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SierraMikeHotel's chod: SMH goes above plodding pace SHOCK


SierraMikeHotel

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We're up to about 2004 now.

 

Good news!  I got a job.  An actual real one, not a week's contract.

 

Bad news!  The office is miles away from public transport so I need wheels, fast.

 

Good news!  There's a GSA available with tax and test.

 

Bad news!  It's really terrible.

 

Actually, that's a bit unfair - it was as advertised, and it was very, very cheap. It was less bad than the mousey blue GSA and I don't recall any FTPs.  However none of the accessories worked and after the first (and only) time I washed it, a load of water poured in through the glovebox the first time I went round a corner.

 

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The job was selling advertising space in a business-to-business magazine and I was really shit at it.  This is the only time I've lost a job through my incompetence rather than the company going bust underneath me and it's also the only time I've been happy to lose a job.  I was let go after two weeks of not selling anything.

 

I sold the car a few days before the MoT ran out for a tenner and it ended up at Chevronics.  Rob will generally restore a car if he can but there wasn't enough of this left.  I believe it did contribute a pattern to the GSA floor pans that he now sells so if you've ever done major body repairs to a GSA, you're welcome.

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I have a theory that if you don't fix a fault like that straight away, you just learn to live with it....

The one on the CX was a wiring fault.  Maybe once out of ten it wouldn't start on the key, but the signal wire to the starter had a plug fitted in it so you could pull that out, short it to an earth point and the car would start.

At the moment it feels like it starts on the key once or twice out of every ten turns, but I also have the emergency start plumbed in by the previous owner, although his method involves touching a probe to the battery positive terminal.

 

Quite weird, though. Turning the key, you can hear the solenoid engaging, but the starter motor doesn't unless it feels like it. Recharging the battery appears to force a near-immediate start on the key, so I wonder if a new battery is in fact the answer.....? The battery is a "067"-type, with rather more amps than the owner's instruction book recommends.

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At the moment it feels like it starts on the key once or twice out of every ten turns, but I also have the emergency start plumbed in by the previous owner, although his method involves touching a probe to the battery positive terminal.

 

Quite weird, though. Turning the key, you can hear the solenoid engaging, but the starter motor doesn't unless it feels like it. Recharging the battery appears to force a near-immediate start on the key, so I wonder if a new battery is in fact the answer.....? The battery is a "067"-type, with rather more amps than the owner's instruction book recommends.

 

I wonder now if I was confusing this with a different wiring issue on a BX... maybe I did have to touch it to the positive battery terminal.  I can't think why a connector would be plumbed into the signal wire (I hope I'm using the right terminology there, by the way, I mean the low-voltage cable that tells the starter you've turned the key) so I wonder if it was a long-standing bodge, or an anti-theft device, fitted by a previous owner.

 

Anecdotal evidence suggests that modern batteries just fail at once without giving any warning so somehow I doubt that's the issue, I like your wishful thinking though!

 

 

Enjoying this story!! I particularly like the bleakness of the GSA photo.

 

Thank you!  I arrived late at night in the dark and didn't see the sign, I was very amused by "delays ahead very likely" when I went out in the morning though - hence the photo!

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After losing the shitty sales job I was unemployed for a time and drove about in my Mum's old Pug 106, which I don't seem to have any photos of.  It was a great car because I never had to put petrol in it.

 

Early in 2005 I got something else though, a whole year's contract as maternity cover.  I was walking to work so didn't really need a car but the itch became too strong plus they'd invented eBay by then and I discovered the art of cheeky (possibly drunk) bidding.  I think I paid about £300 for this beauty.

 

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I can't really remember the reasoning for it now... I've never been into the VW "scene" but my folks had a silver 1976 Passat when I was very little so perhaps it was a nostalgia thing?

 

If so, it outperformed expectations.  What a fantastic old bus.  This one was tatty as a very tatty thing, with dents on every single panel and a broken aerial (previous owner was a teacher, so he always had tatty cars that he wouldn't mind being vandalised by pupils).  The interior was absolutely fine though, everything worked, and it was a wonderful thing to drive.  A bit wallowy, maybe, but it was a GL5 with the 5-cylinder engine from the Audi Coupe so it made a lovely noise and went like stink.  I liked it an awful lot.

 

The first MoT under my ownership failed on suspension bushes (which when replaced absolutely transformed the handling - suddenly taut, while still being comfortable) and front tyres.  Being a bit skint at the time (the new job wasn't a big payer) I decided to get part-worn ones to get it through the MoT, with a promise to myself to replace them with new after the following payday.

 

Big mistake.

 

One of them was a Stomil, which can apparently be translated from Polish as One Hundred Miles.  Which is how long it lasted before it exploded on the M20 in truly spectacular fashion, destroying large chunks of car.  There was a hell of a wiggle but I got it under control and came to a safe halt on the hard shoulder.

 

The tread and some of the metal banding literally peeled off it, smashing hard into the front suspension, wing, sill and bonnet.  Looking back, I'm lucky none of it hit the windscreen.

 

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After changing the wheel I limped home, with a pronounced wobble from the front/left as if the wheel was oval-shaped.  I suspect a suspension component had taken a beating and bent.

 

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This was far too much damage for me to even think about paying to fix so sadly the car got scrapped - but not before I'd sold the registration number, which very nearly paid for the car.

 

This is one of the ones that got away.  I really, really liked the car and it was taken from me before I'd got all the use out of it that I wanted.

 

Passat B2s are vanishingly rare now, especially in non-pineapple form, so if you ever see one for sale (especially a GL5) please tell me immediately.

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...Passat B2s are vanishingly rare now, especially in non-pineapple form, so if you ever see one for sale (especially a GL5) please tell me immediately.

 

Might be able to obtain a useable shell in China (albeit LHD), as that's where the model - or rather its Santana sister - ended up when its European production days were over.

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With some embarrassment, I present to you: the only car I've owned that was never road-legal during my ownership.

 

It does deserve some pre-amble...  I thought then, and I still think, that the classic Saab 900 is the perfect mid-size hatchback and has never been bettered.

 

It looks great, coupe-like even as a five-door family hatch.  The driving seat is a very pleasant place to be.  They're solidly built, and one of the safest cars of their era.  The boot is massive.  Access is great if you do your own servicing.  They have a lot of interior space compared to the road footprint.  Engines and boxes are a bit old-fashioned, maybe, but easily breathed upon to give good performance.  Speaking of which, quick versions are really very quick.

 

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This one was quite humble but still had all the above attributes except for the quickness.  In fact it reminded me of my brown P6, with a British 2-litre four-pot and a 3-speed Borg-Warner auto under the bonnet.

 

It was, again, the result of some eBay cheekiness.  I can't remember now what I paid but it was quite small... £150 maybe?  It was out of MoT but I *cough* drove it back to a pre-arranged MoT, then fixed all the fail points.

 

Some bulbs, a tyre, and the rear seatbelts had been hidden under the seats.  Easy peasy.  Oh, and a crack in the windscreen that was repairable.

 

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Now it's failing on emissions, really very badly

 

I lovingly rebuilt the carb and improved the emissions to a point where it was only just failing.

 

Gave up, stuck it back on the 'bay, sold for £50.  I've just checked the MoT history and there isn't another, so it must have been turned into parts.  This makes me sad.

 

This was my last Saab, which also makes me sad, and i do intend to own another classic 900 one day.  I still think they're brilliant cars, I've just never been in a good one.

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Passat B2s are vanishingly rare now, especially in non-pineapple form, so if you ever see one for sale (especially a GL5) please tell me immediately.

You'll be budgeting for about three grand as far as I can see now.. Also. Pineapple??

 

Following up to the Stomil failure: A colleague of mine a goodly few years ago now had a mobile sawmil which he had a stomil tyre fitted to. That lasted about 100 miles too before a spectacular delamination and explosion, albeit at lower speeds and with less bodywork in the way to get damaged.

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You'll be budgeting for about three grand as far as I can see now.. Also. Pineapple??

 

 

That's a shame.  Not completely impossible, but more than I'd ideally like to spend on a car.  I think the £500 days are gone, but under a grand would still be ideal.

 

I thought pineapple was the approved Autoshite term for a horribly modified scene VW?  Might have got the wrong end of the fruit though.

 

Hang on, your year studying abroad, was it in Grenoble??

 

The year abroad was Saint-Dizier, a little place between Reims and Nancy.  I did the English language teaching course when I got back, and went to Voghera in Italy on the back of that (in the GS) then Nancy in France in the CX.

 

Why, did you know a brown P6 in Grenoble?

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Some cars need a little time to grow on you.

 

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I bought this Citroen BX 19 TXD (with added black leather interior) purely as a runabout.  I considered it a very ordinary modern car at the time, and was a bit disappointed with myself for not having a proper "classic" car.  Maybe that's why I didn't really bond with it.  Don't get me wrong, I really liked it, but I didn't love it.  It was only 12 years old at the time so I just felt it was an ordinary modern car.

 

Under my ownership the silly plastic spoiler fell off, the rear exhaust hanger fell off (all BXs do that) and one of the brake calipers became a bit sticky and wore out a set of pads in about a week.  Boringly reliable apart from that!

 

One of the best things to come out of the BX ownership experience was my time on the BXClub.co.uk forum where I met Talbot and mat_the_cat.  Citroen owners are good people.

 

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As you'll see, my feelings about BXs have changed considerably since then!  I really should have held on to this one for a while longer.

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Forgot to mention Cavcraft from the bxclub days.  Sorry Billy, we've never met in person but it's good to "see" you again!

 

Is it ever a good idea to go back to an ex?

 

Bored with my sensible modern I was hankering for a classic car again, and heard that my old GS was up for sale.  Sold the BX for the sum being asked for the GS so a zero-cash exchange as far as I was concerned!  I was very happy indeed for a while, feeling myself to be most stylish in my classic car.

 

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However she had deteriorated somewhat in the meantime.  There was absolutely no charging going on, so I got used to bringing the battery into the flat and charging it up overnight if I planned to use the car in the morning (I did eventually get round to replacing the alternator, but that went on longer than any sensible person would have allowed).  The radio had gone, there were some new dents, and the MoT brought a welding bill only slightly less than the value of the car.

 

The final straw came on the way to the Cropredy festival when a loud and unignorable banging sound started, apparently from under the car.  I was passing through Guildford at the time, pressed on to Woking where I have friends, dumped it on their drive and continued by train.  Missed the first day of the festival and got it recovered home afterwards, where no mechanic was able to find the source of this intermittent but terrifying sound.

 

(I caught up with the car a few years later, after it had been through a few more owners who'd just ignored the banging, and apparently it had just been a loose gearbox mounting bolt).

 

It eventually came to the end if its MoT and (now with a permanent but very poorly-paid job) I really couldn't face the inevitable bill so I came to an arrangement to swap it for a shabby but road-legal BX with a fairly lengthy MoT.  A pretty good deal: the other party got a buggered but appreciating classic and I got an old and worthless but serviceable vehicle, with no money changing hands.

 

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The BX was a total shitter already - bASe with the horrid grey interior, many dents, much rust, and an apparently inability to keep the LHM on the inside.  Oh, and some electrical weirdness that fried my MiniDisc player.  Plus someone made it a bit more shit by trying to steal it the night before I was due to collect it.  I'm reliably informed that the attempt failed because the steering lock on a BX (shared with the 405) is completely unbreakable.  Shame they didn't make the rest of the cars out of the same stuff, really.

 

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Colekshun was a bit odd, delayed for about an hour while the bloke cleared a charity-shop's worth of clothes out of it.  It was utterly filthy inside even after he'd finished.

 

The thief had smashed the driver's door lock barrel to get in but the central locking still worked, so you had to open it from the passenger side and walk around the car to get in.  Much nicer when I had a passenger, because I could give them the key and get them to let us in then pass it back to me.  They always gave me odd looks though...

 

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I became oddly fond of the Pink Stink, and even spent actual cash money on cleaning products for it.  A couple of weekends' work turned it from Pink Stink to Red Shed.  I straightened out the numberplate and even fitted a Tailblazer to it.  It was always springing minor LHM leaks as the hoses decayed, but it always got me home - slowly.  The N/A diesel engine and automatic box were hilariously badly matched.  I lived in Portslade at the time and it was actually incapable of reaching the 50mph limit before end of the steep hill on King George VI Avenue.  But why hurry?  Just sit back and enjoy the grumble of an XUD.

 

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All '80s cars should, by the way, have tail lamps that go all the way across the rear of the car.  Even if it doesn't show up on a red car.

 

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Also.

 

Found it:

 

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That's supposed to say "Say No To Stomil" on the side. That was the (significantly less messy) blowout that happened on this trailer:

 

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Oddly, I'd taken a photo of the tyre in question not a few weeks earlier, and knowing your story of the Stomil, warned the owner appropriately. He dismissed it somewhat at the time, but commented when it blew out that he should have just binned them and put new ones on.

 

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"Remember kids, just say NO! Say NO! to Stomil."

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It also had a knackered starter motor and a bent drivers door.....

 

It did indeed.

 

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One of the door check straps had pulled out of the rusty A-pillar as well - it really was on its last legs but somehow still good to drive.

 

I think I would have liked a late BX.

 

Judging by your username, yes I think you probably would.

 

The Pink Stink was never going to be a long-term keeper but it did me a good turn.  I'd fallen for BXs a bit by this point, but what I really wanted was a Mark 1.  After all, what's the point of a Citroen with a sensible dashboard?

 

Chris Salter had one for sale and we came up with a very complicated deal that involved me selling the red one cheap to someone that he owed a favour to, and he'd then sell me the Mk 1 BX because I'd discharged that favour... or something.  Can't honestly remember the detail.

 

I was absolutely in love with it from the word go, even though the rear exhaust hanger fell off on the way home from colleckshun (they all do that sir).  I pulled in to see what all the noise was about, and someone came out of the house that I'd stopped outside and gave me a metal coat hanger to bodge it up with!  She said she'd heard me coming all the way along the road and knew exactly what was wrong from the noise.

 

Early BXs are brilliant cars: Proper Citroen insane dash with an LED rev counter, bathroom-scale speedo and PRN switches, but all the modern-day usability and comfort of a modern car.  It's a shame there are so few survivors, I'd love another one but I doubt I could afford one now.

 

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Fun times were had with the rowdy BXClub crew at the CCC National that year, including drunk Tailblazer fitting in the dark.

 

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Sadly this was not to last.  I was still very much in the honeymoon period with the car - I had it a month, I think - when a total fuckwit smashed into the back of me.  I was turning off into a driveway, so only doing walking pace, and he never even saw me.  It came out later that he was changing a CD at the time.

 

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Small consolation that the modern Subaru was very nearly as badly damaged as the BX.

 

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Totally destroyed, with bends in the shell all the way up to the front.

 

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Still, my passenger and I walked away from it although she still has back problems.  Police were unwilling to do him for dangerous driving but she sued him in the civil courts over it.  I have been known to sneer at whipcash claims but it has genuinely affected the rest of her life and career.

 

Talbot took the car away, stripped it and sent the spares off to various BXClub members so I know there are still bits of it running around and keeping other cars on the road, which is a small consolation.

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Talbot took the car away, stripped it and sent the spares off to various BXClub members so I know there are still bits of it running around and keeping other cars on the road, which is a small consolation.

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Boot floor was really quite bent:

 

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Engine out.

 

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Doors went to a MK1 GT restorer.

 

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Shell went to my local scrappy, as the value of scrap steel was on it's arse at the time, so no point taking it the 15-ish miles needed to weigh in.

 

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.. and the only reason the rear axle stayed on the car was because it was bent ..

 

The level of body damage that there was on that car was significantly more than you would think at first glance. The entire rear quarters had moved significantly, and every single seam from the B-pillar backwards had deformation. I remember writing at the time that the spare wheel had done a very good job of adsorbing a lot of the impact.: it had been pressed into the rear axle so hard that it had sheared the height corrector clean off and had bent the axle tube. While BX aren't exactly the strongest vehicle on the road, it had actually done a really very good job of generally adsorbing the impact and spreading the impact loading, thus limiting the damage to the soft squidgy humans inside.

 

My own BX didn't feel anywhere near as flimsy afterwards.

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Oof... that's a right old shunt. Very similar looking to what was left of my Skoda in terms of the way the forces propagated through the shell when it was punted into the nearside front nearside corner of a HGV that decided not to stop at a give way sign and drove in front of me when I was doing 60mph.

 

Have to admit that an early BX, GSA or CX are very much on my list...I'd love any of them.

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It was, honestly, one of the worst things that's ever happened to me. I hate thinking about it, nearly eleven years on, but I still do every time I bump into my passenger (we lost touch for a while but now work on the same site) or get a twinge from my back. Also every time I drive up that stretch of road.

 

So: onwards.

 

Insurance company were dicks. With their valuation less excess, they sent me a cheque for (as I remember) about £20. Many angry letters followed.

 

In the meantime I needed cheap wheels and a fellow BXC member sold me his ZX for about £100.

 

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I didn't ever really give it the time of day, just saw it as a disposable cheap modern, but they are quite fun little things. This one didn't have power steering and I honestly preferred it that way. My dad had several of them when new and really rated them. My sister had one at around the same time that she quite liked - it was a nicer spec than mine but in much worse nick. Talbot may remember quoting her a million pounds for a new exhaust, and Mrs Talbot may remember hearing me saying more swears in an afternoon than she'd heard me say in a lifetime when I was trying to fit the fucking exhaust to the fucking French car that had been designed by fucking French fucktards. Ahem.

 

I probably wouldn't have another ZX (except maybe a 3 door petrol Volcane) but I probably would take a fast 306, given the opportunity.

 

When the MoT came to its end it failed on emissions, which frankly could mean anything from a bit of adjustment to a full engine rebuild, so I stuck it on ebay and sold it for £50 - which makes it far and away the best value car I've ever owned. Can you rent a car for six months for £50? I don't think so.

 

Besides, my angry complaints had finally had their effect and the insurance company had grudgingly sent me a cheque for the real value of the bent BX, so I could get something nicer. Now this is a REAL Citroen.

 

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I still worked in the English language teaching industry at the time and my boss had a small business on the side that sent small groups of native English teachers over to schools in Italy for a week of English-only conversation with the kids. I'd already signed up to be one of the teachers, and he tasked me with figuring out the transport options. We were going to Dolus d'Oléron which would have meant and extra day and a night in an airport hotel if we'd flown, so I cheekily offered to drive the three of us over in my about-to-arrive luxobarge if I got paid mileage. Deal done.

 

Luckily the car was not terrible and made the 375 mile journey, plus use over there, plus back, without breaking sweat.

 

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Being an XM, it had a sense of humour. The brake lights stopped working because the clever system that tells you when the brake lights aren't working broke. It used to toy with me by saying STOP IMMEDIATELY NO WATER when it was clearly full of water - but you can't ignore a warning like that. The headlamps were the worst that I've ever seen on any car anywhere ever. Mechanically it was good, except for some water loss when the hoses decayed (by this point in my car owning career I just assumed this was normal).

 

It was a very pleasant luxobarge though and I did enjoy our time together. Sadly the news of my crash had filtered through the system so when the insurance renewal came through it was HOW MUCH? And I couldn't find anyone to beat it.

 

I probably could have afforded it but I just didn't want to feel like I was being ripped off so I waved the old barge goodbye.

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Oof... that's a right old shunt. Very similar looking to what was left of my Skoda in terms of the way the forces propagated through the shell when it was punted into the nearside front nearside corner of a HGV that decided not to stop at a give way sign and drove in front of me when I was doing 60mph.

 

It was fascinating, in a morbid sort of way, what the impact did to the shell.  All the panel gaps had closed up and I think I remember Talbot saying he found ripples in the metal all the way up to the A-pillars when he'd stripped it.

 

That's the last time you'll ever see a rust-free BX shell :(

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Gorgeous early XM...

 

Hear you on the accident too. I still have nightmares about the crash myself, and can hear the bang. That sound is something hard to describe to someone who hasn't been in a high energy impact.

 

Mine was one of those ones where I had ample time to do the math and have that moment of "oh, this is gonna suck..." but nowhere near enough time to actually do anything about it.

 

Also it killed a *completely* rust free Skoda Estelle.

 

Never driven an XM, which annoys me. Still reckon they're one of the nicest looking cars ever built.

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I was working at this point but in a low-paid job and the threat of redundancy hovering ever-closer so the massive insurance quote plus the possibility of of great big bills meant that the XM really had to go.  I never remember sales as well as I remember buys (much less exciting) but I think I got most of my £500 back.

 

Meanwhile I'd got wind of a very desirable BX - desirable in the minds of BX-lickers, anyway - a TZD Turbo estate in Olympic Blue, for a ludicrously small amount of money.  It seemed too good to be true but somehow it wasn't.  I made the journey to the posh end of Surrey to discover that the seller had bought the car when it was a bit neglected, patiently fixed all the issues, then it had sprung an LHM leak and it was just the last straw.  I understood the feeling - sometimes cars just don't want to be fixed and you lose interest - but I felt it was worth the tiny asking price.  Talbot came and had a look and was confident that he could sort the leak, so colleckshun commenced.  It would have been an epic thread and I think of it every time I get tailgated by a brand new Range Rover.  I bet he still hasn't cleaned the LHM off his windscreen.  Memorable for stopping for LHM more often that I stopped for diesel.

 

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This very rapidly became one of my favourite cars, blending a bit of classic appeal with a bit of Citroen fun and magic carpet ride with a lot of serious practicality and usability.  If they were galvanised and built out of modern materials I reckon I'd still have it.

 

As it was, I probably imposed on my friendship with Talbot to keep it running.  I probably couldn't have paid a garage to do all the welding and MoT repairs he did, and appeared to be willing to do in return for cooked breakfast.

 

Crossover post, with Talbot's C25, on one of my many house moves.

 

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En route to one of the CCC events, with AdamskiBX and his CX.  Check out the stuff that used to live outside my Grandma's house.

 

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Talbot didn't like his van on this lift.  I understand.

 

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GR8 4 snokaos.

 

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GR8 4 learners.

 

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Mine was one of those ones where I had ample time to do the math and have that moment of "oh, this is gonna suck..." but nowhere near enough time to actually do anything about it.

 

That winter I had a very slow version of that.  I'd been fine on the way to work two days in a row, then on the third day I went just very slightly faster - like 3mph instead of 2mph - and had that experience until I crashed, very slowly, into a parked car.  Caused a couple of grands worth of damage to it compared to a smashed indicator lens on the BX.

 

This was, truly and honestly, one of the best cars I've ever owned and the one I remember with most fondness.  I'd have kept it if I could.

 

Estate cars are the best thing ever: this drives just like a BX saloon but there's enough space inside to live in it.  The XUD Turbo engine is a delight, and will run on anything between diesel and warm butter.

 

It started getting tired - lots of small faults at the same time - at the 125,000 mile mark and I was, as always, skint.  I was in my current career by then and earning decent money but paying off bills accrued during my crap-job era.  My dad was willing to help me out with a younger car, but he didn't want to put money into what he saw as an end-of-life vehicle.

 

The guy who bought it promised me he'd do it up, but I saw it advertised in parts on other forums within hours of him picking it up.  That still hurts a bit.

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