Time for my ride of the "school bike"

[Mike D]

If you pm me your mobile number i'll give you a bell to arrange, i may be working one day... :)Either of your fine vehicles will bring suitable tat based joy!

[michiel]

I say Galant - bigger boot. Have fun on your Mission!

[Guest]

ERK. Galant collection commences today after work. Migrane has reached "head explosion" levels.Wish me luck.....

[pogweasel]

NIce weather for it

[michiel]

It is over here, sort of... sunny but cooooold. Which is bad when you take your car to the garage for its MOT and try to take a train to work which arrives 50 minutes late and the station is more a platform than a station and my fingers are still numb. Sorry.

 

What I meant to say was:

Good luck Hirst!

[Spottedlaurel]

ERK. Galant collection commences today after work. Migrane has reached "head explosion" levels.Wish me luck.....

Good luck! Poor old thing’s had a busy 2007, but I’m sure it’ll be just fine and it deserves the care and attention that I’m confident you’ll lavish upon it. It’s got tax and test, I’m sure you’ve sorted your insurance, so what’s the worst that can happen?Apart from a moment’s thought that I really ought to get its cam belt done, I had no qualms about taking the Accord on a 300-mile round trip to collect Baz’s unseen R9 and that was 200% successful (I’ve added 100% due to finding that museum).Make sure you take lots of pic’s!

[Spottedlaurel]

Isn't he back home yet?...

[Guest]

Made it with about 8 minutes to spare! Report to follow, but sadly no pictures, will explain shortly.....

[pogweasel]

EXCITEMENT!I was gonna go to bed, I'll have to make myself a weak lemon-flavour drink and wait for this tale of J.

[Guest]

I finished work at 3:30 ready to catch the train at 4:15-ish (Wakefield Westgate to London Kings Cross) and get off at Peterborough. One-day insurance had been booked and I had all my tools ready.TOOLS:- Cheese and Branston pickle sandwich- Two small bottles of Morrisons "Keg Shandy"- Packet of Werthers Originals- Train Ticket- Road MapThe train arrived on time (surprisingly!) and I got on at the same time as a load of privately-educated 12 year old twerps, who thankfully buggered off at the next stop. Then two beautiful girls came and stood next to me, but started talking in sign language. Bugger. Still, got to my destination at 5.30 as planned and Matt turned up in his car which I won't discuss at this time because I'm not sure if it's meant to be a secret or not. Let's just say it was brilliant fun and leave it at that! After a brief run where we popped to the garage and battled with a Vauxhall Astra (and won!), we landed at his house to see an incredibly cool beige car parked in his drive.It was still sporting Team Beige decal in the corner of the rear window and Nurburgring sticker on the wing - have left both on for "CRED". Was given the key and as I went to give it a drive round the block, another pleasant surprise - autochoke! Still wanted to stall, but after a couple of minutes it was fine. After sorting me out a LOT of freebies and clearing out some stuff from the car, I got on my way..... (part 2 following shortly)

[michiel]

So many mysterious elements in this epic tale already. We want more!

[Guest]

PART 2!Stamford is a very odd place - a sort of village with a weird cobbled street area and generally very thin roads. The most important thing is the fact it has a BP garage - good as there was only a little bit left in the tank. Only cost about £30 to fill up which is strange, I'm sure the Charmant costs a bit more than that. Oh well!I hopped back in and went for the A1 as per instructions from Matt, which I think I followed correctly as sure enough I ended up on the A1! Fantastic. Started cruising up the A1, but I decided I'd rather get on the M1 asap. Mainly because it would save me a lot of trouble later on. Somehow managed to get lost around Melton Mowbray for an hour (wouldn't be a Hirst drive out if I didn't get lost) which was pretty bad as I was strapped for time already. After about an hour of fairly entertaining driving round dark B-roads with Bhangra blasting out of the MW/LW radio, I got to the M1.Sometime after I was driving up the M1, the clock on the Galant was wrong, which was fair enough, I'd just set it up later. But I checked the time using my watch, it was about 8:30pm! Uh oh! The driveway where I'm temporarily storing the Galant (sorting out insurance later as I intend to park it on the road here) is too far to walk and the last bus is 22:09. The Galant speedometer crept up..... 60..... 65..... 70..... another two of those! Vans were overtaken! BMWs were overtaken! An FTO was overtaken! Nothing could stop this overtaking frenzy, not even a Fiesta courtesy car! The wind howled at some clip things on the side of the driver window (I think for one of those window vent visor/rain guard things), but French radio was turned up to drown it out. The engine was remarkably quiet despite the 4 gears..... quite something being able to just sit in the same gear all the way from 30 to..... what I was doing. 4 gears is definitely the future.Junctions were passed, time was running out and everything was against me! There was an incident of some kind! And roadworks too, with 50mph cameras! But I passed it all and there was only three junctions to go before J40..... if I kept this speed up, I'd have about 20 minutes to come off the motorway, drive across to the storage point and run to the bus stop - not impossible, but things would have to be in my favour. And I'd probably have to run a bit - oh dear. Radio off: THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS.Off the motorway and the surprisingly sharp brakes are applied as the first lights are against me. With a weak wheelspin, I headed towards the next lights which were also against me. As were the next two. Now I needed to drive through a fairly scummy estate..... some capped youths skulking across the road were not surprised to see a car coming towards them so didn't quicken their pace, but did seem quite surprised that it wasn't slowing down for them - used this opportunity to test the horn, surprisingly high-pitched! Worked surprisingly well, as they quickened their pace and looked quite upset in the rear view mirror. Oops.Kept going, making good time but cutting it very close..... into second at a cross roads, soared round at 20mph with the tyres chirping, expected a trim ring to fly off one of the wheels, 1970s car chase style, but it was not to be. Round the corner, round another corner, up the bumpy driveway, onto the gravel, MADE IT!! Just in time! Hastily pack everything away and put some stuff in the boot, quick walk to the bus stop and the bus arrived a few minutes later. I was the only one on it, besides the driver.Remembered I left one of the shandy bottles in the car.Bugger.

[michiel]

Excellent story, sorry to hear about the shandy.Charmant 50 litres, Galant 60 litres according to my info.

[wuvvum]

Brilliant! Sounds like an epic trip. Shite collection missions are always more "fun" in wintertime - nothing like driving hundreds of miles in an unfamiliar old car in pitch darkness and freezing cold. Glad you got the old gal home OK!

[KruJoe]

Excellent work, Sir Hirst.I d'off my hat to you.

[Spottedlaurel]

Best road trip story of the year Worth staying up late for.Good job there wasn't a woman with her dress blowing up round her waist on a street corner to distract you...

[Heidel_Kakao]

Excellent write up I agree with you about the gearbox, it's cooler to have a four on the floor All the four speeders I have driven have been nice and you have to make one less change to get into top gear saving you time and effort

[MrRegieRitmo]

Good job there wasn't a woman with her dress blowing up round her waist on a street corner to distract you...

Her dress wasn't blowing up till Hirst raced past causing an almighty gust of wind!

[pogweasel]

HARDCORE!What was the rationale behind the M1 desire?A1 all the way to the '62 baby! Much more enjoyable route I find, and much less propensity to find road works, speed cams and mutiple car pile-ups ending in death and/or serious delay. When I was working in Leeds that was always the route I'd take, got it down to about 2 and a quarter hours in the end.... M1 always seemed to take forevAr.

[seth]

Well done Hirst!

[Guest]

Ta chums!Basically Pog, I live in the south west of Wakefield about 10 minutes from M1 J40. If I stayed on the A1 I'd have to go west onto the M62 then come back south on the M1 via Lofthouse Interchange, which is a junction I greatly dislike. So I just looked at the road map and went for the road between the A1 and M1 that avoided going near any cities, thought it might break the trip up too and make it more interesting. To be honest if I'd not got lost, I'd have made good time! No complaints about the A1 though.Best road trip story of the year?! Not quite on the epic scale of some people here..... 100 miles in a car known to run fine isn't much to brag about!I'll pop out tomorrow and get some daytime shots.

[wuvvum]

Best road trip story of the year?! Not quite on the epic scale of some people here..... 100 miles in a car known to run fine isn't much to brag about!

Maybe not, but it's the way the story was written that made it so good. It actually had me laughing out loud (I refuse to call it "LOLing"), which is not something I do very often.

[Guest]

Here's some pics, with Autoshite-exclusive captions in case you've seen them on RR.

 

Here's where I'm temporarily keeping it, my mate's mums place. She came out to see me when I pulled up in the Charmant. She said that my cars are lovely, older folk always seemed to love the Charmant so I imagine the Galant is in the same boat.

 

Gave it a quick polish to see if it would make a big difference - it did! But you can't tell very well on the pics.

 

New keyring for the Galant, those red keys are for the Autolok which wouldn't fit due to the weird handbrake positioning. So I've stuck on an old steering lock instead.

 

Dash clocks are functional, if not particularly exciting. Temperature doesn't get very high, suspect it could be the thermostat. Or perhaps it was just the cold weather.

 

Radio is a fantastic Mitsubishi Electric unit, with crisp and clear MW/LW! Wonder where the aerial is, as I can't find it anywhere! Think it is built into the rear window or something. The lower holder box thing is a tape deck on nicer models, I intend to swipe one from a better Galant. I think the Starion ones are the same too. Any Mitsubishi nerds on here know?

 

Comfy but sodding ugly seats. Has a repair patch on the driver one. Wonder if there's any other Mitsubishi seats I could swipe for it, preferably in brown or beige.

 

ENORMOUS glovebox! Puts the double one in the Charmant to shame.

 

Sticker from its Nurburgring experience, I reckon I'll leave this on for a month or two then carefully remove it to add to the history folder.

 

Big dent in the back, not much of a concern. The numberplate on there doesn't seem to be the original dealer one and is a bit too big for the panel truth be told. Going to investigate my local Serck dealership to see if they do indeed still make the Serck tin plates.

 

Impressed at the overall lack of grot! I think the passenger side front wing has been replaced or repainted at some point because it is mint condition, whereas the driver side one has a bit of light rust. Sills are spotless, rear arches a little crusty at the bottoms, strut tops could do with a quick bit of welding. Panels are in fantastic condition though!

 

Very happy.

[Heidel_Kakao]

Your piccies are not working again Dan Nor is OJC where they are hosted. Have you run out of bandwith? I want to see exclusive pics Are you going to take the Charmant or the Galant to Holland meet next year? Choices, choices :DPs I see the glovebox pic is named werthers Surely it should be oldman spec driving gloves

[Guest]

I think there's some Internet connectivity problems at the moment as some people can see and others can't. I can access OJC fine, but another site I know hosted by the same provider is dead..... yet the boss of that site can access it OK!! Can't get access to my server control panel to see if anything is up either. Should resolve itself eventually.Galant or Charmant to Holland? Probably the Charmant - the Galant is a lot more refined and a better cruiser, but isn't as obscure or interesting. I'll bring the Galant to the next J-tin meet though.

[MrRegieRitmo]

I can see the pics fine! A good duo your have now Hirst!If I had to choose one for myself it'd be the Galant due to it's more distinctive shapeliness!

[Guest]

Got my wheels now!Many thanks to Mike, who not only drove out to Lidl and guided me to the right place (got lost as usual!), but gave me some audio tat (including a fantastic graphic equalizer which will sit perfectly in the Charmant) and a Haynes manual to get me started.Discovered the washer jets on the Galant don't seem to work, will need to look into that. But this was counteracted by me finding out what that little knob next to the dashboard does - it changes the brightness of the dashboard backlight! What an utterly insane feature. The headlight switch arrangement is pretty bonkers too. I really like this car!

[pogweasel]

Discovered the washer jets on the Galant don't seem to work, will need to look into that. But this was counteracted by me finding out what that little knob next to the dashboard does - it changes the brightness of the dashboard backlight! What an utterly insane feature.

Ah, that 'widget'. Not all that uncommon. All the BMW's and all the Vauxhalls I have had have had the same feature.

[Guest]

Never knowingly driven anything with this feature - what is the official "point" of it? Fatigue-reducing or something?

[pogweasel]

I believe it's to suit different lighting conditions etc, and like you say, fatigue. The Vauxhalls (especially the later ones) are ferociously back-lit at full whack, very distracting. The BMW ones are a bit less intense, being orange back-lit rather than white. Also, the BMW's have a habit of greneding the back-lighting bulbs if left on the brightest setting, the general consensus is to knock them back a bit to save pulling the dash out all the time.