Shep Shepherd

Which company did you work for? I presume a Swedish/Scandinavian one if you got Volvos as company cars.

Top purchase. I had a very early (P-reg) V70 2.5 10v manual for several years and would love another one day. Sadly, there aren't many left in worthwhile condition these days.

I know the area, as I quite often do deliveries and collections in Ashford. The industrial estate the garage is on isn't all that far from the now-demolished Chart Leacon railway depot.

That's lovely. Just how I remember them back in 1987, in fact. I wonder which dealer it was originally sold by? I reckon Invicta Motors or Thompsons of Dover.

Definitely number 3.

I missed the worst of the OMG SNO KAOS, but my truck froze to the ground when I parked overnight in an ice-bound yard in Clitheroe on Wednesday; the overnight temperature got as low as minus 8c 😮 Lovely sunset, though: Ditto the sunrise next morning: Got back on track pretty quickly using a combination of the diff lock, beligerence and hope, although the windscreen washers stayed frozen until I got to Blyth Services...

Wartburg Knight/Tourist. I've had a weird interest in them since becoming aware of their existence around the time of the German Reunification.

The Trabant is totally up my Strasse

As promised by my gaffer before Christmas, I was upgraded to a 26t Volvo FM when I returned to work after the holidays. Here it is at Fleet Services on January 2nd, my first day driving it: : And here it is in Kings Lynn yesterday: All in all, it's a fabulous truck (It's great to be back in a Volvo at last), despite the cab's interior being a bit muckier than I'd have liked. It's cleaning up well, though

Aside from eBay, I've always found this outfit to be pretty good for obtaining parts for The Volvo: https://www.partsforvolvosonline.com https://www.skandix.de are also pretty good, especially for obscure parts, but they aren't cheap 😮 A good source of used parts is/was Lakes Autos in Wyboston.

c. 10,000 miles in The V70. c. 20 miles in The Volvo (for shame). c. 50,000 miles in the wagons

Took the DAF back to Channel Commercials near Canterbury yesterday, as it's come off hire. I was hoping that I was going to have it for a lot longer than I did, but so it goes: It was a grand thing to work with. Overall, a better wagon in three months than my Actros ever was in three years. I'm getting a 26t Volvo FM curtainsider on a 58-plate in the new year, as I'm doing a lot of long distance work now and the management consider it to be a more suitable vehicle. Watch this space

I've got a fridge magnet of that. I bought it from the DDR Museum in Berlin ^^

I think that Mitsuoka's cars are pretty horrible (I've seen a couple of Viewts on the road here, and they really are nasty), but the M55 is in a different league. I hope that it doesn't remain a concept.

Volvo 240 convertible.

Thought I'd try and get The Volvo running today, given that I've owned it for 20 years tomorrow; a heck of a long time to own anything, let alone a car. I reconnected the battery, turned the key and it started right up, despite it not being touched since October when I lost interest in it after it wouldn't start when I fitted a new idle air control valve to it - I promptly refitted the old one, with the same result. It runs like garbage for a few minutes unless I disconnect the mass air flow sensor, though. I presume that's due to the idle control valve being goosed. I've not refitted the new one yet, as the weather's horrible and I feel a bit rough; hopefully, now it starts and runs again, fitting said valve will make the car run properly for the first time in two years. The car still has the sweetest sounding B200F engine I've ever encountered, despite having piston slap when cold, which it's always had (TADTS) but has never got worse. It's currently without an MOT and on SORN, but time permitting, hope to get it back on the road in the new year 😀

The Mitsuoka M55. Amazing: https://www.mitsuoka-motor.com/m55concept The world needs more car companies like Mitsuoka.

Changed The V70's engine oil and filter this morning, after being constantly nagged by the dashboard display for the past couple of weeks that it needs doing. I'm glad that it only needs to be done annually, as I have very little inclination do anything but check/top up the levels and check the tyre pressures these days. Being an Skilled Amateur Mechanic* of nearly 30 years' standing, I have an electric oil extraction thingy in my arsenal of tools, so the actual job was dead easy, but the aftermath was pretty grim; even in limited quantities, spilt used diesel engine oil is horrible stuff. I could never be a professional mechanic. Managed to put the car through the local IMO car wash on the way to collect the new oil, as it hadn't been washed since the end of September. It did a surprisingly good job, although the wheels could do with a further going-over: Not a bad looking car, but it would be a lot better if I gave it a T-Cut and polish, but it's not that sort of car. In any case, I'd rather drive cars than polish them these days. I did put some Clearvue on the exterior glass, though. As for The Volvo, its MOT ran out in the summer and I gave up trying to fix its seeeming incurable running issues not long after. Last time I tried tinkering with it in October, when I fitted a new idle air control valve, it wouldn't even attempt to start, even after I refitted the old one, so I seriously lost interest. I'm in no mood to get it back on the road, despite December 11th being the 20th anniversary of my owning it. Perhaps I'll have another go over Christmas, when I'm off for 10 days.

Received The V70's new loadspace mat today, and fitted it in the car park of my local Sainsbury's on the way home from work. It's of almost equal joy as the floor mats (bought it from the same eBay seller), although it would fit even better if the seatbelts for the rear-facing kid's seats weren't in the way: Incidentally, that was emptiest the back of the car had been since I bought it. It was full of stuff again within minutes of that photo being taken 😅

Panther were also responsible for creation of the Vauxhall VX Prestige concept car, a car which was intended to take on the Ford Granada, had it made it into production: It was used by Vauxhall for a while, after which it ended up in the wild, as per the photo. It was owned by the guy behind the Vauxpedia website for a bit (some GR9 content about it on there), but was probably scrapped years ago; its last tax disc expired in 1984, according to the DVLA.

I fitted a new set of eBay-sourced rubber floor mats to The V70 today: They're a great deal better than the set that they replaced as they fit properly and clip onto the pegs in the carpet, something which the previous Halfords specials never did. I'm so impressed with them that I've just ordered a matching load space mat ^^

It's a joy to see old ERFs (and Fodens and Seddon Atkinsons) being used as their makers intended.

Saw this outside Gloucester this afternoon. It's been de-liveried but the ghost of the Cummins sticker above the door is still visible. It really shifted and sounded great

I grew up near Dover and used to see Hungarocamion trucks quite a lot on the A2 and the A20 going to and from the Eastern Docks in the late 1980s and early 1990s I believe that the company was privatised in the late 1990s and became Warberers about 20 years ago.