richbraith

So we reached the MOT after a full service, new battery and some bulbs. Aaaaand it's a fail, but not a bad one. No rear brake effort, so it needs a load sensing valve or the existing one freeing off. Hoping the latter as most of them seem to be in the hands of Delta integrale specialists, and are between £250 and £500 a pop. Plus rear discs and pads. But the car is SOLID underneath. Thank you Holland for not using salt on your roads! I'd call this not a bad result.

I know they did in Series 1, but I've never seen a UK supplied S2 or S3 (with the Busso) V6. I don't think I've ever seen a basic 2.0 8v in RHD either, of any age.

Cheers, I've narrowly missed buying that very car before! Just joined the TDC, seems to be a must if you own one. My previous stricken Turbo actually came from them.

I've just done something brave. I've imported a 31 year old Lancia. I had a Thema, it was a 16 valve TURBO, it was gold, it had lovely green alcantara, it would have been FAST had it ever worked, but sadly it was broken in many complex and headscratching ways. Having bought it on the promise of restoration, after some considerable time of it lurking in the back of his workshop like an ominous presence the gentleman I bought it from went "Bollox to this" and refunded me. So I no longer had a Thema. Sad times. Because although even having a broken Lancia Thema makes you cooler than the average person, it would be nice to have one that worked sometimes. So I resolved to find another. Not an easy task. And so here's Giovanni, a 1992 Thema V6. He's from the Netherlands, he was bought from a dealer in South Holland, and he has the 2.8 PRV engine (boo, I hear you Volvoists say, but this is a later, much better development with EFi, it sounds marvellous and Thema owners really rate it). Being Dutch, he also has the steering wheel on the correct side, though not for the UK which is backward. But we'll get used to that. He arrived in the dead of night on Sunday, and so far he's been confined to being reversed into the barn and a blast down the few hundred yards of farm track. He needs either a battery or an alternator, as he does not go without a jump and even running him for half an hour doesn't mean that he'll go again (spoiler; he won't), there's an exhaust leak which I think is coming from the centre pipe, and there's an indicator bulb out. After a bit of fettling he'll be in for a test and then I'll start the process of registering in the UK. Btw, he's named after Giovanni Falcone, the Sicilian anti Mafia prosecutor who was assassinated by the Corleonesi Mafia in the Capaci bombing one month to the day after this car was registered, in a convoy that included a couple of Themas. Anyway, have some pictures.

A couple of Kias. The 14 plate Sportage has been sat without moving for over a year, not really dumped as it's on a driveway. But I bet it's rotting nicely. Last MoT expired a year ago. The Cee'd (I think the apostrophe's in the correct place) was one of the first demos we registered in 2007 when they were launched at the local dealer where I worked at the time, so I remember it as a brand new vehicle and I actually drove it a bit. It's had a hard life since and I suspect the scrap man is coming as the MoT ran out in November and the corrosion advisories have been getting more frequent. Have to pinch myself when I think the car's now 16 years old...time moves on. It's lasted longer than most of the 80s shite I owned in the late 90s did I suppose.

Well, I do have another 80s Vauxhall, a 90s Vauxhall, and a Lancia so...yeah. The friend of my dad's who took me to see Tina in the Carlton also had a very late model Manta in black, I think on E plate, that was spectacularly rotten at about eight years old.

Nah, never watched it!

That would work if it were more brown, and if I got another one. Incidentally my wife has a picture of her mother in a mermaid costume being leered at by Terry-Thomas in the 1950s, during her modelling career. So I always have a chuckle when I see his name.

Can you post us a link to it? I can't seem to find it.

A lot of people think they're trim, but they're actually alloys...with huge centre caps!

I did wonder at first if it was your old Rekord before I clicked on it!

I've been having a love affair with the mk1 facelift (this bit is important) Vauxhall Carlton for a very, very long time. Two of my dad's mates owned CD spec versions in the late 80s and early 90s and I fell for them, they were so wafty and comfortable. One of them was my transport to see Tina Turner at Gateshead Stadium in July 1990...,my folks went on the bike so I was left as a 14 year old at the mercy of four 'big boys' and their Carlton, which probably endeared them to me forever. Anyway, a 2.0 CDi model with a slushbox came up on the 'bay, B plate like both the ones I remember were, in gorgeous Anthracite. The funds were there and I almost broke my typing finger messaging the seller. The price seemed almost too good to be true...less than 24 hours later I'd dragged my stepson down to just outside Mansfield and the thing really was as good as it looked, with a new, advisory free MoT. I couldn't believe my luck. Of course, it came home. And yes, she's called Vanessa. What else can you call a Carlton?

Yes, it was mine for about two months. It's a bit of a mish mash I'm told, as the decals are made up to look like a Euro spec Ultra, but I'm hardly an expert. The current owner swapped my 309 Look for it and then bought it back as he missed it, but I think he's fonder of the 309 these days and @loseroneought to buy it. My first drive of it was in @JohnK's ownership about five years ago.

I had N366CPP on a Calibra too.

Never leather on a CD, the Diplomat had it and later the CDX which replaced the Diplomat mid way through the facelift but I'm not sure that leather was standard on the CDX unless it was a V6 one.