God I thought I was the nuts. MkII Ford Capri Ghia 2.0. Insurance cost twice as much as the car. Ran it into the ground literally. This unfortunately it is not it. But identical except mine was an N reg.
first car (in 1992) was a 1986 Mk 2 Fiesta, the not-so-limited edition 'rustbucket' model
similar to this
it got put out of its misery in 1996 when there wasn't enough car to weld new plates to.
it was replaced by a 1993 Peugeot 205 diesel, which was approaching its 25th birthday and 200,000 miles a couple of years ago when some twunt nicked it.
Here’s Sprout, my first car. I’ve only ever owned 2CV’s. I haven’t had one for six years now 😩😩😩 Used to drive it to work everyday on the A2. Hilarious how angry people got when I overtook them in it 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Who is the young lady ?
Me. 25yrs ago 😩 It cost me a grand that car. My last 2CV, Robyn (below), I bought for the same price some years later. I sold it just before I moved to Eire 6yrs ago for 3.5k. You can’t buy a decent one now for less than 7k 😳
What was it that stopped you taking this to Ireland??
My first car was an Austin-Healey Frog-eyed Sprite. I had it for 2 years before coming across an Ice Cream van taking all the road in a narrow country lane. The car was unfortunately written off but I escaped with a couple of broken ribs. As this happened 2 weeks before I got married the injury slowed me down a bit
Here’s Sprout, my first car. I’ve only ever owned 2CV’s. I haven’t had one for six years now 😩😩😩 Used to drive it to work everyday on the A2. Hilarious how angry people got when I overtook them in it 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Who is the young lady ?
Me. 25yrs ago 😩 It cost me a grand that car. My last 2CV, Robyn (below), I bought for the same price some years later. I sold it just before I moved to Eire 6yrs ago for 3.5k. You can’t buy a decent one now for less than 7k 😳
What was it that stopped you taking this to Ireland??
We live by the sea, would have rusted in a week. 😜😜😜😜😜😜🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Here’s Sprout, my first car. I’ve only ever owned 2CV’s. I haven’t had one for six years now 😩😩😩 Used to drive it to work everyday on the A2. Hilarious how angry people got when I overtook them in it 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Who is the young lady ?
Me. 25yrs ago 😩 It cost me a grand that car. My last 2CV, Robyn (below), I bought for the same price some years later. I sold it just before I moved to Eire 6yrs ago for 3.5k. You can’t buy a decent one now for less than 7k 😳
What was it that stopped you taking this to Ireland??
We live by the sea, would have rusted in a week. 😜😜😜😜😜😜🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I recall you saying you are in West Cork - we have friends between Bandon and Clonakilty and are out there regularly...lovely part of the world.
K reg1600 GT XLR Ford Capri , Tonneau roof covering , Cibie spotlights and Sharp radio cassette which kept chewing up my tapes , driver seat collapsed and and tin worm did its best , so scrapped it and then started receiving parking tickets.
!947 Ford Popular. Cost £75 from car dealer in Old Kent Road. Last seen in driverless off-road mode heading down a grass hill in Springfield Grove achieving its fastest ever recorded speed.
The babe magnet that is the Austin Maestro Special! Very similar to this one, it had an unfortunate end as I was hit from behind by someone in a Mk1 Toyota MR2 on the Holloway Road...enough of the structure was bent to make it a write off...
it was replaced by a 1993 Peugeot 205 diesel, which was approaching its 25th birthday and 200,000 miles a couple of years ago when some twunt nicked it.
Our 205 car collection, of which my wife is a very begrudging member.
The Prince-e-Paul said:Our 205 car collection, of which my wife is a very begrudging member.
i was getting towards needing to make a decision whether to replace mine or spend a bit of money on it.
the impending low emission zone within the south circular (i'm ok where i live, but mum-cat lives just off the south circular) and the fact that getting mum-cat in or out (she's 80 now) involved a bit of bad language on her part were arguments for finding a new home for it, but i wish i'd not had the decision made for me...
Lovely car (if a bit lightweight!), the 205. My father had a 205 at one point, while I replaced my written off Maestro with a Citroen ZX which drove quite similarly to the 205.
First car was a VW Beetle Miami Blue just like this one. Sold it to a work colleague who bought it for his daughter. He still had it up till a few years ago as he was a bit of a car nut. Was fun to drive but nightmare in the winter despite what the famous ads said, couldn't ever get the windows to defrost! Engine in the back didn't help. Must have been about 1988 when I bought it.
Renault 11 GTL bought off my old man(he bought it from the old Renault garage in Mottingham) , used to be nicknamed disco wheels, after the crisps I think cos of the thinness of tyres that screeched and rolled a bit going round roundabouts too fast . Drove to quite a few away games early 90’s in one similar to this but a right hand drive (white ffs must have known I was gonna live in Essex in later life )
My first love was light blue. When I was 16 I got into a mass fight outside of the ABC in Catford, not that unusal for a Saturday night. I was quite badly sliced up but cut a short story even shorter about 8 months later the Criminal Compensation Board awarded me about £700. This is the beauty I purchased.
Not my first car but I had the two door version of that as well. Quite a solid car as it turned out and made before they started making cars lighter for fuel efficiency. Somebody in a brand new peugot crashed into the back of it when it was about 10 years old. Got out unhurt and walked round to inspect the damage to the two cars with him. The front of his car was totally caved in. The back of the viva looked like it didn’t have a scratch or dent on it.
A white Hillman Avenger bought for £50 around 1983. Looking back I would have been better off buying a skateboard with 3 wheels.
The Avenger was a lump of scrap metal. However, that didn't deter from attempting to drive to Cardiff for the opening game of the season. Overheated on the M4 and just about managed to limp into Chippenham.
Managed to obtain some new hoses and some more oil and did enough of a repair to enable us to get home to Charlton.
Remember jumping around a Chippenham side street after the radio reported that Killer Hales had just completed his hat-trick and we were winning 3.0
I had the car towed away the following week.
The things you do to watch Charlton.
My old man bought a 4 year old Avenger in '78 that he had to have rust in the wings sorted and a full respray shortly after.
Old cars had/have plenty of character but the build quality on a lot of them was fucking awful.
My dad had a 1500 Hillman Avenger with twin headlamps on each side and it was a good runner (darker green than one below). He was good with anything mechanical and electrical so kept it in good shape and even converted it to be able to run on gas using a kit he bought in Italy. We had quite a few family trips up to Italy in that car/ Like many cars of that era it did have rust issues though.
Much nicer than mine, which was purple with a gold bonnet and boot! However, that 1500 engine surprised a few at traffic light burns.
Here’s Sprout, my first car. I’ve only ever owned 2CV’s. I haven’t had one for six years now 😩😩😩 Used to drive it to work everyday on the A2. Hilarious how angry people got when I overtook them in it 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Who is the young lady ?
Me. 25yrs ago 😩 It cost me a grand that car. My last 2CV, Robyn (below), I bought for the same price some years later. I sold it just before I moved to Eire 6yrs ago for 3.5k. You can’t buy a decent one now for less than 7k 😳
What was it that stopped you taking this to Ireland??
We live by the sea, would have rusted in a week. 😜😜😜😜😜😜🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I recall you saying you are in West Cork - we have friends between Bandon and Clonakilty and are out there regularly...lovely part of the world.
Yep, Baltimore. Next time you’re over let me know, you can come & meet the goats 😊
Triumph Spitfire Mk2 1966 - This was my first car - drove my dads car for a couple of years after passing my test. Did a full renovation on the spitfire when I was 20, drove it for two years then dad asked to borrow it and wrote it off pissed off his tits.
I thought the Talbot Horizon was a very good looking car in it's day. I used to have a big thing about everyday mass market cars in my younger days. I thought they were far more interesting than sports cars in terms of their evolution and design.
I was fascinated how BL had a talented designer in Harris Mann and they managed to ruin his designs from blueprint to finished model. People say that BL was destroyed by the unions and I'm sure they played their part, but they had inept people running it. The picture below is Harris Mann's Allegro design - one of the worst cars BL ever produced but it looked good before the idiots took it over. For instance, they decided not to give it a hatchback as they were worried it would take sales from the Austin 1100, 1300 range! They didn't want it to be as good as it could be FFS!
Ah the all aggro!
If you stretch that design out a bit and add a couple of doors - hey presto Austin Princess (another dog!).
As a kid, I always thought that the Austin Princess was the ugliest car around.
Later, when I bought my first car, I got an Austin Mini Metro which was far more ugly and acted like a dripping tap extension to my wallet.
I later bought an Austin Maestro which wasn't quite as ugly as the other two but at least didn't need loads as maintenance.
I had a similar attraction to dodgy looking specimens with girls.
My first love was light blue. When I was 16 I got into a mass fight outside of the ABC in Catford, not that unusal for a Saturday night. I was quite badly sliced up but cut a short story even shorter about 8 months later the Criminal Compensation Board awarded me about £700. This is the beauty I purchased.
Not my first car but I had the two door version of that as well. Quite a solid car as it turned out and made before they started making cars lighter for fuel efficiency. Somebody in a brand new peugot crashed into the back of it when it was about 10 years old. Got out unhurt and walked round to inspect the damage to the two cars with him. The front of his car was totally caved in. The back of the viva looked like it didn’t have a scratch or dent on it.
I can attest to that. I was motoring down Green Lane early hours in mine and I shunted a bloke reversing into his drive in a jag... quite bizarre thinking about it as it was about 2 am. Anyway, I moved the Jag about 20 yards down the road with the impact, got out to inspect the damage, and the front drivers wing had cracked but inside it had been packed with so much filler it was like concrete.
Mini 850 saloon, six years old, cost £700 cash in 1980. I was still at university and spent an inordinate amount of time adjusting tappets or filling rust holes with Isopon. My early lesson on the joys of motoring came after working 10 x 10-hour night shifts in the Post Office. For my troubles, I earned £147. Then two weeks later it was due for MOT and it cost me £146 to get it through!!!
Quick off the mark at traffic lights but doing anything above 65 mph was at the defiance of of physics. Here it is in 1981 after an encounter with ice and a grassy bank and, would you believe, with our cats on board.
Comments
I remember the adverts on the TV for it. It had a feature that reminded the driver to put his seat belt on.
Edit-Just realised it never actually spoke.
😜😜😜😜😜😜🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Drove to quite a few away games early 90’s in one similar to this but a right hand drive (white ffs must have known I was gonna live in Essex in later life )
Next time you’re over let me know, you can come & meet the goats 😊
Later, when I bought my first car, I got an Austin Mini Metro which was far more ugly and acted like a dripping tap extension to my wallet.
I later bought an Austin Maestro which wasn't quite as ugly as the other two but at least didn't need loads as maintenance.
I had a similar attraction to dodgy looking specimens with girls.
Mini 850 saloon, six years old, cost £700 cash in 1980. I was still at university and spent an inordinate amount of time adjusting tappets or filling rust holes with Isopon. My early lesson on the joys of motoring came after working 10 x 10-hour night shifts in the Post Office. For my troubles, I earned £147. Then two weeks later it was due for MOT and it cost me £146 to get it through!!!
Quick off the mark at traffic lights but doing anything above 65 mph was at the defiance of of physics. Here it is in 1981 after an encounter with ice and a grassy bank and, would you believe, with our cats on board.