Lonsdale yd41???

[HillmanImp]

There's not been a log book issued for it since 1997, so the DVLA didn't have an owner registered for it when they did the new style log books a few years ago. 

I think I'm right in saying it would say 2014 or something normally? 

10 hours ago, sierraman said:

I feel like making it my life’s work to find one of these things. 

When you find it we can go out for a drive, you in your Lonsdale, me in my UK spec Seat Malaga. 

[somewhatfoolish]

On 1/26/2023 at 7:44 AM, sierraman said:

There must be a way of finding where it is. 

 A crack team of shiteists need to break into the doovla archive mainframe.

[Rocket88]

On 3/12/2013 at 12:40 PM, Guest said:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8385/8551758638_184f2bfa63_o.jpg

Jersey…… I know exactly where that is…

[horriblemercedes]

4 hours ago, Rocket88 said:

Jersey…… I know exactly where that is…

Go there and leave a note under the wiper 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Worth getting kitted up in the appropriate gear to be taken seriously too. 

[mk2_craig]

6 hours ago, Rocket88 said:

Jersey…… I know exactly where that is…

Your Escort van here would be the slightly inadequate consolation prize.

[Steviemillar]

I may have missed it but has anyone asked the UK Mitsubishi Owners Club or posted on any related  FB Pages asking about these Lonsdales?

 It was the reference to the guy called Dale that @Formula Autos mentions earlier that made me think of Owners Clubs or FB Pages, with Dale  being a serial Mitsubishi licker, there may be more of the older guard in these groups that know something about these and may even have info on any potential survivors? Ok, the main body of their Clubs and FB Groups will be EVO fanbois and such like but you just never know. 

[somewhatfoolish]

5 hours ago, mk2_craig said:

Your Escort van here would be the slightly inadequate consolation prize.

Glad to see the CIs are still a haven for prime autoshite.

[Dobloseven]

5 hours ago, mk2_craig said:

Your Escort van here would be the slightly inadequate consolation prize.

Is that Boycie from OFAH in the top pic? 

[cafehag]

I live in South Australia, and there are currently two examples, both badged as Mitsubishi Sigmas, in the local U pull it scrap yard which, remarkably, is located in the Adelaide suburb of Lonsdale.

I can remember seeing Lonsdales at the Earls Court motor show with my dad. Of course, none of this advances your search.

 

[somewhatfoolish]

That is the obvious answer; import a Lonsdale to the UK and fill the comics with a cheesy article about how it's the only Lonsdale in the UK, then hundreds of Lonsdales will emerge from wherever the fuck they've been stashed, along with the real 'Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies' by Van Klomp, an unmodified Citroen Saxo VTR and *another* of TE Lawrence's Rough Inferiors.

[Spottedlaurel]

Just scanning that 'Practical Moist' article.....

[Spottedlaurel]

I forgot that by this time they'd dropped the "Practical" bit from their title. Here's the article:

 

 

[StescoG66]

On 1/26/2023 at 9:18 AM, bunglebus said:

A831 YSC untaxed since Dec 93

Edimburgh car originally I think. Likely wil have been long swept up with a dustpan and brush

[Formula Autos]

News update.

I’ve been speaking to a couple of people about the potential Lonsdale - one of them runs a local garage, and knows a lot of the classic car folk in the area. I also asked my parents what they remembered of Dale.

Firstly, news on Dale. Apparently he died in the past decade or so (certainly a fair few years before the pandemic).  His car collection was smaller than it had been, but he had a few on the road at the time, and might have had some projects stashed here and there. No recollection by anyone of a Lonsdale/big Mitsubishi saloon though. 

The main things I’ve picked up though are:

My parents hardly remember him living next door to them - Dale was apparently fairly quiet, and had it not been for the old cars strewn about, they probably wouldn’t have remembered him at all. Recalling anything about him wasn’t helped by the fact that Dale’s partner Julie later lived with another bloke called Dale in that house. The conversation got a bit confused at times - I don’t think that line of enquiry can help.

Dale was “in the car trade”, and it’s thought that at some point he worked for Steele’s garage in Moor Row (just outside Whitehaven). They were Datsun/Nissan main dealers and, briefly, dealers for Colt Cars. This video is of Steele’s garage in the ‘70s https://www.facebook.com/BBCArchive/videos/474130219626680/

Dale may have worked in a bodyshop after his days at Steele’s (I think Steele’s shut up shop in the early ‘90s). 
 

After he split up from Julie he moved to a village called Arlecdon. Apparently you could tell which was his house by the Japanese cars parked on the road in front. He wouldn’t have had storage there for any cars (it was a terraced house), so when his cars were taken off the garden next door to my parents’ house, they were presumably either sold, or some storage elsewhere might have been found for them. This could well have been where Dale stopped owning the Lonsdale; Autumn ‘98, from memory.
 

Although my parents knew Julie’s surname, her and Dale weren’t married, so they never knew his.

Dale was a regular on a Saturday morning at the local scrapyards; The Forge at Cleator, “Kenny Wilson’s” near Gilgarran (actually called Broughs, but people still referred to it as Kenny’s, who was the Dad of Malcolm Wilson), and one at Workington (that I can’t remember the name of). Having been many times to “Kenny’s” I know they used to have a too good to scrap/possible classic car area, where they see if anyone wants to buy a complete car off them, before it’s certified destroyed. For someone like Dale, that’s probably temptation right there…

Dale showed cars at local car shows - the last of which was apparently a Daihatsu Charade Turbo (GTi?), which I remember seeing at a show in Distington one year. I have a programme from one year, listing cars and owners, along with a bit about the car. No sign of it the Daihatsu that year, and owners first names aren’t listed - just initials. There’s so many with the initial D that I can’t infer anything from the programme. Obviously I checked for a Lonsdale too but, unsurprisingly, there wasn’t one shown.

Through the Daihatsu, there is a possible thread to pull; Camskill (a name some of you may know if you’ve bought tyres from them). Before they went online only they had a tyre depot in Whitehaven. I used it myself a few times (they also did MOTs), and they had a small motor factors/accessories shop. Unbeknownst to me they were also suppliers of performance parts and spares for sporty Japanese cars, and the owner had one of these Charade Turbos. They also did a bit of fettling/restoration/tuning on sporty Japanese stuff too. Dale was apparently “in that clique” - at least as a customer, possibly as an employee.

Dale was apparently in his late ‘40s when I lived next door to him. Probably heading towards 50 when he moved out about 25 years ago. That would put him at around 65-ish when he died. I’ll see what the local paper’s archive throws up. Finding out where his old cars might have ended up would be a lot easier with a full name and last address.

Cars belonging to “a bloke who had a load of old Japanese cars” still exist in the area as projects - one of which is the Celeste I mentioned in an earlier post, and another is a Triumph Acclaim (OK, so Japanese-ish) that a local garage owner was going to restore. His garage was shut and demolished for housing, and that car ended up in a poly tunnel in a garden centre opposite. Next time I’m there I’ll check for a Lonsdale, on the off-chance.

The garage owner I was talking to about Dale reckoned that the Lonsdale most probably got scrapped- it’ll have been worthless at the time, and losing the free storage in a front garden would have, in his opinion, meant Dale would have probably had it collected by a scrappy. Unless someone was kind enough to store it for him. Then it might just have survived.

Investigations continue …..

[sierraman]

They’ll make a film about this shit one day. A bit like raiders of the lost arc but about a band of misfits that track down the last Lonsdale. 

It’s a shame we haven’t got a bent copper in tow that could look up last known address...🤣

[Dick Cheeseburger]

I'm still impressed that the last remaining (I think) Sao Penza ended up on here, albeit briefly. 

[egg]

3 hours ago, Dick Longbridge said:

I'm still impressed that the last remaining (I think) Sao Penza ended up on here, albeit briefly. 

Doesn't one of Nigel's kids still have it?

[Dick Cheeseburger]

28 minutes ago, egg said:

Doesn't one of Nigel's kids still have it?

I assumed Nigel still had it but remember he quit the forum shortly after buying the car? Wasn't it an immaculate garage find? Hopefully it's stored well in the meantime. 

[egg]

2 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

I assumed Nigel still had it but remember he quit the forum shortly after buying the car? Wasn't it an immaculate garage find? Hopefully it's stored well in the meantime. 

SORN'd and MOT expired 2020 (K716 SKL)

[Dick Cheeseburger]

1 hour ago, egg said:

SORN'd and MOT expired 2020 (K716 SKL)

12 months ago.

It appears to have been sat. Shame as that thing was a 23k minter and the last one remaining. 

Before:

After (three years later - photo taken 12 months ago):

Forget the Lonsdale.  This thing needs saving...

[egg]

Umm, sorry for thread dereail but G34XLR is a silver Mazda 323 with tax and MOT....what's Nige up to?

[Dick Cheeseburger]

10 minutes ago, egg said:

Umm, sorry for thread dereail but G34XLR is a silver Mazda 323 with tax and MOT....what's Nige up to?

I've taken it over here to pull this thread back on track:

 

[sierraman]

57 minutes ago, egg said:

Umm, sorry for thread dereail but G34XLR is a silver Mazda 323 with tax and MOT....what's Nige up to?

Wasn’t there some big disagreement about money and then he disappeared? 

[Formula Autos]

Further update. 

Not good news though. I think the trail has gone cold. 

I rang round the scrapyards that Dale frequented and after the whole “what’s a Lonsdale?” conversation was got over, I asked each of them if they have any trace of such a car, or even remembered Dale. Sadly, this got a result from one of them - they had  a record of “Lonsdale/Mitsubishi 2.6 saloon”. No record of any parts having been taken off it. The fact there’s a record of it basically indicates in was “on the stack” at some point, before presumably being baled. Cars that are still in the yard are shown as “parts available”, and it doesn’t have that status in their system. They went over to computerised inventory in the mid-90s, apparently. The timescales all seem to fit with it being Dale’s car. Especially as there’s very little detail like the colour, number plate, and VIN, that they’ve been recording for years now.

No doubt it’s been recycled long ago. As was to be expected.

There’s the slimmest of slim hopes in that they didn’t remember Dale, and there’s no colour mentioned in the system. I can’t say definitively that this is the same car, but let’s face it, it is.

[Soundwave]

Not the end we'd hoped for, but nice bit of detective work!

[Formula Autos]

On 1/29/2023 at 2:34 AM, somewhatfoolish said:

That is the obvious answer; import a Lonsdale to the UK and fill the comics with a cheesy article about how it's the only Lonsdale in the UK, then hundreds of Lonsdales will emerge from wherever the fuck they've been stashed, along with the real 'Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies' by Van Klomp, an unmodified Citroen Saxo VTR and *another* of TE Lawrence's Rough Inferiors.

Well there is an Oz-barge (Betty the Ford Fairmont of Dollywobbler/HubNut fame) wafting around Wales. It’s do-able.

On the flip side, no-one remotely sane would do it for such a forgotten make as Lonsdale.
 

But it is do-able.

[sierraman]

I refuse to believe that every last one has been scrapped. Somewhere in a shed lies our answer...

[egg]

22 minutes ago, Formula Autos said:

There’s the slimmest of slim hopes

it's the hope that kills you, no seriously, well done for making the effort! 👏

[somewhatfoolish]

2 hours ago, Formula Autos said:

There’s the slimmest of slim hopes in that they didn’t remember Dale, and there’s no colour mentioned in the system. I can’t say definitively that this is the same car, but let’s face it, it is.

 

2 hours ago, egg said:

it's the hope that kills you, no seriously, well done for making the effort! 👏

Indeed, excellent effort in doing the research!👍