even if the window and window regulator of the rear right door had also been removed. But that was not too much of a problem, as they would need to have custom windows made anyway after modifying the doors.
Another quick phonecall ensured the red car was also purchased and ready for pick-up that afternoon. Leaving Thomas and Sonja to work on the project vehicle and Clara to film the work, Florence just brought Marion with her as she got into the Mauvelous Pink 1957 Scania-Vabis LS71 rollback truck to drive over to the industrial site at the other end of Rainbow Falls. Two stops on the same street, a bit of shuffling and pushing to get both vehicles loaded onto the deck of the truck, a lot of strapping down and a slow drive back to their yard later, the two wrecked cars were offloaded in an open pole shed to the side of the main workshop.
Inside the workshop, Florence attracted the attention of her son and older daughter as well as several of the employees by giving a couple short blasts on an air horn. With everyone looking at her, she explained her decision and gave out several orders; all the parts of the 1983 Datsun mini-truck were to be collected and stored in one of the large shipping containers sitting along one side of the yard for later restoration, the red VW Vento was to be stripped of its rear passenger doors, parts of the B-pillars where the hinges bolted on, parts of the C-pillars where the door latches were located, and the rear seat, the silver VW Caddy was to be stripped down entirely and the damaged cargo box cut off the back of the passenger cabin, which along with the entire front clip and dashboard, as well as the Vento's rear doors and parts, were to be stored by Bay 5.
Yes, it was a good amount of extra, unexpected work. Yes, it delayed the build of the new project vehicle even more. Yes, it meant more money sunk into the new project. But with the new acquisitions, the project was back to full steam ahead!
