JimH

In a post about gearboxes @Talbot said... I never knew this car existed. I cannot imagine who drove a Horizon and thought to themselves "You know what? This would be great if only it were even more clattery"

Glad it got there. BL Lickers will probably know that in earlier iterations of the handbooks the adverts for Special Tuning were more detailed and would usually have a long list of mouth watering things to buy like fuel injection systems and Amal carbs for your 8 port heads. Just the sort of thing you need to read about when you have just bought a 1300 Marina DL. I have somewhere a typed letter from ST with a list of things they could supply for Dolomite Sprints. This included an independent rear suspension set up which IIRC would have cost you 50% of the new car price.

Nowt to do with the ignition. It's that funny foriegn food playing havoc with it. Get down the Berni and it'll be as right as rain.

No. There is no way on God's clean earth that a VDP driver would drink something French. It is recessed to fit your sherry glass.

Have you any experience with any of these?

I’m not suggesting bits hadn’t been used in other cars but all the bits looked like they belonged. Look at an Aston or Lotus ( to name but two) and the Granada vents and MGB latches just scream at you. The X1/9 just looks like they knew how to use the right bits in the right places.. That’s because it was done by Bertone and they bloody well did know what they were doing.

The 1300 was just a gem. Everything about them was just right. From the howling 1300 to the dinkiest little blade bumpers you ever did see through the unbelievable packaging and futuristic interior the damn things were spot on. They just looked like Bertone had worked so hard on them. Not some mish mash of parts bin that’ll do but things in the right place for the right reason. Truly one of the great cars and now all but forgotten or misunderstood. Go and have a look at Franz Koob hillclimbing something that sounds like it has a motorbike engine in it. But doesn’t.

I have no objection whatsoever to paying for someone’s time to produce the content. It does seem a bit piss takey to charge pretty much the same price when you haven’t had to spend the money printing and distributing it. Does advertising in the online versions not bring in the same money so the cover price has to increase to compensate?

I've been well impressed with Wera's screwdrivers and I've been even more impressed with their sockets and ratchets. In particular their 1/4" drive Zyclop ratchet with the slender handle is a thing of beauty. I have a loating of ratchets with clumpy lumps of rubbery plastic pretending to make things more comfortable. These are even more hateful when they do it to quarter drive ratchets which you are usually using because access is not good. This, on the other hand, is just lovely. About 80 quid for a set with metric sockets in a nice soft pouch. Recommended.

How cheap might cheap be? Just out of interest, like.

I know nowt about these things. If the engine is tucked away neatly under the floor what is hidden under the bonnet?

Roadworthy and legal to drive on the road? 1 out of 6. In my defence it could be 2/6 in a matter of moments but at just right now one car seems like overkill.

Oh now that isn’t good.

It looked absolutely ancient by then mainly because it was absolutely ancient. The blue estate on the left looks from another generation with its dog dish hub caps and oblong headlamps. However, the last of the line, got to get the bits used up GLS saloon next to it looks pretty sharp now with its Magnum bits and bobs. I would have argued that it has aged much better then the spangly new Cavalier below.

And very nice it is too. Sadly the bellows on the exhaust gave up the ghost but that is hardly a disaster. Oh, and the handbrake cable snapped.