1985; An indulgent photo thread.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I found a packet of photographs in a box. To most of you this wouldn't be unusual, but I never used to take pictures of anything before I had kids. I can't even remember owning a camera, but on this evidence I must have.

 

This was a 2.8 manual overdrive which I bought for £100 after seeing it in a front garden where it had stood for 5 years- looked and drove great,but was rotten as a pear. I put a £40 mail order MOT on it,kept it for 6 months then swapped it for a gold Volvo 144 GLE.

Obviously Santa Pod, but I can't rember what meeting, possibly Gary's Picnic. I'm pretty sure there would have been at least 2 people in the boot on the way in !

 

This is my company XR2, it was an early MK2 on steel wheels and the perfect thing to thrash through the lanes to my bosses house early in the morning ,then drive him around in his e23 735iSE. Seen here modelled by the current Mrs N, we'd only known each other a couple of months here.

[Bren]

The jag is a rare car seen as the 2.8 had a reputation for burning valves.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Same film 6 months later.

 

Believe it or not this was my new company car at 6 weeks old C227PPH XR3i, only options were alloys and sunroof. No central locking or electric windows for me. I didn't choose it, I was quite happy with the XR2, but a new account exec got fired after a month and the company was stuck with it for 3 years.

Anyway I bolted some Cibie Oscars on the front, got 3 mates together and followed the 1985 RAC Rally.

The sticker on the window was Milton Keynes and District Motor Club, it might have done the occasional 12 car night rally.

 

Anyway,to the reL rally cars

The reason Scene Tax exists?

Henri Toivennen, the winner.

Tony Pond,the only time I've ever heard cheering for a Metro.

Even then I had Shiteist tendancies

Not quite a 400.

A cool Japanese drifter.

[eddyramrod]

Company cars?  You pampered swine.  Have my 1985 samples...

Fiat 500 sneaked in during 1984, but I did use it occasionally in 85. 

Yes, that's a slim and elegant 26-year-old me with my first Granada, the 3.0GL.  I vowed I'd never have another, and look, it only took me 25 years to break that...

R30 was an impulse buy from a neighbour after it had let him down.  I never found out what had gone wrong, just stored it on a friend's driveway until I sold it as a parts car in the spring of 86.

Emergency replacement when the Granada needed the head gaskets doing again (6 months into ownership and maybe 5 since the last time).  40 notes out of the local paper with a week of MoT and about 5 weeks of tax.  It was a 2000GT and I was convinced then, and remain so, that it was ex-Lancashire Plod.

[Louise2cv]

Is that the S-reg 304 van mentioned in my spotted thread, blocking the fiat in there eddy?

 

I was 2 in 1985. Just saying..

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Were you responsible for the stylish* colour cded grille on the Granny? Very 1985.

[Inspector Morose]

Sad admission time. Up there ^ is a picture of a yellow rod with two buses behind. I know this is the pod and the buses were two West Midlands Jumbo Fleetlines (33 footers instead of the normal 30 foot). One had Park Royal bodywork and the other, Northern Counties and were joined arse to arse. I heard they were blown over in the storms of 86(?) and scrapped on site and I've never seen any photos of them before at the pod.

Just for that photo alone, I love this thread!

[eddyramrod]

Is that the S-reg 304 van mentioned in my spotted thread, blocking the fiat in there eddy?

 

I was 2 in 1985. Just saying..

The very same!

 

Were you responsible for the stylish* colour cded grille on the Granny? Very 1985.

I most certainly was.  I would alternate it at irregular intervals with the original black, just to keep people guessing.  I still have a couple of spare grilles that came with my second Granada.  Yes, the one I said I'd never have, and couldn't bloody give away when I did!  Not that I'm embittered by the experience at all, who me?