coachie

...Offered by traders who bought the shitboxes for 95% of the current asking price at the height of the bubble and are now stuck with the fucking things.
Look at it slightly differently - they've already paid £3.2k for the tired out of heap, rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of selling it the following day, after a quick wipe over with a wet rag, except they've overdone it - no one wanted the shitty car then, and no-one wants it now - not now they can get hold of a brand new car on PCP with a lead time in weeks not decades. they've slowly dropped the price as its sat mouldering away, but they can't drop it any more or they'll be losing money on it.
They've got the millstone round their neck already, you have the luxury of not needing to buy it from them. Sit it out, before much longer we're going to see a lot of these dealers who bought stock at vastly inflated prices go bust. They've got 20 cars on the forecourt worth* £4-20k each, except they're worth fuck all if no-one buys them. You can't eat them. You can't use them to pay your mortgage or gas bill. And you don't want to sell them for less than you paid for the thing 18 months ago.
The market will adjust, because like fuck am I buying a 15 year old ford focus diesel with 198,000 miles, no service history, that I can't drive in most cities and which smells of childrens sick and vape fumes for £4k. And I bet I'm not the only one.
Wait for 6-12 months and watch them go bust left right and centre, flooding the market with shitty fucking cars sold at auction by the liquidators for 10% of their 'asking price' to recoup some of the debts that bazzas bitchin' Autos has run up before the bank called time on it all and sent Bazza to prison for tax evasion.
From what I've read, this is afflicting the big boys too, Cazoo share price is down 99.4% over 5 years. They have a fucktonne of stock bought for top dollar which they can't shift and which the market can't absorb. Supply of this fucking tat massively exceeds demand, especially when cost of living is skyrocketing.
5 years ago when your 15 year old focus blew its head gasket because you'd not fixed the leaky radiator, you fucked it off and bought a near-identical one for £500. Now, that same car is probably worse than your own one, and costs £4k. Shady Dave's garage charging £1500 for a head gasket job (old head not skimmed, head bolts reused, refilled with tap water) suddenly looks like a less shit option. So you walk on by Bazzas Bitchin' autos...
Yeah its grim looking at what's on offer, but imagine having spent £100k of money that's not yours buying the stock and now its just sitting there, unsold, while you get increasingly threatening letters about your mortgage arrears and imminent disconnection of your gas supply.
 
EDIT - info on Cazoo taken from https://cardealermagazine.co.uk/publish/cazoo-share-price-tanks-to-record-low-valuing-used-car-dealer-at-just-79m/276540 & Google share price search for reference.

Spotted this on my morning dog walk. 
Central Newport, near train station.  Seems cheap, could help with storage/collection if any interest. 
A delightfully pogweaseled Civic was parked nearby, and I also saw a giffer driven dark grey/black E reg Mazda 323 hatchback pulling a substantial home-made trailer drive by.  Good times.

😲
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/151601921328012/

Spotted this on my morning dog walk. 
Central Newport, near train station.  Seems cheap, could help with storage/collection if any interest. 
A delightfully pogweaseled Civic was parked nearby, and I also saw a giffer driven dark grey/black E reg Mazda 323 hatchback pulling a substantial home-made trailer drive by.  Good times.

Your dog is showing us what he thinks of it.

Spotted this on my morning dog walk. 
Central Newport, near train station.  Seems cheap, could help with storage/collection if any interest. 
A delightfully pogweaseled Civic was parked nearby, and I also saw a giffer driven dark grey/black E reg Mazda 323 hatchback pulling a substantial home-made trailer drive by.  Good times.

PORSCHE BOXSTER 3 2 s automatic | eBay
'I've done 3/4s of the work done'


'I've only done 500 plus miles since last mot so it should pass go through nicely'


'A fibreglass mould not perfect'


PORSCHE BOXSTER 3 2 s automatic | eBay
'AM GOING TO SEE WHAT ATTENTION THIS CAR BRINGS '

From the diameter of the exhausts I've seen round here, you'd need at least a marrow, possibly a turnip.

I have a pair of the adjusters you weld into the torsion bars if you want to lower the front end a bit.  I never used them and now own a 1303.
I also have various (̶e̶i̶g̶h̶t̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶a̶t̶)̶ engine chrome dress up pieces that were never fitted back in the day.
Gratuitous photo of said, unlowered and pineappled beetle in the Black forest 1991.

Finally, a use for all the hoarded ghastly car modification knowledge I intend to inflict on unsuspecting vehicles I've acquired over the years!

Bit of an update on this, Sunday morning, was tinkering at the workshop when i had the excellent idea to go for a drive in the Visa, first stop, petrol station 4 miles away. 25 quids worth of your finest unleaded later i was pulling up the junction to leave and rejoin  the main road. Whats this, no brake pedal, all the way to the floor, with no hint previously of anything wrong. Judicious use of handbrake and a very cautious bimble back to the workshop, guess what had failed, master cylinder, total and abrupt failure - Guess what was in the parts i collected day before, thats right, one new master cylinder - that was lucky 😊

I wouldn’t speak too soon! I’ve been working on the brakes, refitting the master cylinder when I spotted a very old looking  welded patch on the NS chassis next to the steering idler, I poked about at it and it fell off.. I kept poking and poking…… Unfortunately it looks terminal as it would need a lot of dismantling and skill to fix. It would be easier to simply replace the chassis. I was already considering replacing the body tub with a better one, but what do you have when you replace the chassis and the body? Might as well start with a different car.  It’s a shame but I factored in something terminal when I bought the Rover, the rust was well hidden until I pulled the patch off, I’m just glad I wasn’t too many ££££s in when I found it. 
 
I’ve definitely got the P4 taste now though, they’re just such fun cars to work on! Perhaps I should keep my eyes peeled for another project and use this one for spares….

How are you going to follow up this one?
Some light water-boarding in an out-of-service ScotRail sprinter toilet?

I have a pair of the adjusters you weld into the torsion bars if you want to lower the front end a bit.  I never used them and now own a 1303.
I also have various (̶e̶i̶g̶h̶t̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶a̶t̶)̶ engine chrome dress up pieces that were never fitted back in the day.
Gratuitous photo of said, unlowered and pineappled beetle in the Black forest 1991.

I have a pair of the adjusters you weld into the torsion bars if you want to lower the front end a bit.  I never used them and now own a 1303.
I also have various (̶e̶i̶g̶h̶t̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶a̶t̶)̶ engine chrome dress up pieces that were never fitted back in the day.
Gratuitous photo of said, unlowered and pineappled beetle in the Black forest 1991.

I have a pair of the adjusters you weld into the torsion bars if you want to lower the front end a bit.  I never used them and now own a 1303.
I also have various (̶e̶i̶g̶h̶t̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶a̶t̶)̶ engine chrome dress up pieces that were never fitted back in the day.
Gratuitous photo of said, unlowered and pineappled beetle in the Black forest 1991.

I have a pair of the adjusters you weld into the torsion bars if you want to lower the front end a bit.  I never used them and now own a 1303.
I also have various (̶e̶i̶g̶h̶t̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶a̶t̶)̶ engine chrome dress up pieces that were never fitted back in the day.
Gratuitous photo of said, unlowered and pineappled beetle in the Black forest 1991.

I have a pair of the adjusters you weld into the torsion bars if you want to lower the front end a bit.  I never used them and now own a 1303.
I also have various (̶e̶i̶g̶h̶t̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶a̶t̶)̶ engine chrome dress up pieces that were never fitted back in the day.
Gratuitous photo of said, unlowered and pineappled beetle in the Black forest 1991.

I have a pair of the adjusters you weld into the torsion bars if you want to lower the front end a bit.  I never used them and now own a 1303.
I also have various (̶e̶i̶g̶h̶t̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶a̶t̶)̶ engine chrome dress up pieces that were never fitted back in the day.
Gratuitous photo of said, unlowered and pineappled beetle in the Black forest 1991.

I have a pair of the adjusters you weld into the torsion bars if you want to lower the front end a bit.  I never used them and now own a 1303.
I also have various (̶e̶i̶g̶h̶t̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶a̶t̶)̶ engine chrome dress up pieces that were never fitted back in the day.
Gratuitous photo of said, unlowered and pineappled beetle in the Black forest 1991.

You called? 
My late Dad had a 1985 EFi in red, must've been quite an early one on a B plate. 
Been on the lookout for a project and found this last year, sadly not red. Got the heap delivered and started discovering how bad/good it was. 
Tbh I knew it needed arches. The sills could have been patched but I sourced a pair and got them done with the roof which had a mystery rust hole too. 
Mrs Grogee bought me a NOS head for my birthday and that is now with a porting company for some light breathing work and (if needed) some hardened exhaust inserts. It also has a rather fruity zorst but it's too loud so I think I will slice n dice in a centre silencer. 
I have Spax adjustable dampers on the back with standard springs & ride height. 
Next up is a front end refresh: Leda struts and all new rubber everything & new BJs plus a new clutch. 
PS I bought your book @motorpunk, it was adequately funny. 



 

I do like a Maestro. I did some work at Rover at the very tail end of it's production and, well, it was very BL. Stories about all that in my book about car factory cocks ups on Amazon here, Sniff Petrol called it "hilarious" but someone else on Amazon reviewed it as "alright", so take your chances. Anyway, this is about Maestros, right? As I got older I learned to appreciate that they were actually pretty good cars. I drove one with some other BL snot to the Sahara for a laugh a few years ago, here's a pic from Casablanca...

Sorry, not that pic, this one...

Casablanca is a shit-hole, but the Maestro liked it so much it wet it's pants. Ledbury car, apparently. Too bloody good for Bulgarians, these things. 

Bodged at the roadside, and the car was eventually swapped for a piece of cake (true story) and we gave the paperwork to a friendly local (below) and flew home.

I had a mate who worked on the Perkins engines that went into the Diesel Maestro, he was from Peterborough, he only had 4 fingers on each hand and couldn't hold the tools properly. He later drank himself to death. I had the feeling that the Maestro was doomed, but that just made me love it more. 
A mate who does a very serious job at a very prestigious motor manufacturer is a fellow BL sicko, and when he called to show me his new car I donned plain clothing and agreed to meet 200 miles from home in case any of my real friends saw me with a bonk on. Here is it...

It's an MG Maestro, 2.0EFi, and it's dead sexy. Look at its innards...

Solid state. That describes both the electronics, and the appearance of my winky.
In my excitement I wrote a chunky feature on this car and my mate, his Dad had a significant hand in the talking dashboard, quite a tale. It's just landed on my doormat in print for Classic Retro Modern magazine. You can buy it in the shops or on eBay from what looks like the publisher direct, here. Ignore the P*rsche on the cover, it's full of BL goodness inside. 

I have 3 cars at present, am hankering after a Lancia Gamma Coupe and/or an Evora, but there's always space on the driveway for a Maestro, isn't there? Look at the the cheesegraters!