Mr Laurence

Our one little permitted pleasure of lockdown has been to visit a local cafe and get takeaway cake on a weekend.
For the first time in a while I decided to take the 2CV... there was something very nice and normal about piling the family into the 2CV and going for a Sunday drive... 

I always clean the fleet every week but Spring was definitely  in the air today so after a nice long walk I gave them all a bit of a detail.
Couldn't do the Corsa because the bastarding rogue landscapers have left a tonne of hardcore in the way. I will move this during the week as the Corsa is going for its MOT next week.

I actually did something on one of my classics today- that being exhume my orange Mini from it's garage (been there since October) and drive it, wash it and top up the levels!
I couldn't believe it, but it started after 20 seconds of churning on the starter, after sitting for 5 months?!  I didn't even disconnect the battery.  Amazing.  All you need is 1960s technology, right?


Might risk taking it to work tomorrow.

I once read that negotiation is about reaching a price that neither party is pleased with. Having spent a considerable amount of time on this car, it was quite clear that we were never going to agree on value. The seller “knew what he had” and, in the spirit of fairness which is occasionally unpopular on AS, he was right.    I left on Friday feeling glad I wouldn’t be going back. It was a nice idea, but the wrong car. It was just a bit TOO shonky. It didn’t grab me. It was frustrating, because I’ve quietly and ashamedly admired these since about 1994. So, you can imagine my surprise when I sent a detailed video to the other guys, showcasing every single issue in 1080p HD only to receive:      
  So, we made an offer - acknowledging it wasn’t the price he wanted, nor the price we wanted to pay. Should it have been cheaper? I honestly don’t know. Does it matter? Not one jot. People spend more on a fortnight in some grotty Spanish shithole and are left with nothing more than a sunburnt head and an overdraft. We’d still have a MK3 Escort. At the very worst, we paid next years prices this year. Without wishing to sound like a privileged old ponce, there’s also something a bit common about arguing over a few quid. What price style?     So we went over to collect it this morning. The seller, in fairness, was much more amenable and warm. Annoyingly, Faster Payments are anything but and we were stuck in each other’s company for an hour whilst the money cleared. I watched on whilst he did his daughters garden, feeling like Louis Theroux making a documentary on some sub-culture he was trying to understand. Still, they were rather charming and welcoming and we had a bit of a laugh in the winter sunshine.    When the money cleared, I did the pleasantries and hit the road.      No shit, it drives wonderfully. The tyres are 20 years old but, even so, it handles delightfully and the 1.3 CVH is responsive and willing. There’s not an ounce of blue smoke, the clutch is new, and the gearbox just does its job with aplomb. With the windows down and the sun streaming through, I felt like the king of the world. (In a shit jumper and rusty car)   First problem, the fuel gauge. The guy said it didn’t work - but it sort of does. Turn on the car and the needle moves around to about 7/8 full. I’m sure he wouldn’t lie about it not working, so I guess the float is stuck? Secondly, no dice with the temp gauge either. Not ideal when pressing a car into service that hasn’t been used in a while.    With the car on the MID and the tax in post, I took the back ways home - avoiding popular fuelling stations with cameras. 
    Just as I came into the village before mine, we had a quick glimmer of the red gravy boat - and then, after this photo, the brake light too.
    Obviously I handed over a lot of money for a car that’s not been used for months and drove off without checking the levels. That’s what knuckleheads like me do.    Once home, I gave it the full extent of a Bornite Wash. Hose, soft brush, that’s it. 
 
      I did stick a bit of wax on the back and, you know what, it made a slight difference, but not a lot.    In summary, I’m delighted with it - and I know the other guys are too. Lovely little things like this make a disproportionate difference.
      The car was clearly loved for a long time by the owner of 23 years.    For me, the MK3 (along with the MK5a) Escort is THE Autoshite Escort. And in base spec with no fripperies, it suits me just fine  
    Yep, it’s just my luck that my first experience with an escort is one with a terrible body who’s pushing 40, but I’ll give it some love nonetheless. 
  Just time for a final tonight from one of my co-directors...      Mission complete.

That looks great! The matching hardtops a great bonus too.
how does the 90hp 1.6 compare to the one in your last mx5?

This, however, is absolute filth.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1970-CHRYSLER-NEWPORT/224359460929
 

I even like the wheels, as cliche as they are.

Currently cheap, but still got a week of bidding to go.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1989-NISSAN-300-ZX-2-2-AUTO-full-service-history-all-MOTs-and-Tax-Discs/353399308545

 
But, look at the interior!


Absolutely glorious.

I could be incredibly facetious and suggest that an accident caused by a mechanical failure is still caused by human error. That would be because the human who owns it failed to maintain it properly, thus it's their error.
I wouldn't suggest that though, I'm only suggesting that I might suggest that.
 
 
As others have said though, some demographics of modern car owners are somewhat unnerving too. It's scary how many sub 3-year old finance spec crossovers you see with a bald tyre or two.
 
 
 
Staying on thread though. Frisbee the trims but otherwise phwoooaaaar!
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1978-Mazda-1300-1-3-3dr-ORIGINAL-THROUGHOUT-LOW-MILES-72K/154345627569


 

So - Jumajo Part 2?

I've had an eye out for one of these for a fair few years now - I first saw these IXO (?) French partworks in TK Maxx of all places, where they showed up around 2006/2007 for a princely £3.99 each.
On the first sweep I managed to bag a Renault 6, 8, 12 and Dauphine, plus a Peugeot 404. Over the next few years I found a few more, such as the R14, Fuego, R10, Citroen LNA and Peugeot 305 and 504, often at autojumbles at the Classic shows at the NEC/ RDS - but the CX always eluded me. Until now.

The finish and detail on this range is always pretty good, though I'm seeing it as perhaps a little stubby around the tail? May need to compare it with the ex- @barrett Minichamps estate version, and see which proportions seem best...

Staying with French, how's about this...

Oooof, Argentinian release Pug 504 estate. 
I like estate cars; most of our family cars were estates (other than my father's brief mid- life crisis forays into MGF and Alfa GT ownership) and I do prefer estates myself - generally because my gung-ho approach to home renovation often leaves me needing to transport 5m lengths of architrave or four dozen breezeblocks. Yet estate models are relatively uncommon, and I've been trying to remedy that of late.
(As an aside, there's a weekend mini-tat challenge for you - toy cars that were modelled as estates rather than saloon/ hatch. Three to start with: Matchbox Superfast Citroen CX, Corgi Juniors Volvo 245DL, and 'that' Siku Mk1 Granada. Over to you!)
I can still remember these 504 estates knocking around in the early 1990s, and they were simply enormous. The way the roofline went up and up to make it even taller at the back was almost alarming.
I look forward to comparing it to my saloon version!
Also a South American version of a gallic model is this...

I've been looking for a R18 model for yonks; I think Norev did a silver estate version which was identical to a GTL version we owned in the late 80s, but they seem to fetch well into three figures (when they even come up, which is hardly ever).
So the GTX II seemed to be the closest I was going to get, and in fairness it does look very nice. Though while looking yesterday, it seems Jumajo (now?) have an earlier two-tone version available with Turbo alloys, which reminds me of the 'America' special edition a fella down the road owned ( I could be wrong about nearly all of that, mind).
Oh well, this will fill the R18 shaped gap in the model shelf (I don't have a R17, but I do have a 19 Chamade - I think).
Moving on to something equally Renault, but more utilitarian (and still Argentinian):

Mmm, white van man fun with a stock, unsigned Renner Trafic (I love the way autocorrect always tries to change it to 'Tragic').
This was a pricier one from the catalogue, at nearly €15, and while I'm not massively into commercials I do love a bit of street furniture and these were everywhere at one point - with the survivors now almost exclusively camper van conversions.
Something about this just pleases me immeasurably.
And the last from the Argentina collection is this, as alluded to by @RoadworkUK:

A really nicely done rendering of the high-end Sierra, with very good detailing and a great feel for the lines of the real thing.
Checking the invoice reveals that this was joint-cheapest with the Yugo 45 at €5.90, which is a tremendous price.
Swapping over to the Blue Oval's rivals...

Opel Kadett GTE in a rather fetching black, and one I know we've had profiled on these pages a short while back ( @AndyW201?)
Now, while I normally much prefer the more basic versions rather than the fancy range-toppers I chose this over a more lowly pea-green Kadett D. Maybe it's those alloys? Either way, this is lovely.
Moving on chronologically...

Mmm, a post-facelift Kadett E Caravan/Mk2 Astra 3-dr estate.
Back when these were just street furniture, they seemed to be the preferred chariot of pensioners with dogs or else window cleaners. As such, I usually thought of them as terminally dull - but now, of course...
Nice to have another estate version, anyway!
Keeping with The General's motors...

Ouch!

Another disaster in transit - this Opel Commodore B GS/E has had a bit of a mischief on the road from France.
Hopefully any damage is superficial - the base of the case has broken, leaving the big Opel hardtop banging around for many a mile.
I could have had this one in red too, but I once went to look at a yellow one just like this in the late '90s, so that's as good a reason as any.
I didn't buy it; it'd been parked up on grass for years and the floor was rotted clean out of it... rather like the council estate Rivolta, big Opels always seemed to fall from favour far too quickly (see Monza vs Manta), and many seemed to end their days gazing blearily out from under a disintegrating tarp.
Back onto commercials, then...

Criminy, it's a Spanish-built-under-licence Leyland FG.
The FG was always something of an odd little creature, with its thruppenny bit cab and footwell windows. A local glazing firm ran a fleet of them through the 1980s, so whenever a window got broken at school (which was often) one of these, in dark brown, would rock up and park in the playground. They always fascinated me.

Can't wait to open this one and see if the tipper really tips.
More to follow, later on!

mot'd £2500

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Peugeot-504-GL-Diesel-Pickup-Tow-Bar-Removable-Canopy-Liner/294030896138?hash=item44759b6c0a:g:w3YAAOSwpupgNOE3

the 2022 calendar beckons...

Oh ffs. 

 
Full write up tomorrow. Sufficient to say the three owners are like a big bunch of proud, happy, Gay Dads. 
It is also superior in most measurable ways to the Sierra. 

Mission success!! 

That I can get behind. 
Those Cavvys give the right care are tough old bastards. 
Seeing yours makes me miss my first Cav. 
Bought as a bone stock 1.8 GLS in the same colour (I think). 
Ended up with an XE, yellow billies all round and a set of Kahn 17's to finish (was on Speedlines too, only picture I have that will upload at the moment of it) . 
Swapped for a fucked MB6 Civic.
Idiot! 
 

scrappage scheme killed too many decent motors

Those early CAT cars with their single-point injection were always difficult to get through the emissions test.  You have to get them properly hot, mainly because the CAT itself is halfway along the floor and the gasses have cooled down by the time they get to it 😆
In fact, in real world usage, I'd say the emissions of those K, L, M etc aged cars were rarely what they were supposed to be.  
I had lots of Cavaliers when they were cheap cars, and my favourite was this one-

 
2.0, 16v saloon in 'Rioja'.  It was a CDX with full leather, working A/C, fuel computer etc.  I sold it to a friend and never saw it again.  I'd kill to have this car back again! 😔

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Triumph-herald-12-50-1966-for-restoration/184668934824?hash=item2aff2052a8:g:KDsAAOSw5J5gLWZa
 

Absolute basket case, but then I suppose it would have to be for under a grand.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BARN-FIND-1982-Austin-Morris-Mini-Estate/313434416944?hash=item48fa25a730:g:XcQAAOSwAQ5gOUKJ

Joking aside though, I hope whoever buys this doesn't fuck it up. Deserves to stay standard.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1300cc-Morris-Marina-Van-575-10cwt-model/333901643440?hash=item4dbe16beb0:g:N1sAAOSw7tBgOB5-
 

Good man - best of both! I think I always struggle with replacing a model of car with exactly the same model again. We missed our old Eunos after a reasonably lengthy ownership and I bought three mk1s after that in the intervening years. They just didn't feel like our original car though. We missed that specific car, and no imposter could replace it. 
Here's our original trying to get intimate with the Hilux I owned at that time.
Looking forward to your photos and of any developments with a mk3 too! 

Deal done... the Mark 1 wins... collection tomorrow. 
But I have decided a Mark 3 may will feature in the future as a winter beater.... when the prices drop enough! 

A few with visible plates on old postcards I've scanned-in, that you don't appear to have listed:
PCX 642P 1976 Leyland Cars Princess 1800 HL, DVLA liability 01/10/85 (Settle)
OTY 773R 1977 Leyland Cars Princess 1800 HL, DVLA liability 31/3/84 (Darlington)
TFE 753R 1977 Leyland Cars Princess 1800 HL, DVLA liability 1/2/88 (Swaffham)
AGR 180S 1977 Leyland Cars Princess 1800 HL, DVLA liability 1/3/89 (Leyburn). Pretty much peak shite on this card, with bonus Hudson Terraplane.
TFT 884S 1978 Leyland Cars Princess 1800 HL, DVLA liability 1/2/88 (Hexham)

£50 Mk1 Punto

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/731406330851243

Well then, by popular demand... the full spoils of the French Connection:

Yowee.
Pics are a bit rubbish, but this may give you a flavour for now!

That old Jalopy favourite, the Turbot Horizontal, turned up in that shade of gold that nearly all of them seemed to be when I was a kid. Surprisingly there were a few different colourways available in the shop - including a gold over brown special edition - but I'm very happy with this one.
This had been knocked loose from its mountings and was rattling round loose in the box, but seems to be none the worse for its ordeal beyond a slightly flattened roof aerial.
[EDIT: hold on, I've just noticed it's lost the door mirror!]


Overall impressions are good; to my eye the Horizon was always a slightly oddly-proportioned thing, so it's no surprise the 1/43 version is also a smidge peculiar, but in 
The nose is maybe a little long, with the front end slope maybe slightly too pronounced, but that's just pickiness. 

The wheels are really very nicely done indeed, and the accent paint and decals are very crisp.

Rear screen demister lines and Paris plates top it off nicely. I've a couple of these Simca Collection models now (Rancho, Samba, Solara, Tagora) and they're all really nice.

Chevette has been extensively covered before; wheelarches are indeed chunky but overall dimensions are decent. Pity Vanguards never saw fit to cast this in miniature; I'd suspect an HS/HSR version would prove popular, as well as a cooking version like this.
[EDIT: I know Trófeu produce an HSR, but have you seen the prices!]
I desperately loathe the blister pack packaging on these magazine partworks, as they're nigh-on impossible to remove cleanly (even using a sharp blade), and leave you the problem of what to do with the damn thing once you've opened it.
This one seems to have popped the plastic blister off its cardboard base of its own accord, as it's had to be stapled back on. Fair enough.

This E70 Corolla was one of the cheaper models in the order, and I think I can see why - there are numerous paint flaws and chips, one indicator lens is rattling around loose inside the packaging, plus what looks like glue is smeared over one wing.
It might clean up a bit with a dab of acetone - we'll see. But it's not a car that gets modelled very often, and these were hugely popular all over Ireland in the early 1980s, and with a Toyota dealership only round the corner from us, a fair few people in the neighbourhood owned one. I think this one came from a Polish partwork, but the registration plate of ZGD 3583 could, at a distance, almost pass as an old-style ROI plate. So that's a nice touch.
Keeping it Polish...

Yup, a Polski-Fiat/ FSO 125P, in a cheery yellow.
My aunt's neighbour drove one of these in the mid-80s, in that oh-so-Eastern-Bloc mid-blue shade. I was perpetually intrigued at how a car could be so new (4 years old, going by the AXI registration) yet look so old-fashioned and also be rustier than my father's pretty shagged 1978 Marina estate. I gather they were tough old things, but often bought by owners whose penny-pinching ways would be their undoing.
Say it quietly, but I prefer FSOs to Ladas.
And on the same frequency...

Hard to see it properly with this packaging, but there's an FSO Polonez in there.
Again, this was a very cheap one - €6 or so - and it's a smidge crude with ludicrously bright chrome-effect wheels. But it's a nice oddity, and not too many manufacturers are falling over themselves to model it. For about a month in 1996 I lusted after a £50 Polonez dumped on the street outside a local dealer's lot (they apparently didn't want it on the forecourt), so this is a nice memento of a once-common car that's now nigh-on extinct.
Shifting south behind the Iron Curtain...

This was the cheapest in the whole order, perhaps appropriately, as the Yugo 45's entire marketing campaign was based on how cheap it was new.
A chum from school drove an identical one of these after his Fiat Fiorino finally died of rust, and while he was endlessly ridiculed for being a Yugo owner, it was fairly reliable and I don't remember much falling off (unlike other mates with Minis).  I've another Yugo Zastava upstairs somewhere, so this'll be a nice companion.
Continuing our voyage of discovery for Balkantat, the existence of this car came as entirely news to me:

I'm well familiar with the Renault 12's extended retirement in Romania behind the Dacia badge, but the Renault 20?
Mind. Blown.
Turns out a very small number of Dacia 2000s were put together under licence in the early 80s, and only supplied as official cars for Communist Party elites or secret police. They were only ever painted black or dark blue.
I formerly owned an Éligor remake of the Solido R30, which I passed on as it was just too toy-like to display neatly (door shut-lines...), so this one fills a hole in the 1/43 Renault line-up, even if it lacks the Diamond of Doom on the grille (which the Solido one didn't have anyway!).
Rounding up the cheapy-cheap models, is this:

Volkswagen Passat slopeyback, which is one of those cars I just have a weird lust for. The wraparound bumpers and clean, uncluttered front end still look very fresh to me; clearly when I was but a nipper (c.1985) this is what 'modern' looked like, and I haven't really moved on. Even though the facelift version of the Passat B2 was just another reworking of a basic design that reached back to 1973, it still seems to bridge that gap between 'old cars' and 'new cars'.
I'd definitely have a real one of these, especially an estate, although most survivors seem to have been pineappled to oblivion. Shame.
The model looks slightly like it's standing on its tippy-toes - initially I thought it was a wheel issue, but now I'm not sure if it's that the sills don't quite go down far enough.
I'll take proper pics as and when opening occurs!
More to follow later!

Not-obviously-crusty Alfetta, 1000 BINs, Pretoria