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Can't comment on the wagons, but our DAFs in all flavours - Temsa, VDL and Irizar - are almost all gutless wonders and absolute horseshit on hills. The only exception is our 06 DAF SB4000 which runs rings round everything except my 08 Volvo on the hilly bits.

I passed you on the 77 and didnae realise it was a shiter or that you had broken down! I was in a coach though so I expect I'd have been of limited use!

Panther, anyone?

One from that Instagram - diecast Montego?!

I have a two car driveway with two Volvos, a Proton and a Fiat Ducato on it...

That. I've had three Mk3 Cavaliers and the Mk4 Astra drives like a tightened up Mk3 Cavalier. That is no bad thing. I was genuinely gutted that this Astra had to leave my fleet; it's truely been one of my favourite cars and were it an estate it'd have been here for the long haul, but it just wasn't big enough.

You know I passed another two red XJ-S on the way home... only managed to pap one of them. Also was passed by a fantastic Citroen Ami 8 Break being driven like tomorrow wasn't coming on the northbound M74! 850 is home getting acquainted with the resident Volvo on the driveway. Neighbours are twitching curtains more than usual...

No bloody doubt! There looks to be a Matchbox mk2 MR2 prototype in the 2022 listings and a Mitsubishi 3000GT as well; the 3000GT seems a very Hot Wheels thing given recent releases but it is for Matchbox.

Beige interest for the next year, with Hot Wheels announcing an '87 Sierra Cosworth and Matchbox a '73 Opel Kadett C coupé.

Fuck me that is astounding, absolutely world class

It's a Volvo B12B, my faithful companion over the last seven months at 800-1000 miles per week. It was new as KX08 HLU but is now away for 70 seat school bus conversion. Likely replacement for me is a 62 or 63-plate VDL Futura 2.

Bye bye baby.

There are a number of factors; generally boggo stuff runs until it dies, specialised kit runs until it becomes unreliable or until (if applicable) the chassis breaks then the body is remounted. The latter is generally the case for things such as Air Start Units, Ground Power Units, Air Conditioners, that kind of thing. Self Propelled Stairs and De-icer units generally don't get rebodied. We ran a couple of ASUs, one on a G-reg FL6 and the other on an P-reg MAN 8.163 and both bodies were on their second chassis even then. Quite a lot of the stuff goes for scrap even if it's not physically worn out, largely as it's never been registered, may not comply with C&U regs and has run on cherry it's entire life. We had a US-spec Volvo FE deicer which ISTR was so afflicted.

I passed my airside driving test in April 2005 in H446 KJN, a 4-speed 0609 with no power steering; we had a pair of 0609s, three 0813s and a 1011 at the time. The 0813s felt like rocketships in comparison to the 0609s which seemed to struggle even with just a couple of tonnes of bags on the back. No pics of H446 KJN, but it's sister 0609 H443 KJN was one I did pap.

*phone rings* "Hi Andy... what colour is the inside of your bus again?" "Blue" "... and what state are the racks and headlining in?" "They're fine. Why?" "Ahhh, nothing, nothing" "Anything to do with the set of 70 blue school bus seats that have appeared?" "Errr... so yeah, busy gotta go, byeeeeeeee" Bugger. New shift bus coming. I'm really rather fond of this old tank.