I’m passionate about cars. This comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me well, but if you don’t here’s an example of how passionate I am. From memory are listed below all the cars I’ve owned since I started driving. Number 1 was bought in 1986.
Note: pictures aren’t necessarily of my car, just there for illustration.
1. HMS 878S – 1978 Mini Clubman – 1100cc, yellow with brown (yes!) vinyl roof and black cloth interior. Bought from a ‘friend’, then systematically rebuilt from a bare shell, resprayed in the original colours and fitted with a 1300cc engine from the next car in this list! Sold to a gentleman in Elgin, Scotland who repainted the vinyl roof black.
2. WSA 825S – 1978 Austin Allegro estate – 1300cc – Vermillion (read orange). This was bought from my uncle for £200 and used as a parts chaser for the Mini Clubman until an altercation with a wall. Combination of inexperience and mud on the road brought the car to an untimely end. Dismantled this with my dad and then used the engine for the mini.
3. PRS 105M – 1974 Mini 1000 – 1000cc – grey with red interior. Weren’t the colour schemes in 70’s BL cars great!? Replaced the Allegro for a while until sold to a friend.
4-11 – coming soon! Having problems trying to get the text pasted into the page for some reason…
12 B309 BBV – 1985 Fiat Uno 55 – red. I bought this off a mate who couldn’t afford to run it. It had no MoT when I bought it and it took a fair bit of work to get it up and running again. A program of prioritised work saw it through the MoT and gradually improved into a very useful car. I ended up loaning it to a friend who completely destroyed it in six months and I had to sell it for scrap.
13. D448 EES – MG Metro – black. Received this as a swap for the second Fiesta popular, which sounds like a great deal for me but this car only had reverse gear. Hired an engine crane, bought a second hand gearbox for £40, roped in a couple of mates to help and swapped the ‘box. Only kept the car for a few weeks, long enough to drive the 1,400 mile round trip to Shepton Mallet in Somerset for the Soul Survivor festival and back home via my cousin’s wedding, then sold it on at aprofit.
14. B928 VST – Fiat Uno 55S – metallic green – the extra ‘S’ from the red one meant split folding rear seat, metallic paint and a 5-speed gearbox! Bought this car from a Fiat mechanic with 119,500 miles on it. Sold it 12 months later with 131,000 on it for £200. Bargain!
15. A357 AWB – 1984 Audi 80 Sport – red with black interior. Had a couple of years break due to having a car supplied with my job and then bought this from a mate for £400. Great car – 500 miles on one tank of unleaded, meant I could drive from my home in Nottingham to my parent’s house in Elgin on one tank. Great fun, great performance. Only sold due to the lack of space to carry my stage piano as the rear seats didn’t fold down. Sold to my mate Graeme in Edinburgh who ran it for a couple of years and then passed it on to a mechanical engineering student to be restored.
16. F676 RTL – 1989 Ford Sierra XR4×4 – white with grey interior. Bought this from the same friend as the Audi. I’d wanted one of these for a long, long time as my dad owned a similar model for about a decade and it was a fantastic mix of performance, space and roadholding. One of the best drives was the day I collected it and chased my mate in his BMW 325i Touring around Leicestershire. Another great run was following my dad in his blue XR4×4 the 200 miles from Elgin to Edinburgh at high speed. A superb car.
17. E978 ACD- 1988 Vauxhall Astra GTE – red with grey interior. Offered a swap for the Sierra I chose this, as my fiancee (now my wife) hated the Sierra. Not a bad car, being quite fast but the handling was ridiculously bad compared to the XR4×4. Ended its life prematurely when a neighbour reversed into it and wrote it off.
18. G??? ??? – 1990 Peugeot 309 GRinjection – white with black interior. Being slightly desperate for a replacement for the GTE as I had to travel to Skegness to collect my wife I bought this off a family who were emigrating to France the following day. Sold it on to my mate, at which point the engine gave up the ghost and he had it scrapped. Put me off Peugeots…
19. N498 BOA – 1995 Fiat Punto 55S – blue with grey interior. This is technically my wife’s first car but given that it was so new when we bought it I drove it for the first year we owned it at which point we swapped cars. Currently has a silver bonnet and different shades of doors due to various bumps obtained over the intervening years!
20. J231 ODX – 1992 Vauxhall Nova 1.2 – silver with grey interior. We bought this from my mother-in-law for my wife Jo to drive. After a year we swapped and I had this for a few months. Swapped it for the Astra.
21. G982 BLL – 1990 Vauxhall Astra Merit estate – pale blue with grey interior. We bought this just after my son was born as we felt that two small hatchbacks were not ideal for going on holiday etc. Used it until the next car came up and then sold it to a neighbour for £100. It lasted him two years before terminal illness overcame it and it was laid to rest.
22. K294 TFD – 1992 Subaru Legacy 4-cam Turbo estate – white with black interior. Although the bodywork on this car was REALLY rough, this has to be the best driving car I’ve ever owned. 0-60 in 7 and a bit seconds, 135mph top speed (on private roads obviously) and the same load volume as a Volvo 850 meant this was great fun and hugely useful. I’d have another one in a hearbeat despite the high insurance and interesting fuel consumption…
23. L350 EHB – 1993 Ford Mondeo LS TD – white with grey interior.
24. K874 ??? – 1993 Ford Mondeo 2.0 Si – red with black interior. When the Mondeo above went in for work for the MoT, Dave loaned me this car as his courtesy car. I like it so much that I bought it off him leaving him the very slow TD as a loaner instead. I had this for a matter of three weeks due to a new job and my first company car in years.
25. NV55 DNF – 2005 Ford Focus Titanium TDCi – silver with grey interior. Wow! What a step up! Jumping forward 12 years in car design and development left me with this, my temporary company car. 6 gears, two litre diesel turbo (136PS), half leather trim and 40-50mpg. What a great car. We would have kept this as our car, but having two young sons meant the boot was sadly too small during holiday time. So when I was able to order my official company car I got…
26. NV56 HLF – 2006 Ford Mondeo Ghia TDCi – metallic red with black interior. Yes, my third Mondeo in a year. This one has the benefit of being faster than the original TD, better equipped than the Focus and more economical than the Si. I love this car – it has climate control, cruise control, 6-CD Sony Hifi and countless other things that make long journeys more of a pleasure. Plenty of space for a growing family and it drives very well.
27. COMING SOON – a new car has been ordered. Should be arriving soon.
Cars I bought to use for spares
Rover 3500 SD1 - red with gold alloys and large whale-tail spoiler. Bought as crashed and I wanted to rebuild it. However the body was so bent that I ended up buying another SD1 to use as a bodyshell.
Rover 3500 SD1 - ex police – bought to use as the bodyshell for the other Rover. The whole project had to be canned when the friends whose garage I was using wanted it back. Still, I made a profit on the whole deal so it wasn’t all bad. If I could only have one car for the rest of my life it would be another one of these, but prefereably one that actually worked and had a current MoT certificate!
Ford Fiesta 1.1S – brown with gold stripe. Bought as another project but never actually driven. Went for scrap after the useful bits had been pirated for the other Fiestas.
Ford Fiesta Supersport – bargain buy! Black with red stripes. Bought sans alloys and engine, but every other part found its way into the Fiesta Popular.
Cars I’d Like To Own (and have at least a vague chance of affording…)
Range Rover – in an ideal world (complete with lottery win) I’d have a V8 petrol, but all things being equal it would probably be diesel. I don’t care what age it is. I still remember vividly my dad borrowing a very early 3-door sand coloured Range Rover V8 and taking me and my sister for a drive in it. A completely indelible memory.
Ford Capri – at a push I’d settle for a 2-litre, but really and truly I’d love a 2.8i Special. If someone was to offer a 1.6 I’d take it subject to them not minding the engine going in the bin to be replaced with something a little more powerful!
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