Brodders

https://www.gumtree.com/p/hyundai/hyundai-sonata-2l-petrol-ulez-compliant/1476200712

It’s been a busy week in motoring pursuits. On Monday I started a new job which necessitates commuting to London. I decided that a scooter to the train station (plus as a back up for train strikes) would be a good idea - and did my CBT accordingly. It was a complete fucking farce start to finish, but enabled me to get the necessary paperwork at the end. Then, @Turbowomble advertised his wonderful Supercub and I bought it, had it shipped, and it arrived Monday. 


Since then, I’ve not ridden it 80 miles owing to a bizarre idiosyncrasy. Bikes in Northern Ireland have their first MOT at 4 years (who knew?!). England does not - so now the DVLA says no MOT records available and I can’t tax it. Shame, as it weirdly works anyway. 
I’m absolutely delighted with it - they’re very willing little things and good for 60 even with 19 stone of man onboard. 
MOT this week then, and I’ve got another car rocking up too. 

Sierra went to a little run out last week and behaved relatively well, albeit the battery is kippered. It then disgraced itself by boiling over when I was parking it up in the shed. Bit of a pisser! A few shots below of my faves. 

Ghia X with beige leather 😍
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/156174399447

One for @Ianlea73...

Sierra Base! Sadly with painted grille. All Suffolk Police I imagine, they always did favour Ford back then.
I suspect that photo is taken on the old skidpad at Martlesham Heath. I think they've built another facility on it now, but I went on it a couple of times in the '90s with the local IAM group and my dad did the same some years beforehand:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/145730347987?itmmeta=01HVQ08ZC096XWME3DFRRES1CF&hash=item21ee34a3d3:g:KuYAAOSw1upmIBKQ

Verona.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/276425450960

Nice!

There may be a logical reason for this low mileage. The original owner may have had a company policy for vehicles that extended to on site vehicles that insisted on diesel, estate, ABS, Ford etc. I heard of a similar policy insisted on by a NHS trust that rented a Megane Scenic for six months and returned it with less than 50 miles on the clock.

Although over the years my fleet has included Aspen, LX, GLX, Si and Ghia models there are a few gaps that are triggering off my OCD. The fact that I've never owned a V6 isn't really that surprising due to my use case. After all, no sane driver would ever consider renting a V6 from me to do 50,000 mostly urban miles a year.
I never owned a Ghia X TD either. There's a logical reason for this though. If I wanted a Mondeo with leather seats I'd have just bought a set of hide seats from a salvage yard and fitted them to a lower spec car. Other than the leather trim the only bonus of having a Ghia X is having both sunroof and aircon as the Ghia X in TD spec didn't come with cruise control. 
The only saloons I owned were a couple of Aspens and one solitary GLX TD.
The biggest gap in my Mk1/2 CV is the fact that I've never owned, hired or rented out an estate. There's no logical reason for this as estate cars rent out easily. I've got nothing against estates. After all, I've had about half a dozen Mk4 estates, it's just that no estate appeared when I was Mondeo shopping.

https://www.facebook.com/share/SrAc5e8Ej6rkU7Dj/?mibextid=79PoIi

The same auction as the Royale has a nice modern daily driver:

Not too modern or too dull:

https://www.swva.co.uk/classic-car/mercedes-benz-c32-amg-estate-2002/
Could be a bargain?

This could be a great buy if it sells near estimate:

 
It gets better 😍

https://www.swva.co.uk/classic-car/vauxhall-royale-auto-1980/

Love those low spec Carltons, they give off the air of being just being an oversized Cavalier rather than 'exec transport'. 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/166691404143?itmmeta=01HTN83Z16DHY5TGPE4HH69KEZ&hash=item26cf94f96f:g:XTUAAOSwegFmDthq

I gave up on threads a while ago but I have wanted one of these cars since they were brand new, plus I think things might get interesting*. So here goes.
So far I count myself as the EIGHTH AS member who has owned this, including the chap who posted it for sale in behalf of the then owner. I think that's pretty great. I hope when I die I return as a car that goes around the country bringing joy to a whole range of different owners.

So far we've had 
Jon.k
Northernmonkey
Robson3022
Paulplom
Kiltox
83C
Schaefft 
Yours truly. 
The first didn't technically own it, he simply posted it for sale on behalf of the owner who had originally wanted to scrap it because of a pulley on the engine which had come adrift. So kudos to John.k for saving what certainly feels like a car which had plenty of life left.
In short (because it is documented elsewhere) it was owned by Westley Richards gunsmiths manufacturer in the West Midlands. It was a personal car to the directly and then used to chauffeur some very wealthy (like Arab Royalty wealthy) to and from the premises. 
After Jon.k's arm was bitten off by NorthernMonkey, it passed through varioous members' hands and gave generally good service along the way.
I promised myself I'd own it one day.

I've long admired the original Daewoo range launched here in 1995. I even managed to convince my dad to test drive an Espero from the 'motorshow' in Bristol in 1996.
Today I took delivery of three of the few surviving Esperos left in the UK. 
The silver N reg is a lovely original car with loads of history. Not mint but hopefully easy to bring it up to scratch, the P reg will be a parts donor as it has structural damage that won't repair.
The green N reg is well known on the 'socials, bring a ULEZ survivor rescued by Jude Currie. It's tatty in places but too good to break up. Realistically it'll only be staying with me briefly as I have other projects that need my time and money. 

Going through old photos and I found this from 2015. It was scrapped not long after I took this 
 

When I first started we had a driver with a 2.0 twin cam Sierra Ghia that worked faultlessly with one exception. It would cut out for 15 minutes after a continuous 80 mile drive. Ford Master Technicians tried and failed to get to the bottom of the problem. This meant that the driver could only take on a Manchester Airport run from certain parts of our catchment area.
Another Sierra twin cam owner was a retired Merseyside Police traffic officer with an immaculate Ghia estate in metallic burgundy. One night a few of us were sat in the office grilling him about high speed chases. After a couple of tales about chasing Mk2 RS2000s he started talking about chasing bikers. He said that the 24v Senator would keep up with most bikes on the M53 to the great surprise of the rider. He told the tale of one lad on a GSXR750 who when discovering that he didn't have the straight line speed to outrun the 24v Vauxhall pulled over onto the hard shoulder and then fucked off using full bore acceleration. He said that even today "I'd strangle that cheeky bugger if I ever got my hands on him". I didn't have the heart to tell him "that cheeky bugger" was me.

This is probably anyone's best shot at Piech's W8 experiment in the Passat. Cheap, low mileage, Japanese import.
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/700476375370668/

https://www.carandclassic.com/l/C1706826

£395....
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/25346814881598530/