C.I.5

[scruff]

Hello shiters

 

Thought I would share with you my new transport over the past few months.

 

My 205 ate it's gearbox and was due an expensive MOT, which left me without a economical daily smoker - cold winter spannering in the dark did not sound appealing so I started looking around for a 'temporary' solution.

 

£500 and a train ride to Bromley later and I had this bad boy. 1 owner from new who (according to the badges and stickers) had been an ardent I.A.M member until he died.

 

 

It had (nearly) a year's test on it so with reckless abandon I put a year's tax in the window, figuring if the van didn't stick around I could always swap the rent onto something else. I picked it up from a Minder-esque car lot and drove it straight back to Rutland, revelling in the Chevron-pattern trim and the fact that the fuel gauge hardly moved.

 

I threw it into the daily commute and the C15 rules, it's bloody brilliant! 50-60mpg easily, does 70mph on most roads (it doesn't like hills), not too terrible to drive and GR8 for hauling crap around. Muddy dogs, lumps of steam engine, garden rubbish - all are swallowed up by the cavernous "rear pod". It is pretty rusty but I am figuring that with the mileage I do (82 miles a day for work plus weekend blezzin), if it's DeathDay with the MOT comes it won't be the end of the world to throw it away and get another one. A mate was stuck without wheelz so he fixed the 205 up and is using that.

[dollywobbler]

Nice one. I do like these. They're disappearing fast due to OMG CURROSHUN. That and the fact that they get absolutely thrashed by builder types...

[scruff]

There's a bloke near work who runs a corner shop and has one, but apart from that I very rarely see them. They used to be everywhere!! All the car spares folk down in Sussex had them for deliveries.

Quite a fancy a really late one next

[Minimad5]

Bargain motoring !

There is one local for £995 and is FULL of MOT patches

 

Think these are great, but what are they like to drive ?

[scruff]

I don't think it's too bad, my mate hates it though.

 

There's no power steering and at low speed it's rather heavy, mine's got one of those "wally knobs" on the wheel which looks daft but is useful. Bit roly-poly on corners, otherwise it's OK - 1.9 NA diesel so gets along alright and the gearbox is quite nice. I would imagine the interior is pretty identical to a late Visa so anyone who likes 80s shite will feel instantly at home!

[Lord Sterling]

Sweet as! Back in the early 90s when myself and FATHA_Sterling moved abroad, he bought one of these in Royal Blue. It was the shitiest van I've ever known, pretty solid on the outside though, it did breakdown once or twice but it was a pretty van. The Van also had some shitey OMGz roofrack loaded on top, stopped us from fitting the van into Multi-story carparks as it was a little too high.

 

It was to be the first peice of rammle in along-line of shite my Dad bought and sold over the years.

[stoterstangen90]

nice.

This is mine.

 

[Pete-M]

I weighed in a 53 plate one not long ago. The head had gone and fixing it would have meant spending double the things worth.... Which turned out to be £160 with a full tank of waste oil.

[MK5 Escort]

I've always had a bit of a 'thing' for a C15 van although I've yet to personally experience one. I love it’s oddball looks. They seem to live up to how I'd expect them to be, then. I don't know why, but I've grown a bit of a fetish for small vans over the last few years and I really enjoyed the few months I had with that scrap value Kangoo last year.

 

I don’t come across many C15's at all these days. Even late ones, which are odd sights in themselves to see such a design registered within the last decade, are becoming harder to spot.

 

Speaking of C15's, my brother announced on Christmas Day to us that he’s bought a P reg C15 Romahome camper, which is currently sitting on an industrial hardstanding/storage-type places he’s renting from a friend about five miles from his house. British registered and RHD, but believed to have spent most of the last ten years or so of it's life touring France. Despite this, the bodywork from the pictures I saw, looks fairly past it. The worst of the rust is on the bonnet, which has notably started to receded away from the plastic running strip . The interior - lovely. Best thing about it. Remember Top Gear's Caravan holiday when James May says he fancies a curry after looking at the sculpted velour? It’s nearly the same thing...! Front seats to match! He plans on repairing it for the MOT (as he knows there's no way it'll get though another as it stands) and enjoying it for a while. I'll be having a 'go' of it once the works are sorted.

 

Speaking of decent fuel economy from these things, it still has a bit of MOT on it (surprisingly) and in the month or so he’s had it, he claims it’s barely gone though half a tank of diesel.

 

Hopefully it’ll last better than his last camper if you can recall me mentioning. A 'C' reg beige and orange Renault Traffic that he decided to buy on blind faith - like he does with most things on four wheels . It turned out not only to have minor bodywork issues (it hadn't been used in a while) but also had terminal engine problems to say the least. It was last seen abandonned parked up in the corner of some back street garage-come-petrol station, with added mould and dust, near Cockermouth somewhere about six months after he washed his hands of it.

[scruff]

My bonnet is a bit like that. Non rusty ones seem to be unobtainable! I think these were made in Portugal or somewhere towards the end, wonder if they used shitter steel or something.

[dollywobbler]

My bonnet is a bit like that. Non rusty ones seem to be unobtainable! I think these were made in Portugal or somewhere towards the end, wonder if they used shitter steel or something.

 

Wouldn't surprise me. That's exactly what happened with 2CV production!

 

By the way, don't try driving one of these with eleven people in it. It's not very comfortable and the handling is attrocious... (glad it wasn't far!)