WillCarter

Made it onto the official FOTU report.

Just the standard Hyundai tape deck I think, in good working order though. The spoiler alone makes it a Hot Hatch. This one is the 1300 of Hyundai's own design, as alluded to elsewhere there was a 1500 available too on higher spec cars. In terms of driving, perhaps unsurprisingly much like a small eighties or lesser nineties Japan Hatchback. If you've ever been in something like a K10 Micra or a Suzuki Swift that's pretty much the level. It's not going to win any races, but it pootles along nicely and you don't ever seem to need to slow down for corners once you've got some momentum going. I will say that at 6'3 I couldn't live with the driving position if it was a daily driver, but that's as much to do with my dodgy knees as much as the car so a minor gripe really.

Long story short, I work for BCA appraising cars and in our particular branch we deal with a lot of We Buy Any Car detritus which usually means an endless line of Qashqais, Jukes and Picassos in various stages of knackered day in day out. The upside to this being that we also get some incredible high end stuff in, and more interestingly to people like us, very low end stuff too. One such car was this 1995 Hyundai Accent which rolled into the hangar to a series of jeers back in February. From a distance it looked bloody awful, the paint was flaking off in chunks and it was about 10 different shades of pink, however upon closer inspection I realised that it was possibly a bit of a rough diamond. A look inside revealed that it had done 26k from new, everything worked fine and upon appraisal other than the obvious paint damage there wasn't much to report beyond a couple of parking dings. Needless to say, I was smitten and knew I would have to be the one to save it. For those who don't know, BCA sell exclusively to the trade and unfortunately stuff like this which has little to no market value usually becomes landfill which was something I couldn't let happen. As I say, BCA is strictly trade, which means purchasing as an employee isn't as easy as you might think, various hoops have to be jumped through but after a number of interactions with confused higher ups the red tape was cleared and my bid was submitted. A day later I got news that unsurprisingly my bid had been the only one and that once I'd paid up I was free to take it when I was ready. Brilliant news. I knew as soon as I saw it this car that it needed saving and that's just what I'd done. A few days later I took it home, parked it up... and then promptly did nothing with it for months. This was the issue, now I'd saved it, what do I do with it? I have a perfectly good daily driver and realistically it didn't make financial sense to spend any money on restoring it. So that was it really, that is until May came around. I'd got a few days off for my birthday and wrangled a ticket to the Retro Rides Weekender. The plan was to drive down in my Rover 75 Tourer, sleep in that and enjoy a no fuss weekend. But then the cheeky little Accent started winking at me. Could I really trust a car I'd basically never driven to do a 400 mile round trip and get me there and back safely? Well, the answer was a resounding yes. It didn't really like doing more than 60 but for a car that had seemingly rarely left London, that wasn't too surprising and if you let it set its own pace it bundled along quite happily. Surprisingly it got a great response at Retro Rides too, getting lots of smiles and comments and confirmed to me that I'd made a good decision, even if I still wasn't quite sure why I owned it. After that it went back and forth to work a couple of times when the 75 was out of duty and I found myself beginning to enjoy its simplicity and cheerful manner and I slowly began to realise that not only was I going to be the one who saved it, but also the one that was going to preserve it, regardless of any sense it made financially. This was confirmed when we took it to Festival of the Unexceptional a couple of weeks ago where again it got an amazing response and more than one offer to buy it which were promptly but politely knocked back. So, what's the plan? Well essentially get it painted really. It honestly doesn't really need much else, but the paint is totally beyond repair and being such a great colour it seems a shame to not get it back to its former glory. Other than that the only other problem areas are the plastics which are unfortunately beginning to perish and crumble meaning things like inner door handles all need sourcing and replacing. As for historical significance, I'm not sure these cars will ever have much to a wider audience, however to a niche audience such as ours its worth noting that this is a launch year car since the Coupe didn't arrive until 1995 making this one of, if not the oldest remaining survivor in the UK. It is also as far as I know a one owner car and seemingly didn't venture far from where it was sold in Muswell Hill, though unfortunately I stupidly forgot to take note of the previous owners address on the old V5 as it would have been nice to let them know it had been saved. So yeah, that's it really. Work on the paint should hopefully begin in the winter ready to get it back out for shows and events in the spring and I hold out hopes that it will be deemed good enough once finished to enter into the FOTU concourse which is really my big aim for the car. Here's to my impending financial ruin. As it appeared in the hangar. The one good bit of paint and closest to the actual colour. The evening I received the keys. Retro Rides prep. Made it there and back with no drama. Enjoying Festival of the Unexceptional.