My Old Cars

I learned to drive in 1991.  I was 17, and as a glorified office junior, my salary wasn't exactly going to buy me a supercar.  Thankfully, for my 17th birthday, mum and dad paid for my driving lessons which meant that I could at least put what money I did have towards a car (I should say, I squandered quite a lot of it on clothes/beer which didn't help...  but you're only young once). 

So, the following is a run down of the cars I've had since 1991.

It was Black, had alloys, and it had a digital display dash.  So, in my book it was a cool 1st car for a poor guy.  In more detail, it was a 1985 'B-reg' with an 8 valve engine.  I think they later increased the 2.0 GTE to a 16v, but I doubt I could have afforded the insurance.  The car cost me £1300 at the time and insurance was £1K, Third-Party only...  so if it got nicked, I was stuffed.  Thing is, the condition of the casing round the steering wheel...  and odd keys, made me guess it had been nicked at some point in the past.

For a 6yr old car, this thing was rusting BAD.  I plugged it full of filler and did some home-spraying.  Not sure if it looked better or worse after my handy work.  The main thing was though...  could it beat my mates cars.  No.  Although it was a brisk car (especially for a new driver), one of my mates had a Renault 11 Turbo, and the other a VW Scirocco.  I could keep pace with the Scirocco, but no way the R11 Turbo.  Besides, my brakes were shot...  so high speeds were not a good idea.

Would I recommend it...  no way.  Although it was fine at the time, and you can pick up 1990 cars for the price of a night out these days...  why would you when you could get a Pug205 Gti for that.  In fact, I think I'd just go for the night out.

1998/R-Reg.  I don't know why, but, after a couple of years with the RAV we both decided to trade-in against a Vauxhall.  I fancied the new (at the time) Ford Puma, but the guy at the showroom was a complete tube.  I stick to my principals so he lost a sale.  The wife (she had been promoted to wife status in 1996, after we bought the RAV), fancied an Astra for some reason....  I REALLY didn't want an Astra, and re-directed her towards a Tigra.  We test drove it, and it seemed sporty.  It's obviously not sporty in the slightest, I guess it must just have been all mirrors and strings by the salesman or maybe the illusion of turning up in a 4x4 and going out in something so 'dinky'.

Anyway, we left that showroom with an order placed...  it was 'brochade yellow' from memory and we couldn't see one before order as ours was going to be the 1st in that colour in Scotland...  apparantly.  The big pickup was at a casino night laid on by the dealer...  I won the second prize that night with the 2nd highest amount of fake money.  I'd like to think it was skill, but basically I just decided to put everything on '15' at the roulette table at the last spin of the night.  It came up.  My prize was an umbrella and a kiss on the cheek from Smiley Smiley Carol Smilie.

When we saw our RAV being taken away, the wife and I both had a lump in our throat...  1st time I've ever felt sentimental about a car....  and there was an awful feeling that we had made a mistake.

That felling was to prove correct.  There wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with it...  I mean, nothing broke or fell off.  It was just a crap car.  It looked OK at best...  had no speed, no-one could get in the back, and you needed a double jointed elbow to get the seatbelt round from its reclined position... we should have just got an MX-5.  In fact, when I was left for dead by a Puma....  I wondered if I should stop being so principalled in future.

Recommend?  If you're a bird, and you've not taken in the fact that the Puma was better...  the sure, it's your money.

1987 D-Reg..... A horrible car.  Ugly from the outside, ugly on the inside.  Very bloated compared to the MkI.  The GTI version looked a bit nicer with the alloys and the spot lights/better front bumper.  But, I had a base model (I had bought my 1st flat by this time, so couldn't splash out with a car).  I actually wanted a MkI cabriolet, and the garage up the road had one round the back as a trade sale...  but I arrived 2hrs too late.

Someone took a fancy to my Blaupunkt head unit for some reason so decided to smash the window in.  The radiator started leaking in the summer, so I decided to try out some of that RadWeld before I coughed up for a new Rad.  It did exactly what it said on the tin...  no more leaks.  Unfortunately, being summer, my mind wasn't really on anti-freeze....  so, when the winter came it froze solid.  Not realising what the problem was, we stupidly tried to bump start it.....  lots of bent metal ensued.

Would I recommend...  no.  If you want a cheap Golf, go for the original.  The MkI looks nicer, is not as bloated and feels sharper.

1998/R-Reg.  Basically, we wanted rid of the Tigra...  it was that poor.  I wanted a Land Rover Freelander...  it was new to the market, and I think that because of the good times with the RAV I wanted another 4x4.  Anyway...  Freelanders were hot at the time, and quite frankly we were losing £6K if we traded in the Tigra against one (that was in 6-9months depreciation, ouch).  The only place we could get a decent trade-in was back at Vauxhall....  and they had a special edition 'Niagra' on the forecourt.  Deal was done...  and I got them to take the horrible special edition decals off that ran down the length of the car (they were stinkin').

We were reasonably happy with the Frontera, until it snowed.  Now, I could forgive the fact that it was sluggish and didn't handle...  it was much larger than a 3dr RAV, so you had to expect it.  But...  you would be forgiven for thinking it should be able to handle coming down a hill in the snow in 1st gear??  It's a F3ckin 4x4 after all. You would be wrong.

4x4 engaged 'check', Low ratio selected, 'check', 1st gear selected, 'check'.  OK lets go down this steep single track road that normal cars are getting up and down. Oh, why are we going sideways down the hill?  Look out, there's a car down there...  phew that was close, stopped at last but now we're pointed the wrong way.

The problem seemed to be the width of the tyres on this special edition...  they were too fat.  They acted like a big sledge on the snow.

Anyway, I crashed the Frontera (whilst window shopping for an MR2) a while later.  Wet road, low sun, can't see a give way... bang.  A good 4" sheered off the front.  Unfortunately, the insurance company decided to repair it...  so I got rid of it as soon as I got it back.

Recommend? Nah, the MkII may be better...  I wouldn't know.  But you can pick up an early FreeLander for little money these days...  so why go for a 4x4 that can't handle the snow?

1996/N-reg, Some say the Suzuki Vitara was the original Soft-Roader (which I agree with)....  however, it was the RAV4 that appeared to kick start the rest of the manufacturers in to this part of the market (in the UK at least).  This was a good little 4x4...  good manners on the road, good driving position and a good turn of speed off the line.  Occassionally it ventured off road, but nothing more than fields (tended to be make-shift car parks at music festivals).  We picked this up as an ex-demo from the dealer with 3Kmiles on the clock.

We had the 3dr door model, it looked better than the 5dr and it was just the 2 of us...  no kids or pets.  At a couple of festivals we couldn't be arsed pitching the tent because there was no room in the camp and if we picthed up next to the RAV some complete jobsworth would come along in the morning and demand that everyone took the tents back down (not good having to pitch up each night when full you've got a belly full of beer).  So instead, the RAV was ideal to just recline the front seats, chuck a sleeping back over us and zonk.

Would I recommend... I think I would.  It did the job, was quite pleasant to drive in town....  and ours had enough chrome extras on it to try and hide the girly looks, to the extent that it did look quite cool.  I like the looks of the latest RAV too...  so those Toyota guys seem to get it right.

1996/P-Reg.  The Purple Bubble.  As I said, I needed rid of the Frontera.  No confidence in its off road abilities, and no confidence after the crash repairs.  I didn't mind going for something smaller and older to get us around while I worked out what the next car was.

So, the R216 it was.  The 1.6 K-Series engine was remarkably lively and that car went most places with the foot to the floor.  As I said, it was a stop gap type of car.  It was actually more enjoyable than what it was meant to be.  You had to watch if the car was laid up, as the drum brakes had a tendancy to seize.  Easily fixed by either removing the rear wheel and tapping the drum with a mallet/hammer.... or my preferred method was to floor it and hope they would come undone before I got out my driveway.

I changed employer and got a company car, so towards the end, my wife used the Rover....  that stop gap worked out quite well then.

Recommend?  Yeah, sure, why not.  These Rovers are actually not too bad and are cheap as chips these days.