Tales from the banger auction. 1980's style.

[warren t claim]

Back in the late 1980s I used to supplement my meagre student grant/giro by working as a fiver a night driver for a banger auction. Back in thoses days the sort of sub £500 chod I was lucky enough to drive around the "block" was the stuff of dreams to any shiter in the second decade of the 21st century.

 

Most of us have at some point in our driving careers had a punt or two on some old nail so I thought I'd tell the story from the perspective of someone who saw the good the bad and the ugly from through the windscreen.

 

Today banger auctions are largely extinct but 20/30 years ago they were the easiest place to pick up the car you needed at the price you could afford. You simply turned up holding the folding and drove away there and then.

 

The sheer variety of vehicles on offer in those days for a couple of weeks wages was much greater than today.

 

Most dealers in new Iron Curtain stuff were offering £1000 min part ex on your old banger so it wasn't unusual for the same old rusty Datsun Violet to be punted around the ring three or four times a month. Mind you, the local Lada dealer was also reluctant to retail any Lada over four years old so many legitimate, one owner Ladas were sold to the public via the auction, often showing less than 20,000 miles. Older Ladas were also always a total nightmare to start and drive because many of them seemed to have faulty ignition barrels meaning that you had to find the hidden switch that the owner had fitted. Another common Lada problem was the throttle pedal being about 18" off the carpet for some reason.

 

Plenty of FSOs made it to auction about this time as well. £800 would normally secure you a three year old example. Many were already knocking their brains out at this young age as well!

 

BL chod was always a joy to start as well. Many times I went to pull the choke out to start an old Mini or Toledo and have the knob and a couple of feet of choke cable come through the dash!

 

I vividly remember my first series Landy experience as it involved a small crash... I had already started the engine so I pushed the gear lever over to the right and forwards to engage first, unfortunatly the detent to stop you engaging reverse was missing so when I released the clutch it shot backwards about three foot and into the fence!

 

Rover Sd1s were notorious for locking the unwary auction driver in. I don't think I ever drove one with working electric windows either.

 

Vans and commercials were always a pain because you couldn't park them in front of the rostrum because the auctioneer wouldn't be able to see who, if anyone, was bidding.

 

A common auction dodge was to disconnect the bonnet release catch so any prospective buyer couldn't see the state of the engine. Fine in theory but bad in practice if the car had a weak battery and needed the 24v truck battery for a jump start.

 

Back then it was common for clued up punters to ask you if you could "find fifth" as the numbers on the gearknob quite often to a little lie. Also people used to lean through the drivers window and wag the tiller on things like Princesses and Datsun Laurels to see if it had power steering.

 

I must say I thoroughly enjoyed my little stint as an auction driver. I only quit because Xmas was coming and the allure of working behind the bar at a local nightclub was too tempting. Mind you, I probably wouldn't of caught a dose of the clap off a rusty Fiat Strada unlike that sexy South African girl called Natalie but thats another story.

[Alexg]

Sounds like great times, thanks for sharing. Now tell me more about this South African sort....

[Minimad5]

Your stories get better and better.

 

Hope to sort a "mini-Meet" out soon, so we can hear more tales from the days of young Warren.

[Guest]

I was lucky to catch the tail-end of banger auctions when my mate's stepdad used to go there, he'd always be buying scruffy MK3 Escorts to do up. Maybe an old Astra at a push. No imagination. To be fair, there wasn't much interesting stuff, but I enjoyed seeing a mixture of normal vehicles in mostly lousy condition.

 

Actually, I do one time where he threw in a few bids on an incredibly rusty Bedford CF council refuse wagon (the sort with shutters on the side, generally used for litter bin rounds). Would have made absolutely superb school run transport. Get in the back!

[M'coli]

I used to love going to the one in Glasgow's Graham Square, it's where I bought my first car.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

The first auction I went to would be Witney (WOMA) on the old A40. I first went in 1987 and bought a shite Cortina IV for £150. Over the next 3 years I bought various sub £1000 Metros and Escort 111's, Cortinas and my first Sierra, an Escort RS1600i, Ambastardor HL, an XJS V12, 633CSi, Alfa 33 etc. It's still going, possibly with old John Bond Smith doing the selling. It was (is) a great auction with plenty of old shit, good cars and ex plod stuff - and unlike Mannnnheim they don't rip you off on fees. I don't know what BCA are like on fees, but modern auction 'centres' are just horrid places.

 

Milton Keynes and Bawtry are two other long established purveyors of shite with a good old fashioned feel.

[Cavcraft]

Similar experience here. Tenner a go (Monday and Wednesday evenings and Saturday mid-day) and it was absolutely hectic. But what a laugh. You'd get paid a few quid by some of the traders not to rev their cars up so I'd sit in the car with the door locked and windows up and the stereo on full chat and look at the floor ignoring requests from punters asking you to rev it up etc. Creep forward slowly, one eye on the auctioneer and wait for the hammer to fall, job done.

 

Then there were the sort who'd sell you their gran for fifty quid if they thought they'd get away with it and if they knew you were after a certain car they'd offer you their 'mint' one and you'd drive it round and find it was completely knackered so not bid on it. We ALWAYS got our own back on them regardless. From telling prospective bidders it was absolutely shagged to deliberately stalling them and trying to break switches or bits of trim. We also used to bid cars up from traders who were o.k and who told us the reserve so we could piss off the idiots.

 

Watching people (some of whom I genuinely felt sorry for) driving off in their 'bargain' car which would suddenly start smoking/kangarooing/knocking like a bastard was pretty funny too, especially if they were cocky know it all mugs who clutched copies of AutoTrader and tried to look like they knew what they were doing. The sharks (and even us driovers) could smell virgin blood a mile off

 

Cars from main dealers used to be a laugh, punters would chuck you a fiver here and there to switch various broken bits for good ones etc. We also got to drive loads of shit back, sometimes for forty miles or so so we'd know a good one if we had tried it and got loads out dirt cheap. Got a Lada Riva for a fiver 'all in' hooned round in it for a while and some bastard nicked it. We had some really great cars out of there including a slightly chav'd up Mk3 Fiesta for £45 all in which we changed the back box on, cleaned it and my missus's mate ran it for five years without a single problem.

It was a caper trying to keep up with trends and prices, some cars would fly out for weeks then suddenly become incredibly unpopular and a few got their fingers burnt.

 

My view was anything was fair game in the auctions (except stolen stuff) and more than one headgasket job received my special treatment. The days of removing header tanks, jet washing them out, plugging the bottom and then filling with clean water and either anti-freeze or screen wash still make me ROFL when I think about them. One particular pair of arseholes came unstuck from this after a rather nice looking but ultimately knackered 214 had this treatment. Another one was an Astra Mk3 Slow Blow dizzler that had had 'the treatment'. A dodgy company bought it because I'd deliberatly underbooked it and a week later a mate of mine rang me asking if it was my green Astra diesel that went through the auctions last week. When I replied that it was he pissed himself laughing and said they'd paid his dad to drive it back for them and the engine cooked itself on the M53. Oh how we laughed.

 

I honestly think I could write a book on the couple of years or so I spent there, there was never a dull day and some of the characters and the absolute shit they used to trade were class.

[RoadworkUK]

I haven't visited the auctions in ages, but one day, if I have a bit of land, I'll be tempted to go there with a transporter and buy an entire fleet of shite.

 

My local is Colchester Car Auctions, now a Manheim mega-auction. Last time I went was around the turn of the century, there were Volvo 340s going for a tenner a pop, as many cars going for scrap as went to chancers who would give them the sawdust and WD40 treatment and punt them on in the classified ads.

 

My favourite thing, though, was when the auctioneer would have a laugh with the crowd. There was a metallic red Carlton 2200 CDi, proper old thing, bidding started at a fiver, nobody in the crowd moved. So he reigned the starting bid back to £4.50, and the bidding continued in 50p increments. Then it slowed and went up in 20p steps, and at the death the bids were coming in 5p at a time. Eventually it sold for something like £12.65.

 

I love the idea of deciding not to bid 'cos you can't stretch to that final 5p....

[meggersdog]

Ah yes the old wine bottle cork in the hose to the headertank was quite a good wheeze.I used to think pumping filler through a grease-gun into balljoints to get an MOT was a myth until I saw one car crunch the wheel into the wing just as it was driven out of the auction hall after the hammer dropped.Wheel splayed out,bottom arm on the floor and some strange pink flakey stuff underneath.

When I started out my boss bought rusty wrecks out of Bourne on a Tuesday night.We'd then "spray in a day" and take them to Northampton on a Thursday with the paint still wet in some cases.Manhiem took over Northampton so that was the end of that.

Before the days of high scrap prices and even higher buyer's fees at the time BCA Peterborough started bidding on old snotters would often begin at a tenner.Monday nights I started buying Sierras and Cavaliers in BCA cleaning them up and putting them in Bourne on the Tuesday.Upto £100.00 there was no buyer's fee at BCA then it started,11 quid at first and now rising every six months.Peterborough lost the Lookers contract to the new Bedford site and then Pendragon so the old snotters quickly dried up.I'm a gold card holder with BCA and even with that for £500.00+ the buyer's fee is £115.00.Don't know how people make a living doing auction to auction these days.

[Cavcraft]

There was a fair few who'd go CAP in hand from auction to auction and make a good living out of it. Nowadays high scrap prices, greedy auction houses and internet auction sites have pretty much killed off the cheap shitters which is a shame.

Spending hours in smoked filled halls with sweaty con men choking on the fumes of ropey old Sierras is alas a thing of the past almost.

[bigstraight6]

I still mourn the banger auction that was held on friday evenings locally too me at the old Plympton cattle market up until about 8 years ago, it was great entertainment in every respect from the ruddy faced old farmer auctioneer who was always 'well on the way' after spending a few hours in the adjacent British legion club prior to the auction, and encouraging the driver of every old heap to enter the arena too "rev it up, sounds good!"

 

I did actually find a buyer for a friends Citreon Visa GTI on it's last legs at this auction, as it was driven into the arena it kept stalling and the exhaust was blowing badly but some mug still bought it!

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Spending hours in smoked filled halls with sweaty con men choking on the fumes of ropey old Sierras is alas a thing of the past almost.

 

Not quite. Bawtry Auction is still your kind of auction - and mine. Legions of Polacks, sportswear clad local scratters, dodgy looking dealers, cheap burgers and plenty of shitters on life support from the booster pack are the order of the day. Plenty of 10-15 year old chod, badly repaired cat C rubbish and some very cheap half decent late-ish stuff.

 

You'll love it.

[warren t claim]

Sounds like great times, thanks for sharing. Now tell me more about this South African sort....

 

Probably not a good idea!

 

I do have Tales of the Repo Man though if anyone is interested...

[Cavcraft]

Sounds ace! I suppose I should try Ellesmere Port and Queensferry auctions out again one day, they were both ram full of old shit at one time.

 

Another auction memory that will live with me was selling a fucking horrendous Mondeo that was shagged but looked reasonable. You could put writing on the window ticket at this auction and they kept the radio fronts in the office in case they got nicked. Anyhow I wrote 'cd player face in office' and some very ropey looking regular scousers in 'trackies' bought the car.

They got the keys and one shouted excitedly to his mate 'hey Dave, it's even gorra frigging CD player'. He then then jumped in, put the face on the CD player and the whole shebang fell into the dashboard along with the blue tack that had been vaguely holding it in place.

[warren t claim]

Sounds ace! I suppose I should try Ellesmere Port and Queensferry auctions out again one day, they were both ram full of old shit at one time.

 

Ewloe Auction may be worth a north west mini meet.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

My Talbot Alpine came from Tyne Car Auctions on the coast road A1058, I've still got the bit of paper that was glued inside the windscreen with the lot number and details. I used to LOVE going to tat auctions and spent all my student loans and grants in em!! Marvellous.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I've bought some interesting scrap at Prees Heath as well. I was shagging some bird from St.Asaph in the late '90's, and Prees Heath was on my way there - and back.

 

Also on the A41 not far away was a garage (John Conolly) that used to front a lot of wagged up old Jags. Anyone seen/recall that place? My bastard Capri was marooned there when the wiper motor burnt out and I was there for 3 hours looking at a fine selection of old crap waiting for the AA.

[Cavcraft]

Oh dear, I remember John Connolly* well. He onced tried to sell me a bent Zodiac Mk2 that none of the numbers (including the reg. plate) matched up and made a laughable attempt to patronise me by saying how popular they were with the 'youth of today who go to pop concerts in them'. I actually saw lads in his garage putting bodyfiller into reasonably new (at the time) Jag wheelarches and one of the mechanics told me he'd rather walk everwyhere than buy anything off his boss. He never really seemed to sell anything either, used to laugh at overpriced old crap that was out there for sale for months on end.

 

Oh, opposite Prees Heath auctions there is (or was) a garage selling classic cars and they used to have some right oddball stuff in there.

 

 

 

 

*Now gone and I think there's some poncey new houses or fltas there.

[Justin Case]

Great idea for a thread, brings back a few memories. Does anyone remember the Birmingham Car Auctions on the Moseley Road? I used to go there regularly with a workmate who had a large mortgage and a small salary Amongst his choice purchases was a Cortina whose starter motor fell off on the M42 and he had to walk back down the hard shoulder to retrieve it, another Cortina with only one front brake, the large Ford (Granada?) with grass growing on the sodden remains of the carpet in the back and an XJ6 that would have kept an electrician in work full time Sadly his financial position improved and then it was just off to BCA at Castle Bromwich every October to pick up an ex Channel Islands rental Fiesta with about 2k on the clock.

 

The Moseley Road auctions have also now gone up in the world, just look at lots 406 and 432

http://www.birminghamcarauctions.co.uk/ ... geSize=100

[eddyramrod]

I used to love the auction at Ormskirk, now long-gone. Bought this there in January 86...

It had the most bashed-up set of plastic wheeltrims you could hope to find still on a car, and when I took them off the lovely original chrome caps were underneath.

 

Ormskirk was replaced as the local banger depot by Chorley, which AFAIK is still with us. In 1995 I missed out on a blue Alpine there, simply because I wasn't paying attention, but did buy this from a chancer outside the gate...

It was much livelier than I expected from such a little engine, and even outran my 1.6 Pinto Capri on its last drive, to the scrappy. Capri ended up there too later, after I'd swopped it for a Volvo 244.

[cort16]

My Dad was an auction regular when I was a kid. A mk4 Cortina he bought and sold paid for a dormer extension on our house, which meant I finally had a window in my bedroom. He was a painter and panel beater and pretty shrewd so nearly always brough back a Cortina or a Cavalier as he knew if he tidied them up they'd sell.

 

I've noticed a lot of the big car super markets (motorpoint in particular) have started to sell their trade stock via their own online auctions to avoid the daft fee's these auctions houses are charging. I recon sooner or later they'll all do this as if you've got enough cars you'll always attract folk to buy them.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

 

Transcontinental!

 

 

 

Another superb auction - now gone - was Southampton auctions by Dock 10. I bought a few 20-30 quidders there 8-10 years ago. I don't recall anything worth more than a couple of grand going through.

[kevin 900]

I used to love a night out at Ipswich car auctions. My only purchase there was this;

 

Still got the receipt!

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

180 sheets with 5 months test AND Carlton wheeltrims - now that's value!

[cobblers]

Spending hours in smoked filled halls with sweaty con men choking on the fumes of ropey old Sierras is alas a thing of the past almost.

 

Not quite. Bawtry Auction is still your kind of auction - and mine. Legions of Polacks, sportswear clad local scratters, dodgy looking dealers, cheap burgers and plenty of shitters on life support from the booster pack are the order of the day. Plenty of 10-15 year old chod, badly repaired cat C rubbish and some very cheap half decent late-ish stuff.

 

You'll love it.

 

 

+1 for Bawtry. I've been loads of times, but never bought anything. Rows upon rows of mk3 fiestas with 3" holes around the filler caps and mk5 escorts not much better. Hadn't been in a fre years and was wondering if they were still going.

 

I might run up next week, if only for the thrash over from maltby and the fish and chips round the corner.

[Minimad5]

Bump - Awesome thread.

 

Visited "pingus" car auction tonight with Mr Warren, an had a great night.

Coffe was nice (and so was the lady serving it)

 

Bargain of the night was a rather clean looking Jag' S-Type went for just a shade under a grand.

Closely followed by an Alfa 156 Estate, that was very quiet £800.

 

Shame that the night ended before Cavette could get there, but i hope to plan some sort of North West, Autoshite regular meets.

 

Thanks for a good laugh Warren, i shall re-pay the favour when i'm driving

[Lankytim]

Great idea for a thread, brings back a few memories. Does anyone remember the Birmingham Car Auctions on the Moseley Road?

 

I used to go there, it was my local shite house. GREAT FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!! Never actually bought anything though..

[Lord Sterling]

Great idea for a thread, brings back a few memories. Does anyone remember the Birmingham Car Auctions on the Moseley Road?

 

The Moseley Road auctions have also now gone up in the world, just look at lots 406 and 432

http://www.birminghamcarauctions.co.uk/ ... geSize=100

Been to Moseley Road auctions a fair few times. They still have some ropey shite doing the rounds there. I remember seeing rotton KAs, ropey Jags, Scorpios, Omegas etc.. All looked in reasonable condition but were seriously ropey old wrecks. I saw a Red Rover 820 fastback going through the block and was seriously tempted to bash a bid, but financial restrains etc... I later remember that this car used to live around the corner from me.

 

They also had some expensive repos like new shape Range Rovers, a BMW 1-series and a couple of Bentleys.

 

I never actually bought anything from any auction. I tried to get a job at Moseley Road once, one of the drivers told me to say I knew him as a better chance of getting a job. I might chase them up, I wouldnt mind a chance to earn a few quid whilst driving some ropey crap.

 

A few weeks back I scored myself some free car floor mats. Some bloke was cleaning the front yard, I saw some mats sitting there and asked what they were doing with them, he told me they were throwing them out, he said I could help myself if I wanted.

[Cavcraft]

Bump - Awesome thread.

 

Visited "pingus" car auction tonight with Mr Warren, an had a great night.

Coffe was nice (and so was the lady serving it)

 

Bargain of the night was a rather clean looking Jag' S-Type went for just a shade under a grand.

Closely followed by an Alfa 156 Estate, that was very quiet £800.

 

Shame that the night ended before Cavette could get there, but i hope to plan some sort of North West, Autoshite regular meets.

 

Thanks for a good laugh Warren, i shall re-pay the favour when i'm driving

 

If it hadn't been for the Fuhrer working I'd have made it Mark. I even got some fuel in the barge and was half way up but it was too late obviously. Ah well, the inconsiderate bint is coming off nights at the end of the month so there'll be other chances. In fact I'll probably be looking for any excuse to get out of our gaffe.

 

Was Pingu doing the gavel tonight? Used to struggle to understand him most of the time to be honest.

[warren t claim]

Pingu jnr tonight. A chip off the old block!