An obvious question many people reading will have is, “How could this project go on for 50 years?” The simple answer is, Life Happens! Things like marriages, divorces, illness, death (losing family members), and relocating to the other side of the country can cause major interruptions to your daily routine and your goals. There’s no doubt in my mind that others with more skills and more funds could have had this car completed and built a dozen more in the time I have owned it. For me, there always seemed to be something else that was demanding my attention and my resources, but I never loss sight of the goal of getting it a point where it was “my affordable-exotic” while still being functional and reliable.
Living in New Jersey can be frustrating at times for a car enthusiast. It rains seemingly every other day and the humidity can be brutal in the summer. The winters are cold enough to be very uncomfortable, with just enough snow to keep things looking messy through the winter months. We had a very nice house in central New Jersey when we took our first RV trip to the west coast. It was in the Fall of 2002. Southern Nevada can be very attractive in the fall. When the monsoon season is over, the humidity falls back to the single digits and the nights can be quite chilly. When driving through the rural areas, a guy from the crowded Northeast can feel like he found heaven on earth. Long story short, we got hooked and bought an acre on our second trip in 2003. By 2004 we contracted with a builder and in the fall of 2005 we loaded up the truck and travel trailer once more for the big move. In late 2005 the house was still not finished but we were living in the RV parked right in our new back yard. I couldn’t wait to get my tools and Valkyrie into the over-sized four-car garage.
When our New Jersey house was finally sold, we were already in Nevada, and I arranged to have a friend back in New Jersey meet the transport truck and get the Valkyrie on its way to Nevada. When the transport truck arrived to make the delivery, we had to put the Valkyrie in a storage locker for a few weeks while the finishing touches were being made on the house.
I never realized how relatively low and small the Valkyrie was until I saw it parked next to a new (2006) ZO6 Corvette.
Next: The second major rebuild (2012 – 2023)
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