Princess Anne had one you know....

[meggersdog]

I had an SE5a auto in about 1990.After fitting new shocks and 205 tyres it handled very well.

It had been laid up for a few years before I got it.(Probably) due to this three weeks after getting it MOTd the master cylinder seals let go.

Trying to scrub the speed off a heavy auto with no brakes and a fairly shit handbrake is not fun.I used a stone wall to completely stop it.A new set of rubber seals fitted and it went straight on Autotrader.So my experience of an SE5a auto was not a good one.

I remember the MOT tester reffered to it as a plastic Zephyr

[Skizzer]

The car is now located in the Frankfurt area, and his widow is asking €2,000 - which I think is more than fair.

 

 

I normally prefer SE6s but that 5 looks really lovely.  Very sad about the reason for sale.

 

Frankfurt, you say?  SKIZZER DELIVERY SERVICE AVAILABLE (although not until at least the end of July).

[spike60]

When I had my 79 SE6 a friend had a 73, manual, non PAS. The two were chalk and cheese, the later one was a class, if a little needy, act, and the earlier one was unrefined, very heavy to drive, unpleasant. I'm not wild about auto's but in this case it was the way to go, I don't know what the manual box was from but I drove almost everywhere in 3rd, it was a pig. 

PAS SE6's can tear the wishbone brackets off the chassis, - as I found in the Tyne Tunnel!

[Guest Breadvan72]

Recidivist speeding ticket getter:-

[Guest Breadvan72]

Yo junkster, got any interior shots of that green Scimitar?

 

Ta

 

 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Am I correct in thinking that the early ones as in this ad.and the one in Junkman's pictures had plastic wheeltrims? If so does that make them the first to use them?

 

 

My own experience of a Scimitar was se5 auto that my dad ran for a couple of years,it was yellow with slot mags and I thought it old and slow at the time. Oh to be 19 and know everyfuckingthing again!

[plasticvandan]

First car to have a rear window wiper irrc,and one of the first with a split folding rear seat.

[Guest Breadvan72]

Also the first car where if you bought one new the Chairman's secretary would give you a hand job round by the bins.  Or was that the Maestro?  Bit hazy.

[Junkman]

Yo junkster, got any interior shots of that green Scimitar?

 

Ta

 

No

[mercrocker]

Rear wiper I can't think of an earlier example, but split rear seats were on the Stiletto/Imp Californian a year or so before the GTE.   Fat lot of good without an opening rear window as on other Imps!    I also seem to recall buyers of Horsey Horseless's first model entitled you to look at the chief draughtsman's wife's ankles through a canvas veil.   Oh, and I woke up this morning with no particular Scimitar craving so I guess its passed for the time being....

[Stroller133]

I'm definately getting one. As soon as I lose 5/6 stone and get fit enough to cycle 17 miles to work in less than an hour! Unfortunately then I'll probably never have one?

[laser wheels]

I've been doing a bit of online research and was surprised to find just how much more expensive the Interceptor was! In fact in the late '60s the Scimitar was the same price as a Rover 3500 and a little bit more than an MGC (according to Wikipedia). Still over £20,000 in todays money, mind you. Hell, that sort of cash these days would get you an, erm, 1.6 TDI VW Golf, although obviously you would have to pony up an extra few grand for the SE spec.

 

Modern life is rubbish.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

This made me think about what the modern day Scimitar and Interceptor drivers would drive.

The Jensen driver would I think be right at home in a Continental GT , but a modern day Scimitar is harder to think of, I suppose it would have to be around the £45,000 level based on a Rover 3500 being a high spec 5 Series/ Jag XF equivalent .

Apart from identikit German coupes , nothing springs to mind,what does Princess Anne drive now?

[laser wheels]

Being proper posh, I'm guessing she probably still drives a Scimitar possibly while wearing a Barbour jacket inherited form her grandmother, cos that's how really proper posh people 'roll'.

[oman5]

Yes. People with "old money" tend to hang onto stuff.

[mercrocker]

^Including their money....An uncle of mine once explained to me as a child that proper posh people were able to do so because they only had to buy things once.   I seem to remember it was during a particularly grim floor pan examination of his Mk 1 Mini....

[Six-cylinder]

I had this 1972 5a manual o/d for a while in 1984. While it had only done 60,000 miles it had run a big end bearing before I bought it, this was due to London living and a lots of short journeys. I had the engine rebuilt and it felt great very smooth and fast by 1984 standards and in those young days for me rear tyres only lasted 4500 miles. The reason I did not keep it long was it gave me terrible back pain.

 

[coalnotdole]

Princess Anne does indeed still own a middlebridge scimitar....

 

[Junkman]

This made me think about what the modern day Scimitar and Interceptor drivers would drive.

The Jensen driver would I think be right at home in a Continental GT , but a modern day Scimitar is harder to think of, I suppose it would have to be around the £45,000 level based on a Rover 3500 being a high spec 5 Series/ Jag XF equivalent .

Apart from identikit German coupes , nothing springs to mind,what does Princess Anne drive now?

 

I don't think the Interceptor ever attracted such parvenues of the in-crowd, as those Swarovski festooned Anglo-Teutonic VWs on steroids do today.

The Jensen was more for the brainy artsy fartsy types with six-digit income tax returns, no?

Like the Scimitar, it has no modern equivalent, since the wealthy intellectual sector of society has been completely obliterated by the dumb and happy.

[laser wheels]

I had pretty much came to the same conclusion.

 

I suppose when you think about it it's pretty amazing. A handbuilt GT from a British manufacturer for the price of a middle range Euro-box today? I don't think it could be done now. Maybe the market has just changed too much.

[Junkman]

You could call the extinction of the educated middle class a market change, yes.

[michael1703]

Princess Anne does indeed still own a middlebridge scimitar....

It's looking a bit rough around the edges...

 

(Insert actnbe joke here)

[Guest Breadvan72]

The Interceptor was always a bit spivvy, whch is why I had two.  I couldn't have a Bristol, because I bought my own furniture. 

[Guest Breadvan72]

Being proper posh, I'm guessing she probably still drives a Scimitar possibly while wearing a Barbour jacket inherited form her grandmother, cos that's how really proper posh people 'roll'.

 

 

HM Brenda is famously as tight as a gnat's chuff.

[Junkman]

The Interceptor was always a bit spivvy, whch is why I had two.  I couldn't have a Bristol, because I bought my own furniture. 

 

I'd be more the Bristol type, I guess, or even better, make it a Facel Vega, for bonus international-man-of-mystery-ness.

Then again, I think a Scimitar would simply suit me best of the bunch, since it conveys this nice little extra dab of I-don't-give-a-shit-about-what-you-think-of-me-ness.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Without wishing to be disrespectful to any former gentleman owners or indeed any former owners who are still gentleman, I always thought the the Interceptor was the definitive working class boy made good car .

I don't know if George Best ever had one,but he should have.

I know Henry Cooper had one and didn't Dave Hill from Slade have one registered YOB1? Although that could have been a CV8, thinking about it.

When I was about 8 I had the yellow Dinky FF and always thought Astons and Ferraris were a bit shit in comparison. The fact I was born about 2 miles from Kelvin Way may have had some bearing on this.

[Guest Breadvan72]

An Interceptor is the perfect car for the type of man who wants women to think that he has more money than he actually has.  Hence me again.

[Junkman]

A Scimitar is the perfect car for the type of man who doesn't give a toss about women who put any importance on how much money he has.  

Hence me again.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

The Scimitar and Interceptor are for the type of man that thinks it's acceptable to rummage through the entire stock of old Triumph / Bedford /Ford and Chrysler Valiant tat at an auto jumble ,rather than go on the Europarts website like a normal person. Hence both of you contrary old gits.

[Junkman]

The Scimitar and Interceptor are for the type of man that thinks it's acceptable to rummage through the entire stock of old Triumph / Bedford /Ford and Chrysler Valiant tat at an auto jumble ,rather than go on the Europarts website like a normal person. Hence both of you contrary old gits.

 

My evil twin Breadvan and I are the type of men, who don't get any pleasure from attending an autojumble to buy parts for our cars. Fun is to buy parts for cars we don't own. Hence we are totally normal.