The old car thread

[Cavalol]

Petrol. I'd never buy a diesel car.

That Citroen is ace, l am hoping it has a mis-matched wheel on the other side, if it has I'll pop my cork.

I don't think there's a wheel trim on it! You don't want to see inside the boot, believe me.

 

[Reynard]

Almost as nice as the Poliski-Fiat St. Moritz. You really can not polish a turd.

FSO Polonez... Cough... Cough... Cough...

Made the Polski Fiat feel like a Roller.

 

[Chris S]

Problem is, in the 70s people didnt have a lot of choice - the Japanese vehicles hadn't established full marketplace acceptance, so it was be a weirdo with a continental car, buy a British car and a tow rope, or get the bus.

Continental cars were relatively expensive until Britain joined the Common Market in 1974 as they attracted import duty.
A lot of people in Britain in the 1970s wouldn't buy anything Japanese because of the Burma Railway (etc). It was only when the post-war generation started buying Japanese goods that everybody else realized how awful British ones were and followed suit.

 

[MarkF]

Continental cars were relatively expensive until Britain joined the Common Market in 1974 as they attracted import duty.
A lot of people in Britain in the 1970s wouldn't buy anything Japanese because of the Burma Railway (etc). It was only when the post-war generation started buying Japanese goods that everybody else realized how awful British ones were and followed suit.

We had a lot of rusty buckets when I was a kid, I posted before that we went on a picnic in an Anglia, got there, opened the boot, no picnic, juts a rusty hole! My late father went crackers in 1975 and bought a brand new bright red Datsun Sunny 120Y, it was like a spaceship compared to the garbage bottle green Marina we'd had, all the neighbours came around to gawp at it. I can't remember why or how it it left us but bizarrely my father then embarked on a decade of absolutely cack car buying, he was obsessed with those horrible wedge shaped Ambassadors and Princesses, all as garbage as the Marina.

 

[Drago]

My Grandad was woke manager for the Lancia motorsport lot. Great fun. One of my best memories is being driven through the Blackwall tunnel in a works competition Fulvia and hearing it echo back at me.

Anyway, he got my Dad one of the first Betas. Great car. Stylish, fast, practical, but built with dreadful quality steel bought from Russia. Within a year one of the wheels rusted to badly the rim sheared off from the rest of the wheel and went on its merry way. My Dad was not happy and vowed never to have a Lancia again, but further along the 70s he did accept my Grandad help in sourcing him a Stratos.

 

[NorthernDave]

A few weeks later on a Sunday evening I had a call from someone with a broad Norfolk accent.

It turned out to be the local constabulary questioning if I owned a Volvo reg number etc ...... I thought this was a wind up.

Apparently it had been used to ram raid a chemist in Norfolk for drugs. I still wonder how it got to be 300 miles away.

Probably bought at an auction.

A similar thing happened to my dad in the 80s. A week or so after part exchanging an aging Ford Cortina (against an Austin Maxi of all things), he opened the door early one morning to go to work, only to find 6 burly coppers running up the garden path towards him.
Turns out that the garage had sold the Cortina on to some ne'er-do-wells who'd used it to rob a post office the day before...

 

[Reynard]

My Grandad was woke manager for the Lancia motorsport lot. Great fun. One of my best memories is being driven through the Blackwall tunnel in a works competition Fulvia and hearing it echo back at me.

Anyway, he got my Dad one of the first Betas. Great car. Stylish, fast, practical, but built with dreadful quality steel bought from Russia. Within a year one of the wheels rusted to badly the rim sheared off from the rest of the wheel and went on its merry way. My Dad was not happy and vowed never to have a Lancia again, but further along the 70s he did accept my Grandad help in sourcing him a Stratos.

Oh god yes, late 70s and early 80s Lancias were notorious for rotting away in front of your eyes...

Though the Deltas were pretty decent, especially the HF Integrale. I wouldn't mind one of those.

 

[Drago]

By the latem70s Lancia had kicked the corrosion problem. Such was their zeal to resolve the problems that by that point their products corroded far less than anyone elses, but the reputational damage in the UK was done. As the UK was Lancia's biggest export market that sunk them.

 

[oldwheels]

Sometime in the late 1960’s I bought an Austin A60. Not a bad car for its time tho’ the sills had to be rebuilt but fortunately I had a workshop with metalworkers and welders at my command. Used it for towing a caravan. Then I got a new job with a car provided so the A60 became surplus to requirements and was sold. I have regretted that sale ever since as the number plate was 800DVD but keeping numbers in those days was a bit of a faff and we were relocating a couple of hundred miles away. One of my few real regrets.

 

[tyred]

I had a chance to drive a completely original 1986 BMW 320 today (a friend bought it recently) and it left me with mixed feelings.

You have to hand it to BMW, the quality, fit and finish is impeccable (especially compared to run of the mill 80s cars like a MK3 Escort) and with over 120,000 miles on the clock and over 30 year old, the car is tight, rattle free and the lovely straight six is silky smooth. It is good too drive too with nicely weighted controls (although most people today used to PAS on modern cars might find the steering very heavy), the steering is positive with good feedback, the ride is stiff, sporting and well controlled but never harsh or uncomfortable. Front wheel drive cars never have a gearchange as slick as this or a chassis as nicely balanced as this. It has many nice qualities as car and I can see the appeal of it. Unlike the modern day 3-series, it is also sensibly sized and not in any way pretentious.

There is a but however - it's a packaging disaster, the boot is small, shallow and pretty useless, rear legroom non-existent, the footwell is cramped due to having to share interior space with the gearbox and the pedals feel offset. It's got the usual German black hole interior with over-sized steering wheel and rock-hard seats.

I can definitely see why someone might want to own an E30 but in reality, I'd prefer a simple FWD hatchback. It's more practical and useable. It would be difficult to carry a bike inside an E30 and even my tiny Peugeot can comfortably swallow a washing machine. I guess it depends on what you use the car for.

 

[Hicky]

My dad has a succession of piles of shite, decent cars looking back but his idea of looking after it was cleaning the inside by opening both doors and hoping the wind did the job.
The best, and fastest car he had was a Rover Vitesse 3.5, it wasn’t too fun when the brakes failed coming down the slipway at Oldham....my current car is a XC70, ‘05 which belies its mileage, I wish I’d of bought one years ago.

 

[Drago]

Well, my old car ownership is taking an unexpected turn. I'm being gifted a Volvo XC90 R Design 2.4D Geartronic. Take possession in October when my step mums drivers licence expires.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

My dad has a secession of piles of shite, decent cars looking back but his idea of looking after it was cleaning the inside by opening both doors and hoping the wind did the job.
The best, rear fastest car he has was a Rover Vitesse 3.5, it wasn’t too fun when the brakes failed coming down the slipway at Oldham....my current car is a XC70, ‘05 which belies its mileage, I wish I’d of bought one years ago.

Ours (also '05)turned 176000 miles earlier this evening. Still plenty of miles in there yet, and as an article of faith we'll do all the belts, tensioners and an oe water pump in Sept.

 

[Drago]

This is good, and bodes well for my forthcoming period of Volvo ownership.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

This is good, and bodes well for my forthcoming period of Volvo ownership.

D5 will live forever. The only thing that will kill one is (typically) an aux belt tensioner going bad, the belt snapping and ending up'interfacing' with the timing belt, with terminal consequences. Don't change the water pump unless it's with a genuine Volvo item as aftermarket ones don't last.

Tough on suspension components, like all Volvos.

It's not by accident the we run 2 Euro 3 D5s, same year, one in S60 flavour, one XC70. Third of a million between them.