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A life in SHITE, the average story so far....


Mr Average

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Ladies and Gentlemen, fellow CAC connoisseurs

 

Being a new member I thought by way of introduction I would knock up a thread for your delectation. This is a pictorial description of my fleet FLEET O' SHITE, all the below are in my current ownership.

 

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A fine pair of princesses - I'm really beginning to warm to them more each day. There was a guy round here with a fairly high spec Princess with front arm rests and stick on 'wood' dash inserts, I went for a ride in it and really liked the solid bakelite steering wheel with super light power steering, it was muchos appealing.

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You Sir, are a Hero and a Prince amost shitesters.The beige Princess looks like 'Champagne' - gotta be a 2200 HLS with the Trapezoidal front end action. The '79 must be a Pageant blue HL with the four roundies and vinyl C post. The grille badle is wrong as is the Princess bonnet crest (I think).....unless she's a late B series 1800. Looks like a superb thing though.From the poverty look I'm guessing the Rover (Targa red?) is a 2000 or 2300?

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Let's here it for the R8 duo too, I do like these things. I'm guessing both are 1.4 K-series powered, nice also to see that the grilles are "correct", not a half-arsed effort by a previous owner to slap one on to an early car which has the wrong shaped indicators anyway. That boils my piss.Got a factory workshop manual for the 200/400 (1.4, 1.6, 2.0) if you're interested, it's the size of a telephone directory!

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Thankyou for all the kind comments gentlemen. :DAs Torsten has said the SD1 a 2300 did come from him. It's going great by the way Mr T, done nearly 1000 miles in it already, and not missed a beat YET! :lol: Mr R Welfare the M plate 400 is actually has a PSA 1.8 turbo diesel engine but both are SL spec. Also on the subject of grilles have you ever seen Metros with one of those grilles fitted, SHOCKING so they are!

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You Sir, are a Hero and a Prince amost shitesters.The beige Princess looks like 'Champagne' - gotta be a 2200 HLS with the Trapezoidal front end action. The '79 must be a Pageant blue HL with the four roundies and vinyl C post. The grille badle is wrong as is the Princess bonnet crest (I think).....unless she's a late B series 1800. Looks like a superb thing though.From the poverty look I'm guessing the Rover (Targa red?) is a 2000 or 2300?

Right on all fronts Reverend, your PK is EXCELLENT.
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I love these wedges, got through loads of them when I was a student, including an ambassador 2.0 manual VP in Zircon blue! Wish I had that now! I paid a garage to fit a new clutch, but they never actually replaced it (horible job on those cars) and just gave me it back with loads of hylomar round the clutch housing, I was so fed up I sent it to the scrapyard (the same one i got it out of in fact).Anyone see that yella Morris 1800 one that was on the bay a while ago? It didnt meet reserve, then it was relisted but eBay pulled the ad. Not seen it since!If one came up on the bay for £2-300 needing minorish fettling i reckon i'd get it.a 2.0 Princess in pageant blue has got to be the best spec for a BL wedge.

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Why is it Princesses looked better than Ambassadors, series one SD1s looked better than series 2s and Marinas better than Itals?I always though BL's worse hour was the late seventies/early eighties where they seemed to think making everything out of plastic, adding gaudy colours and somehow making everything look cheap and nasty was the beginning of the end for them.Except the Austin Metro because I loved them.

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I imagine because in the late '70s BL had about £63 in the kitty to 'replace' their models, so they had no choice but to graft ugly bits of plastic etc onto an ageing range and pretend they were new by giving them new names.At least the Maxi and Allegro kept their basic shapes, imagine if they'd have tried to stick a wedgy nose on them :?

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Why is it Princesses looked better than Ambassadors

Because the Princess looked like nothing on earth and the Ambassador looked like a Mk3 Escort.Hence I loved them and still desperately want to own one, despite the fact everybody knows they are utter toss.
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I must be the only person who thinks the Ambassador is a better looking car than the Princess, not just in an Autoshite way! I think it's a clever looking facelift and suits it really well.Don't get me wrong though, I'm still fond of the Princess and its doorstop-inspired styling.

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I loved the Maxi. Dad had two or three over the years and we always managed to squeeze five kids, parents, dog and holiday clobber into them and the roofrack.He had a very early (1967?) 1500 which had a rod change box instead of a cable (or the other way round) and it was the first car I ever really remember him having.Agree about the budgeting, must have been soul destroying for BL to have had sod all money to create new models.One of my dream cars is still either a 1975 Wolsely wedge or one of those limited edition black Princess 2200's with the silver coach lines, I keep thinking they were called the 'special six' but could be wrong.

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The Special Six was a March 1978 limited edition 2200HLS Auto. It's arrival had something to do with BL ceasing production of the manual 2200 to sort out the driveshaft issues.The first Maxi was 1969 G plate, cable change box, 1500 with the plain badgeless grille. Everyone criticised the dash (black plastic and not unlike like a Cortina 3/FD Victor) but I thought it was alright.The Princess was a great motorway car, esp. the 2000. It had loads of torque, quite tall gearing and had a good high speed ride and not much windnoise. I think it was the first British car to have the wipers hidden under the bonner rear edge. It was really quite a clever car as a lot of BL stuff was.

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Why is it Princesses looked better than Ambassadors, series one SD1s looked better than series 2s and Marinas better than Itals?I always though BL's worse hour was the late seventies/early eighties where they seemed to think making everything out of plastic, adding gaudy colours and somehow making everything look cheap and nasty was the beginning of the end for them.Except the Austin Metro because I loved them.

See as a child of the 80s, I'm actually more fond of the rehashes! :oops: Probably something to do with the fact that there now seems to be fewer around than the pure original cars! Well they seem to crop up less anyway, either because people were less bothered to save them or due to them being younger, restored versions haven't come out of the woodwork in such numbers yet. More like presumably because sales were weaker due to the public seeing through the thinly veiled revisions & leaving those sorts of cars to the BL die hards & moving onto something more modern for the 80s!I still see the Princess as BL's R20/30, even the choice of headlights fits, although the spec is the other way around!
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I love these wedges, got through loads of them when I was a student, including an ambassador 2.0 manual VP in Zircon blue! Wish I had that now! I paid a garage to fit a new clutch, but they never actually replaced it (horible job on those cars) and just gave me it back with loads of hylomar round the clutch housing, I was so fed up I sent it to the scrapyard (the same one i got it out of in fact).Anyone see that yella Morris 1800 one that was on the bay a while ago? It didnt meet reserve, then it was relisted but eBay pulled the ad. Not seen it since!If one came up on the bay for £2-300 needing minorish fettling i reckon i'd get it.a 2.0 Princess in pageant blue has got to be the best spec for a BL wedge.

Yes I did Mr B! and had I not just bought Torstern SD1 I may well have had a punt myself. I just hope and pray that enthusiast bought it, because as you say I have heard nothing of it since. I believe I am right in saying there is not a single roadworthy Morris 18-22 ! :cry: Also on the subject of facelifts. The orignal 18-22 series cars by which I mean the Morris and Wolseley were the the most handsome. There bonnet bulge and stylised grilles really set them off, it makes them look more meanacing if you know what I mean. The flat fronted trapezoidal look was never as good much like the Ambassador.Thankyou again for your kind comments! :D
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