Why did your shite survive?

[worldofceri]

I have the original service records for my VW Beetle.  It was serviced every 3000 miles at a dealer for around ten years up until about 1982 and 75000 miles.  Must have been been just one or two owners in this time.

 

Then there are a further five previous owners on the log book who took it through it's 'old banger' phase, and are probably responsible for the majority of the bodges and dubious modifications which nevertheless kept it going.

 

The eighth owner was a middle-aged lady from Warwick, who used it as a second or occasional car, and had it serviced and repaired at a reputable specialist, including a partial engine rebuild.

 

My wife bought it in 2001 and did her best to kill it by parking it in the street in all weathers, using it daily for work and fairly frequent longer trips and doing the bare minimum in terms of maintenance.

 

My name appeared on the V5 in 2003, which probably makes me it's longest-serving keeper.  It's been off the road for at least half of that time, but I'm a sentimental sod which is the main reason I never succumbed to the call of the 'scrap carz collekted free' brigade or Ebay free-listings weekends.

 

So to summarize, it lives because:

 

a.  Well maintained by long-serving early owners.

b.  Had a 'scene' or following to nurse it through the banger days.

3.  Hasn't been fucked up by too many bad repairs or irreversible mods.

d.  Latterly owned by lunatic who refuses to get rid despite the unjustifiable cost, skinned knuckles, family arguments and general ball-ache.

e.  It's actually quite difficult to kill.

[r.welfare]

My cars aren't old enough to be interesting in this regard (V and 02 plates) but I've already noticed that most of the motors in my local scrapyard are around the same age, which makes you think.

[Mr Lobster]

 

Survived because its had an easy life. First owner evidently only used it for light work (I *think* it was a florist or somesuch not hard  using of vans type of business) it then passed to a tv production company who used it for a Robbie Williams video apparently before forgetting they owned it and eventually selling it to an enthusiast in Chester who did all the neccesary welding before selling it to me. It still leads a very easy life and has only done 76k in its 28 years.

[Billy - Medhurst]

All though at 2003 my car is modern by most standards its a mid 1990s design out of fashion car that's scrapped in high numbers. Its only still here because its had one owner until June / July when I bought it. Has some scary receipts for work done. All ways main dealer work with no expence spared. Apart from a missing mot certificate all history is there including deposit receipt /  brochure it was chosen from. Couple of small faults but it was cheap - is comfy and does 53mpg. Bonus cheaper insurance than my Peugeot 206 diesel it replaced. 

2003 ROVER 25 2000cc IL TURBODIESEL 03 PLATE by Midlands Vehicle Photographer., on Flickr

[Skizzer]

Lovely from a distance by Skizzer, on Flickr

 

Survived because of a series of elderly owners, I suspect.  Bought blind by Scooters (formerly of this parish) on eBay by mistake: he surprised himself by winning a Triumph 2000 at the same time and didn't have fundage/space/time for both.  So he rang me up and said 'you know how you've always wanted a Jag?' and I picked it up instead.  Now being slowly sorted by XJ Restorations in Eastbourne.  It must have been garaged for much of its life because it's not been seriously welded and it's sound underneath, though rather frilly around the non-structural edges.

 

 

Lancia Dedra Turbo - free at last by Skizzer, on Flickr

 

This survived because it got stuck in that shed with a coolant leak and forgotten about until I came along.  Now hopefully being brought up to MOT standard by Mike at the Alfa Shed.

 

 

 

 

As with Pete's 604, it's ironic how lots of chod survives because something minor breaks and the owners file them under F for Forget instead of scrapping them.  

 

 

 

[Cavcraft]

Sadly I don't really know the history of my cars.

 

The green hatch was purchased from a friendly but strange sort of bloke in Buxton. He'd sort of partially Barried it up a bit with stupid sub and HUGE speakers in the boot (long since lobbed out) a BFO sun strip (still on, I like it as it keeps the sun out of my eyes) and it's on 205GTi alloys and seems to be lowered. Anyhow the rocker cover gasket was leaking and there was a couple of daft faults with it, and I reckon he'd just thought it was knackered or not worth spending money on so he took his chances on eBay. Several thousand miles later it's still going great guns, has needed pretty minimal work and has subsequently turned out to be one of the best bargain buys I ever made.  

[Cavcraft]

 

 

Survived because its had an easy life. First owner evidently only used it for light work (I *think* it was a florist or somesuch not hard  using of vans type of business) it then passed to a tv production company who used it for a Robbie Williams video apparently before forgetting they owned it and eventually selling it to an enthusiast in Chester who did all the neccesary welding before selling it to me. It still leads a very easy life and has only done 76k in its 28 years.

 

 

I don't suppose you know where about in Chester that used to live, do you? There's some lady who lives about a mile from me and whose garage is right next to mine. She has/had loads of oddball cars and once when she opened her garage she had stacks of R4 bits in there. She actually threw a complete front end out years back, I went to see if I could have anything off it but it was knackered.

Anyhow I think she had a maroon coloured R4 (car) in there at one time and the a yellow one which she bought for parts.

[dollywobbler]

My 2CV survived because I bought it cheap and, when it was too rotten, shelled out to restore it. That was the first time I restored a car. The restoration has been continuing ever since...

 

The Sirion seems typical giffer owned before it went banger rallying earlier this year. Happily, the people rallying it seemed quite sensible and actually looked after it, covering it in 'hilarious' graphics that easily came off.

 

The Discovery was lingering on and will hopefully continue to do so. I'm not sure it has ever been well cared for, but has received some maintenance over the years at least.

[cort16]

I fixed up my Puma just for the hell of it. I welded up the wings, put  a new arch and a door on it then gave it a few service just because I felt sorry for it and I know there's not many pumas out their suffering from terminal arch rot. I lost some money off it on it gave me a good sense of satisfaction knowing it would live on for a bit and it left me better than it came to me.

[saucedoctor]

 

Bought new by me nearly 12 years ago, now on 42K miles. I have largely un-Project Driven it by obtaining a list of what MG-Rover deleted, and getting the bits. It wasn't all that well built if I'm honest, and the dealers weren't great at fixing the issues when it was under warranty. I wasn't able to drive it for about 18 months due to a shoulder injury (which meant I needed an auto), but it got regular outings in that time with my Dad.

Now obsessively maintained by me, it's also getting new front wings and a respray next year. I still have a spare 16K16 engine, a decompression plate and a turbo, but I've been dithering about the swap for about 2 years now! I've had 16 other cars in the time I've owned this, but this one's a keeper.

Some of the car's history      http://class-ni.weebly.com/

Edited December 1, 2013 by saucedoctor

[Rusty_Rocket]

Two of mine-

 

1976 Mini 1000

 

 

Stayed with the clichéd elderly lady for most of its life until her death.  Then recommissioned by a nice chap in Essex; bought by me a year later.

It has only one patch on the n/s sill and a replacement rear valance.  Otherwise, is original body-wise.  Paint is mainly original and getting very tired now.

Interesting* fact - it was bought new from the Tourist Trophy Garage in Farnham, Surrey which was owned by Mike Hawthorn (http://www.mike-hawthorn.org.uk/ttgarage.php) of which I have the original sales invoice.  I also have a full RAC report from the time which mentions the dent on the n/s front wing which is still there.

 

1993 Discovery TDi

 

 

Has had two previous owners, one long-term ownership by an old boy who passed away.  His widow refused to sell the car and it sat on her driveway for 8 years, totally untouched.  I bought it and spent 6 months recommissioning it (brakes, suspension, engine work, tyres etc).

Due to its rest, it has low mileage for one of these and is yet to be welded (won't stay that way for long).

Certainly earns its living with me nowadays.

 

 

[Bren]

My mother in law owns this-

 

 

 

1989 F plate 2.4 Ghia - owned since 1991. Car is in generally good condition but has had a bit of weldng to the rear of the sills, the rear arches need some attention but I can weld/fill/paint and the flint grey (quite rare) paintwork is an easy match.

 

The reason it has lasted this long is delicate use and the fact it lives in a garage - this must be the single biggest factor in preventing the deterioration of a car.

 

If I did'nt have a garage I would'nt even contemplate owning a classic or a bike - they really are at the mercy of the elements.

[Lukas]

The storys of my cars are almost the same, only with different persons...

 

Car 1: Mitsubishi Pajero 2,5 TD DL Wagon

 

 

It was bought new by an elderly man in 1987, who lived in Vienna (not much salt, short winters), had it garaged all of the time and he had it rustproofed too. After he died in 2005, his son kept it in storage until 2012, when he sold it cheap to a dubious used-car-dealer who serviced it and drove it for one winter. He then realised what fantastic, almost rustfree example with only 112.000 genuine kilometres on it he got there and put it on sale for a lot more what he paid for it. I found it by coincidence offered for sale on a big Austrian used-car-site and went to look at it. Not because I wanted to buy it, but because I wanted to look if it was the usual badly welded together exemplar with thick layers of underbody-"protection" to hide the rust. But I was so surprised by it´s almost unmarked condition, I had to buy it. It was expensive and he earned a lot of money with it, but now I got one of the best original Pajeros surviving in Austria. Before I looked at it, a hunter went to see it but thankfully he did not buy it because it was too expensive for him. I bet it would have ended up like all the other ones then. I´m not driving it during winter, have it garaged all the time and I plan to keep it forever!

 

Car 2: Subaru Leone 1.8 GL Turismo Full-Time-AWD

 

 

An old lady bought it new in 1986 to use it as here car. She always garaged it and drove it only 120.000km until 2004, when she died. It was bought back by the dealer she bought it from who put it in a shed with two other 3-door-coupes (called Turismo) he had. He soon decided to sell them on and so a friend of mine (Subaru-mechanic) bought them. He sold the other two and kept this one to modify it like an early WRX. He wanted it to have a bonnet-scoop, a 2-litre-WRX-Turbo-engine and so on, but thankfully he lost his mojo and kept it stored dry until 2011. The only modification it still has is the Full-Time-AWD-transmission with lockable centre-diff. It had FWD with part-time-4WD as standard. In summer 2011 I asked him what he wants to do with it and he told me he will send it to the scrappy. I told him to restore it for me as I owned two other Leone before and grew up with this type of car. So since november 2011, he is restoring it for me, it should be finished in April 2014. I don´t know how long I will keep it, let´s wait and see.

 

I would say I saved both of my cars! One from a hard life hunting and one from the scrappy. Feels good!

 

Lukas

[wuvvum]

If I did'nt have a garage I would'nt even contemplate owning a classic or a bike - they really are at the mercy of the elements.

 

This.  The Renner Six is spending its first winter outside this year after I lost my garage in the summer, and I'm not at all happy about it.

 

Not really sure why most of mine survived - I bought the R6 off a chap who didn't really seem to know how rare it was and had just bought it as he wanted a tax exempt runaround - it had been used as a farm car so had plenty of mud chucked up in hard to reach places which I spent ages getting rid of.

 

The LNA seems to have been in Citroën enthusiast ownership over the last few years, which has probably helped. 

 

The Talbot again I don't know much about, but it's only done 40K from new so I assume it was owned by a biddy and garaged.  Then Boobydoo owned it, and his Talbots are always in prime condition once he's finished with them.

 

The Innocenti is a bit newer.  It's also quite a bit worse for wear - I don't think there's much in the way of structural grot, but the offside door skin is coming away from the frame at the bottom, and the front lip of the bonnet is starting to bubble up a bit too.  Still, that's probably partly my fault for using it as my daily for so long.

 

The Volvo has survived, as others have said, because it's a Volvo.

 

None of the above ever go out when there's salt on the roads.  I don't even like taking the Talbot out when it's wet as the roads round here are so muddy - I always give it a blast with a jet wash if it's been out in the rain.  Hopefully this will help them to survive for a while longer, although the constant damp conditions from now until about April aren't going to help them much.

[Lukas]

I too think that a dry garage and regular additional rust-protection are essential if you want to keep an older car alive. The worst thing you could do to a car is driving it in the salt. Salty water will get everywhere in and on the bodywork, forcing it to rust faster than ever.

 

Even the regular wash at the local jet-washing-station during winter-time is bad because they recycle the water (Oh so environmental friendly!) and there will be small amounts of salt in the water that comes out the jet-wash from the first salt until the mid of spring when all the "old", recycled water from winter is used up. Was told to me by the owner of such a station.

 

Lukas

[saucedoctor]

^ I was told this also.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I've just realised I'm a serial car killer, ok my 316 auto started off with that fabled 'Little old Lady' from 1989 to 2006 then anther woman who was rich (stupid?) enough to have it main dealer serviced until 2010. This and the fact it's beige and auto have probably saved it from death,although when I get time,space and an e36 328 manual donor car that'll change. Our Mx5 s have survived by virtue of their enthusiast* nature, my rusty old Disco because it's useful and I know a couple of friendly MOT testers, Though again this could change soon ie even too far gone for me to take the piss.

What troubles me is my daily work cars, I've worn out some potentially nice autoshite cars over the last few years just by working them into the ground. My current Chrysler is only just about to have its second MOT and already it's done 240,000 miles and my long held belief that servicing is for sissys and just repair when it breaks means that inevitably when I finish with them,even though they look immaculate they're not long for this world. Saying that I saw my old e39 525d flying down the M1 the other day and that was written off 5 years ago by a Polish Renault Magnum and at the time had just gone over 300k. I wonder if the owner is aware of its history or how many miles it's done.

[Mr Livered]

Blimey - a saline jet wash, carefully applied to the entire car, with particular attention given to crevices, gaps, arches, etc... I had no idea about that; thanks for the warning.

 

Explanations for shite longevity: my Mercedes and Saab were both fairly expensive cars when they were new, and I think they were owned by people who saw them as big investments which needed care and attention. Then they passed to people who were "into" the marque for their worthless phase.

 

The Minx was a genuine barn find: it appears to have been parked up at the back of a barn in 1988 after a pretty easy life (it only had 20k miles up to that point, and I think it might have been giffer transport). It was disinterred in 2012 so it spent most of its banger phase tucked away.

 

Completely agree that being garaged makes a huge difference. I only have access to one garage and one open-fronted carport type thing. So I can put the Minx away properly and the Saab under cover, but the poor old Merc gets no protection from the elements, unfortunately.

[HMC]

The Sierra doesnt have that much history with it aside from the service book whick runs out of main dealer stamps after 4 or 5 years as per usual. There isnt much evidence of how it came to remain unscathed, and having had 8 owners it seems unlikely that here was one old chap long termer who permenantly carcooned it etc. Ive sent off a v888 history request which may shed a bit more light on things.

 

 

The jag really doesnt have much history with it either. But ive pieced some of it together. It was registered in swindon, july 1964 as an opalescent green RHD 3.4 manual. At at some point it was exported to South Africa, which probably saved it, spared it british winters and a possible role as a getaway car in the sweeney.

 

It came back in 1991 and I wrote to the next owner, getting this reply...

 

 

So it dodged the british climate, comes back over here, but this guy bids on it as a resto and it turns out to be a bit of a dog.

 

This is where a lot of stuff gets half pulled apart and eventually scrapped. Or left outside under a tarp to fester. What saved it next was that he did nothing. But he did store it well for a good few years with it still viable as a restoration.

 

The resto guys gave it a bit of an old tart up type job as the subsequent 3 owners have gradually undone filler, glassfibre and newspaper type stuff that lay under the paint. So they bodged it up a bit but they returned it to the road and basically saw the job through.

Oddly enough the colour may have been a factor in its fate. When it came back to the uk it had been changed to white, and at least 3 of the previous owners had spent out with a view to doing weddings in it!

[dollywobbler]

My 2CV is proof of what winter use does to a classic. It's in a right state. But I can't bring myself to take it off the road through the winter, mainly because the 2CV lot organise a lot of road rallies in late December/January. I have tried garaging it, but that just seems to make it rot more quickly, presumably because it's impossible to put it away bone dry. My aim next year (as long as I don't bankrupt myself by buying a bus) is to buy a 'nice' old classic, that will definitely be kept for dry days only as much as possible. Should be a challenge in Wales!

[mercrocker]

Dry day classics are  great, but it seems too easy to slide into a situation where hardly any weather condition or useage seems good enough.  And if your storage is less than ideal well I think  you are just killing the car another way.    My Minor is used daily in the salt and lives in a carport.  I do wash it off with fresh water (no Karcher - I  reckon they just  piss all  the salt into crevices that are unlikely ever to be flushed out) and repaint underneath every summer followed by gallons of bloody expensive Dynax (better than Wankoyl).   Usefulness is far more  likely to be rewarded with necessary expenditure and care than something that just sits around looking pretty but quickly becomes a luxury.  Necessity is what makes things live longer for me.   Failing that, a big, dry and airy barn....

[Mr Livered]

Dry day classics are great, but it seems too easy to slide into a situation where hardly any weather condition or useage seems good enough.

That's true, and for me there's only any point having a classic car if it gets driven - and I mean actually used for actually going places in your daily life, not taking it to shows and back again.

 

There's a great thread on the UK Saabs forum where a chap writes about how much he loves his mrs and what a fine girl she is. The evidence? One rainy day when she needed to go shopping and only the Saab 900 was available, she left it in the garage and took the bus instead so that it could stay dry.

 

If I recall correctly it was his idea, too. If I suggested the same thing to Mrs Livered I'm not exactly sure what would happen but it's highly probable that it would involve some power tools and my bollocks.

[meggersdog]

This used and abused machine only survived because I had a 15kg reel of mig-wire

 

 

 

How this one survived I don't really know.

It is a Trigger's broom though : series 3 bulkhead, RangeRover diffs,bigger LWB brakes,new half chassis at some point

and the list goes on.I've only driven 300 miles in the last year in it though.

My (now) daily driver is a 19 year old 300TDi Discovery with 209k miles.It's led a hard life but seems to have survived somehow.

[Mr Livered]

Yes, some shite will survive against the odds for no apparent reason. I suppose that there are brand new cars which turn out to be complete lemons and don't last long; the miraculous and inexplicable survivor is the other side of that coin.

[plasticvandan]

I rescued this in 2008:

 

Its a 1959 Reliant Regal mk4 van,one of only 347 built,and after i found it,the sole survivor. How did it survive? Amazingly,it was parked up next to a hedge on the owners drive after failing its MOT in 1969.....on chassis rot!! (as you can imagine,there wasnt much left when i got it) at the time a new chassis could be bought from Reliant for around £40,so it was parked up in the hope that the owner could save up enough to buy one.that never happened,and while 99% of other sidevalve reliants got scrapped in the early 70s,this one continued to sit on the drive until the owners son (the owner having died years ago) had to sell the house,the pikeys had already nicked the metal railings and gates,and the van had to go.Now in the hands of a big Reliant dealer in Norfolk who has his own collection of early cars  It did come with its brown logbook,reg number : 7445 E

[scruff]

My Land Rover survived purely by luck. 

 

It had been bought in 1957 by a Bristol businessman who ran two caravan parks at Sand Bay, Kewstoke. He basically ran it into the ground and the engine seized up; that was in 1976. Being a bit of a hoarder, he put it in a shed on one of his camps and there it sat until 2009.

 

Unfortunately I didn't find it, so paid a bit of a premium. I'd been after an 80" for ages and looked at some right heaps, this was rough but ticked all the boxes - complete, original, nice history and original buff log book.

 

 

 

Genuine mileage confirmed by old MOTs... don't think it had ever been serviced though.

 

 

The owner had painted it in Dulux 'park bench green' which was coming off in big sheets, revealing the original 1952 paint underneath... a real bonus for me. My wife and I carefully scraped the Dulux off with the aid of Mr Muscle which is an excellent 'soft' paint stripper... don't leave it on too long though.

 

We stripped it right down, replaced the rotten bulkhead with a repaired & galved one from a 1950, replaced the roof with a soft top, repaired the chassis, put a 'new' engine in, replaced all the brake pipes, had the cylinders sleeved and put a new loom in... finished just in time to drive it to Switzerland in July 2011. Apart from a blocked fuel filter on the M25 it didn't miss a beat. 

 

 

IMG_1168 by sparkright, on Flickr

[Vince70]

Mines a relative newbie but I think mine survived because it only did 10000 miles in ten years and was resold on at 10 years old by an Audi dealer for top money so it always had money thrown at it .

 

It was only at around 15 years old that the old girl started missing the odd service and was tampered with by the local kwik fit using cheap pattern Parts that things started to go down hill for the old girl.

 

The previous dealer threw some money at the old girl to get her ship shape such as fitting a new rear screen etc and I've serviced the old girl and fitted a couple of sensors and a new gauge and cheap cat to get her running ship shape again also I fitted a new rear bumper and had the seat repaired so she now looks near as good as new but I only do about 3000 a year in her.and she's now on 71000 and I'm the 5th owner.

 

She was one of my more extravagant buys at £700 and had a brilliant 700 mile round trip to pick her up.

And it comes with the best engine the 2,3 5 pot.

 

My winter hack was another eBay find which cost £281 4 years ago the reason it survived was just due to lack of use at it had only done around 52000 with 3 owners and the previous owner had bought himself a newish yellow A3 and had left the old girl on the bottom of his drive for six months.

 

He had bought it as a stop gap a couple of years previously but in his ownership he had put on 4 new tyres and had it serviced.

 

But it had a little bit of neglect as the drivers window was held in with wedges of cardboard and a gap where the stereo had been and it really needed a new clutch and had been keyed down the side but it came with a new window mechanism in the boot and a Haynes manual.

Its now a little gem and hasn't cost much to get it up to scratch. I already had the same colour touch up paint in my shed from a previous golf I had owned and after a compound and a steady hand with a modelling brush it looks great.

 

It did need a few oil changes though to get the hydraulic tappets working well again and I also had a 350 mile road trip to pick her up.

But it did come with tax and test and is truly immaculate inside and the £8 Panasonic stereo from eBay sounds superb.

 

Both cars are the same colour so my theory is I had to have two so I could use my old pot of VW touch up paint..

 

I do wonder if Audi did any other colours during the early 90s

[jonny69]

My Anglia had been restored probably about 10-15 years before I bought it, but it had been done in the way of the times - oversills and patches and lots of filler. I only found it all when I started my own restoration and cutting through the rot revealed it. So it was that original restoration that saw it up to the year 2000 and then my naivety / stubbornness that saw it through my own restoration. I always said in hindsight that I'd never have started the work if I had known how rotten the car was. I remember at the time I was too broke to buy another car but I had time on my hands to try and sort the current one.

[oldford]

Mine shouldn't have done, it had about the worst first owner that a car could get.  For the first 6 months of its life it was a hire car and having worked for an agent for that particular hire company for the preceding 7 years and working for another one at the time, I know exactly how it would have been treated.

 

After it had reached its sale mileage (around 14,000), it would have stood around for a few months before appearing on a dealers forecourt.  After that it had another 4 or so owners.

 

The previous owner was an old lady, who garaged it and had it serviced and repaired as necessary, until she traded it in with us for something a little more manageable.

 

If I hadn't bought it, it would have likely gone to someone who would use it and run it into the ground and would have been scrapped by now.

 

 

 

Unfortunately it lives outside now and gets used all year round, so it's not going to last forever.

[HMC]

My old 500sel w126

 

 

Survived thanks to Col. Gadaffi, bear with me.

 

The owner from the mid 90s to the mid 2000s was the Sirte oil company, the london base of the Libya state oil combine.

 

They stored it underground , sparing the bodywork (slightly shabby paint but sound underneath)

 

A clue to its former life was the front grill was pitted as a fastidious chauffeur had polished the plating off it!

 

Edit- it may not have survived- dvla has liability as march this year- sorned or scrapped.