GD,
I totally agree with this:
"guess I'll just have to get over it if they can't accept it.... because I wanted to do something different while still showing what a great design the car was/is."
I get a little bit of that from the TVR crowd. Caught a little bit of flak when I did an article for the TVR newsletter. My personal experience is that there is ALWAYS a contingent out there for any marque that wants to preserve/restore at any cost. I usually counter those type of folks by saying the car is not factory original once the factory air is let out of the tires!
My TVR was so far gone that either to restore or restify would take the same amount of effort or cubic dollars to do. Same thing with the Fiero -- it had survived a front end impact, had the electrical system cut up, had parts missing/others bolted on.....didn't feel bad making it what I wanted it to be. Besides it's a Fiero!!! There are enough other folks out there that bought those cars and squirrelled them away as investments.....wonder how that is working out for them
PS -- sorry that info didn't work out for the DS
But iddn't that part of the joy of doing stuff like this -- to do something that someone hasn't done before?
-jeff d
PS -- This weekend I have a wife sponsored "wife-free-saturday" -- lots of work to be done on the TVR, lots of pics.............and a few of the Fiero thrown in as well.....more later!