So far we've about covered my car history, I've had pretty much one of every car mentioned here, normally bought for £50 or less and run into the ground or until the mot ran out... Apart from the Citroen Pete, that's just plain weird:wink: No-one's mentioned early Granadas yet, which makes me sulk. They were the absolute bees knees for pulling in. And I felt like an extra from the Sweeney into the bargain. I had three of the buggers
My 3rd car was a Hillman Imp (and my 4th & 5th, had these at the same time, for spare parts to keep the driver going :wink Oh how I loved that Imp, was like driving round in a glass house, I fitted twin Strombergs, race cam, Hi comp pistons, got it to do 110Mph. It ran the bearings, and as I worked at a Hillman dealership at the time I got parts to do a worldwide search for a new crank, I got the last new crank in the world for free , and it was in NZ as well, result. I also got all the new parts left at Todd Motors, the NZ Hillman importer/distributor, and all the parts at my dealership for free when the Rootes Group collapsed in NZ. I eventually sold everything to a fella that was going to build a circuit racer Imp. I miss Imps, there is only 2 within 500 miles of me and I hardly ever see them out and about :frown:
Fiat 131 Supermirafiori..........in yellow (plus a lot of rust):biggrin: I was amazed at the time because it had a 5 speed gearbox, in the days of 4 speed Chevettes and Escorts. View attachment 18215 The rust! I remember it well. We could start an old owners club :biggrin:
I have fond memories of the Austin A40,I did my driving lessons and test in my fathers one.Red with a black roof,just like your photo.
My old man had a 131 Mirafiori which was a lovely car to drive. I had a Supermirafiori in considerable worse nick; it drove like a pig but was sodding fast
Austin Princess I inherited from my dad. Brown paint, brown vinyl roof, brown interior trim. Not exactly a fanny magnet!
Funny enough all the worst cars I've ever owned were Austins - maxi, allegro and (Morris) Marina. Utter shite, all of 'em.
My Fiat 131 Mirafiori was my Dads old car, he had two of them. The first one was in champagne and his second pukie blue!
Interesting how many brown cars people have had. I can't work out if that was just the 70s, or if shit brown made them more affordable for impecunious young buyers. In 30 years time, everyone on a similar thread is going to say that their car was grey or black.
there is only one so far has me turning green with envy as a first car - Glidd of Glood with his Alfa GT Junior 1300 Bertone coupé 1972.
My first car after passing my test was a 'pool car' for the company I worked for....It was a Vectra 2.5 V6 SRI......Crikey, 3 points in the first few days, then driving like miss daisy for the next 2 years to save the licence!
Not my first car Chris, but I think my third was an Alfa 2600 Sprint.....IIRC it was the Bertone coupe.............Got pics of it somewhere. Strange car though...........considering Italians are supposed to be a bit on the short side; the handbrake lever was under the front of the driver's seat so the shorter you were, the closer the seat to the sterring wheel and the less you could pull the handbrake on. And talk about Italian electrics!!.............Switch the wipers on, the electric windows wouldn't work.......then they jammed open and the wipers stopped and the indicators failed............try driving a LHD car in p*ss pouring rain with no wipers, open windows an doing hand signals on the left side........ I sold it after six months..........too much trouble. AL
Apart from its being green, it also used to turn me fairly green when I saw the size of my garage bills... Strangely, it often used to smell of petrol, but I carried on lighting up ciggies regardless. It was only when I loaded it to the gunnels with most of what I possessed in Liverpool to drive it to Switzerland, that the boot filled with petrol and it was revealed that the petrol tank leaked. I had to unload everything and wait two days while the dealer got me a new one (which wasn't cheap...).
I'll make you happy then......I had a T reg 2.8i GLS in silver with the spotlights........or in other words, virtually the Sweeney car which I think was a GLX?? I loved tailing a car and putting the sh*ts up the the driver................... :biggrin: AL
it was definitely a classic AL, but like nearly all cars that were slightly larger (notice I didn't say bulky) than the average 'seen to be' desirable car they failed to win the hearts of the masses. Same fate fell to the Flavia versus the Fulvia. I still have a workshop manual for a 2300 Fiat from the same era - same as above (gorgeous car). On topic - still waiting for someone to post who had a Ferrari or 'Roller' etc as a first car
I was at university with an Old Etonian who had a huge Bentley that used to be parked in the college carpark. In theory you weren't allowed to have a car at Cambridge (or a bike, come to that unless you belonged to the bike club, which I did). Still, there is often one rule for them and one for us.
Anorak mode, the series one copper coloured car was a Consul 3.0 GT, the silver series two car was a Granada 2.8iS, lovely things ....
more Granada anorak - we used to modify the rear Rzeppa joints for F3 and F3000 cars - lovely strong joint (100mm) and cheaper than the Porsche ones despite being identical.
