So this year I vowed, in fact made it my New Year's Resolution, to drive the car more. I did that, and even made it out on a blat! I still didn't drive it enough though. As such, I have insured my brother on the car, and he has taken it on a couple of runs around the countryside to keep it warm. Highlights for the year are probably listening to my brother scream as he was driven around at the Dunsfold Handling Day, and seeing his smile when he drove it at the Handling Day! Closely followed by a successful day of hooning at the Supercar Event, and finally giving that passenger ride I offered up as a raffle prize in 2012...

Now because my brother is a bit of an airhead, and will likely leave the lights on and kill the battery, I decided that it was time to fit a master switch to entirely isolate the battery when the car is parked up. This will add an additional layer of security, not a bad thing. So the switch was ordered, and arrived, and I found that I needed some new cables as the terminals didn't match up. I fitted the switch in the bulkhead and wired up as much as I could, and Ian (SM25T) helped out considerably by popping over during the day, diving in to the garage and finishing up the wiring for me, all in time for little brother to take the car away for the weekend without fear of killing the battery!

Now I know I would lose the key at some point, and as such I have a spare, but I figured that a better way to ensure that the key was always removed and never lost would be to attach it to the ignition keys! I now have a rather fetching curly wurly thing going between the two.

So now the days are getting a bit dark and nippy, I have some more plans! And I've already got stuck in.

A couple of the original ZV3s were getting tired, having been hooned at various handling days, and amazingly were close to the wear bars! I managed to pick a few up for free from a fellow Blatchatter, so duly collected those and had them fitted to the rears. The fronts will need doing in the next 6 months or so I guess, but are fine for now with a good few mm left.

At the same time, I picked up some close-to-the-wear-bar Toyo R888s with the intention of getting a second set of wheels and using these as fronts for handling days.

When Neil K (of Supercar Event fame) offered up his vast collection of spare wheels for sale, I jumped at the tattiest ones - perfect for the handling days! These have ZV1s ready fitted, so I'll swap two for the R888s and I'll have the perfect set of drift / donut wheels. I am hoping to borrow a friend's blasting cabinet and painting kit to get these looking relatively straight again, gloss black with fluorescent yellow should look sufficiently bad-ass for hooning days!

All I need to do is source a couple of scaffold poles to fit across the garage to store them now, as I have limited floor space!

But for ultimate hooning I need a couple of other upgrades too, namely an Apollo tank and an LSD. I have found both (well, it's a Quaife ATB rather than a true LSD, but it should be better than a straight open diff) and should hopefully get these over Christmas to be fitted for the new year. As such I'm holding off the oil and filter change until I get the Apollo in.

As I've now been aero for some time now, I think I will be selling on the weather kit as I just can't see me using it - the car is pretty much a fair weather / weekend fun car now given my time constraints, and I can't see me selling it, so there's just no need to be wasting garage space! This will help to offset the cost of the Apollo and ATB diff.

I will also be able to get rid of a kilo of weight from the wiper motor, so that is being removed over Christmas along with the washer bottle, pump and plumbing. Roger Ford kindly sent me some grommets that will fit the leftover holes perfectly and keep it all looking tidy without needing to replace the scuttle. I'll put this all up for sale with the doors, screen and stanchions when I have everything together to photograph - watch this space.

So what after that? I'm half tempted to have a crack at painting the car, I can borrow the kit from a friend, so it's just the time. Other than that, I'd like to replace the bulkhead with carbon fibre sheet, but I don't think I'll have the time to do that. It would be nice to clean up the bulkhead, as it has a blanking plate for the heater is just generally untidy.

I'd also like to get the bypass relay back in to the MFRU box to hide it away and make it look neater - a fellow blatchatter has done this with success so I may try my hand at it in the future. Otherwise, I just need to enjoy it some more!