New Years wishes, machine shop found,intellectual challenge(long)

[Milanogold@xxxxxxx]

Greetings Alfisti!
       Our family wanted to wish each and every one of you a Happy healthy and
fun new year!!!!!!!!!!!!! We've spent our new years celebration cleaning house
(and me putting the blackeyed peas on for new years dinner.Collards and
cornbread go on tomorrow morning........).
        As you know, I'm putting together a list of freelance/quality and
inexpensive paint and body shops in the Northern VA area.This list is coming
along quite nicely;the other day I did a rental at an automotive machine
shop.Since these type of shops seem to be a bit sparse in this area, thought
Alfisti might be interested.I have no financial interest whatsoever;they're
nice guys.
        The shops' name is Kenson Automotive machinists,located at 3601
Pickett Road in Fairfax,VA.Phone # is (703)323-0040 or (703)323-8358.These
people specialize in aluminum cylinder head service,block boring,balancing and
blueprinting, and  building custom and "performance"engines.They know
Alfas,have done head work on them and can do crankshaft grinding (Perhaps
special cam grinds as well?) The attitude of the people I talked to was "We
can do anything and everything".This might be a good source for alfisti
looking for machine work on their Alfas;I've talked to a few shops who use
their work and the consensus among them was that they do really good
work.Looks like they enjoy their work, there was a HEAVILY built Z28 camaro in
the shop that was one of the machinists cars.Hope this helps somebody.
        While sliding around on the ice today getting rental cars to people
who wrecked their own cars (we had a Chevy Cavalier wiped out this week due to
this mess on the roads),I was thinking warm thoughts of the Fiat X1/9 I had
last summer (nicknamed "Spot",as in (multiple)rust spots.I'm thinking that I
want another convertible,and with my GTV6 just about on the roads;I was
thinking.BMW did a convertible (believe it was a 323?) with a top that slid
down like the old Citroen 2 CV canvas tops,leaving the windows and door frames
intact.Or, like the recent Por**he Targa,substituting their glass panel for a
canvas top .Wonder if a GTV6 could be done in the same way.................You
have to admit,it's much like Bill's new 1999 164 idea.maybe not cost effective
but interesting from an intellectual standpoint.I throw this idea out to all
shivering Alfisti;how could this be accomplished;keeping the original body
rigidity and not making the car look as though it belongs on the south side of
Washington DC?
     While we're all waiting for the next ice storm to hit us on the east
coast, might be a fun exercise to keep our brains from turning to ice.
      Have a happy and SAFE new year!
Terry and Sharon Akins
alexandria,VA
1987 Milano gold (Alfie)
1984 GTV6 (Vito)    

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