Walter White

There’s interesting cars from after 1990 for sure but I think it’s the people at these car shows
Ford Enthusiast - Has the Ford Motorsport jacket, always goes ‘shame it’s not a 2.8’ or whatever when someone has brought a lovely old 2.0 GL out.
MGB Man - always farting about with something and never washes his hands properly, constantly ingrained with EP90. Knows exactly how many rivets a 1967 Roadster should have on the top hat something or other
Family Bullshitter - Cannot help himself with quoting an absolute horseshit fact like ‘The police actually still have over a 100 unregistered Rover SD1 as part of a strategic reserve for when electric cars come along’
My A3 would piss all over that - We know that a 1983 Capri wouldn’t win a raffle, it doesn’t renew it completely pointless against your A3.
The liar - Furtively looks at something then interrupts mid conversation with some shite about how his dad had a Mondeo Cosworth, Ford only made one of them and what with his dad stacking shelves in Fine Fair, he was chosen to test drive it. It had 426 horsepower and he did 185mph on the Dymchurch bypass with it. It’s in his dads lock up and he takes it out at night when nobody can see it. And it would piss all over your fucking Tesla on a race! 

To hear they are struggling makes quite pleasing reading when you saw them price gouging during COVID. Some of the absolute dog turds you see peddled for £2,000 these days is unreal so I can take no small amount of comfort in seeing Mr Bombsite Trader having the arse fall out of his business. 

Maybe I fall into somewhere between those two categories, I could afford something newer but not substantially better. I service it and it’s mechanically bob on but equally I don’t go mad, refreshing suspension, servicing it every 8 minutes or painting the heads of the screws black. But when it’s fucked and it makes more sense to replace it then it goes. Generally speaking I wouldn’t buy a car from me, there will be something wrong with it otherwise I wouldn’t get rid of it. There have been exceptions, my old mans car I was tasked with getting shut of was a solid old thing, in hindsight I should have kept it. 

Over the top shite

Bornite's old Avensis SR, with a few thousand additional miles recently clocked-up driving to Dubrovnik and back as reported elsewhere:

Discussion was had earlier about getting it to 300k.

It's darker than it looks in the pictures. 

But this is the twist. 

Probably the only Escort RS I'll ever be able to afford

It's great that the dash has pre-printed a graph of cost of ownership over time.

In completely banal news, I got totally sick of needing three arms to put anything in the boot of the Sierra and thought “FUCK IT” - my poor head has had enough - “let’s fit the new gas struts I bought 3 or 4 years ago”. Out fell the most complicated, Engrish instructions you’ve ever seen. Straight in the bin with those and went in like a Bull in a China Shop.
One side done in 2 minutes, so I tried to break my own record the other side. 28 seconds. 
Now I’m annoyed I didn’t do it sooner, so have ordered a set for the Escort. 
Amusingly the boot opens at 257MPH now too so it’s not your head you have to look out for anymore; it’s your chin. 
 

Re the mk4.5, Ford could gave sold a lot more, had they advertised the things properly.
I can't help but feel a good old side by side comparison with the 'premium' competition would have woken a  few up.
Does your 2012 BMW have cooled seats? Adaptive cruise control? Blind spot monitoring? Lane departure warning? Keyless entry? Keyless start? Elec memory seats? 200ps diesel? Reverse cam? DAB? 19" wheels? Etc
I'm sure some did. But not for the money and IMO, the mk4/4.5 was a way nicer looking car.
It amuses me to see stuff like adaptive cruise, keyless etc STILL an option, on even the top end fancy marque offerings.
But sadly we all know that most prefer a shitter Audi A4 with park bench seats, an interior greyer than a Monday morning, less spec than a treehouse and an engine with about as much power as my 70L air compressor. Then look down their noses at me, cos it's all about the badge, innit.

Ford brought this on themselves by making each generation bigger than the one before. Now it’s simply too large a car for the majority of drivers.  




The original Mondeo’s natural successor is the Focus. A current Focus hatch (4378mm long) is almost the same size as the Mark 1 Mondeo (4481mm) and the Focus estate (4669mm) is actually bigger than the Mark 1 Mondeo estate (4631mm).

When I was still at primary school I remember a mate's dad had one of these in red. He was the head gardener at the local National Trust castle, and lived on the estate. The wee 126 would go round those lanes like a go kart. I also heard stories of him drifting it around the frozen car parks in the winter, but I didn't get to witness that first hand.

I bought a 73 ascona a few years back that had a picture of an AM Radio where there should have been a real one. 
 
tight bastard. 

I had this Sierra brochure from 1987. The Sierra L dashboard looks positively Luxurious in comparison to the Sierra dashboard. 
 

The passenger door mirror definitely wasn't standard and now it seems that it wasn't fitted until recently.  Ford were still selling cars with only one door mirror until at least 1988.
For anyone interested in the details of the equipment levels, I've scanned the full range brochure:
July 1982 Ford range brochure

Excellent purchase. 
A Mark 3 with vinyl seats must be incredibly rare now, even the brochures always showed the optional fabric trim on interior shots.  This is the July 1982 edition:

Here's the features and options list. 

Clearly the original buyer was prepared to part with £12.71 for a passenger side door mirror, but not £45.28 for fabric trim.