Six Cylinders Motoring Notes - Auto Culture

[Six-cylinder]

1 hour ago, mitsisigma01 said:

Wow 😲

Poverty is not even having no clock!

[Six-cylinder]

A Morris Oxford Coupe may not be everybody's cup of tea but I had a nice road run in mine along with a friend in his Morris Oxford Convertible today. We attended Osselli's Open Day which is 10 mins from me but we found a route so it took 1 1/2 hours just for fun!

[Six-cylinder]

If I could have borrowed any car for a drive out from Osselli's today it would have been this Maserati Ghibli.

[Six-cylinder]

@MiniMinorMk3 I have moved the discussion about Motorist Discount Centre away from Andyrew's Panda thread  so not to pollute that.

I joined MDC (RC Hartley Ltd) in Oct 1979 during there London expansion, my training was in the Pinner shop and as they were very short of staff it was not long before I was given my first Manager job at Pinner. I then moved to Slough Divisional HQ. I was given the new branch in Aylesbury and bought a house in the town, then was asked to go back to London and manage the busiest shop of the 420 at there peak. As the company was going down I ended up In Oxford preparing the two shops for a possible sale. Spring 1985 I was made redundant and the whole company went in to liquidation.

The outside picture is Slough shop and the Passat TS was my car at the time that was only 5 years old.

We still have an odd item branded MDC and the Battery charger is in regular use because if a battery is dead flat it is much better at reviving it than a smart charger. 

[Yoss]

On 10/14/2022 at 6:09 PM, chadders said:

And a fuse box with a total of 4 fuses in it.

That's two more than my Triumph has. It has one for the stuff that runs through the ignition and one for the stuff that doesn't. Except the headlights, they're not fused at all. Technically there is a third fuse but that's just a spare that sits in a little recess between the other two. 

[MiniMinorMk3]

I started at Tunbridge Wells in  May '82. I was only there for a couple of weeks and then got moved to Tonbridge.  The company always felt as though it was on the brink of disaster to me as orders started to not get filled. After a year I decided to go back to college and waste a couple more years in education.

[RayMK]

4 minutes ago, Yoss said:

That's two more than my Triumph has. It has one for the stuff that runs through the ignition and one for the stuff that doesn't. Except the headlights, they're not fused at all. Technically there is a third fuse but that's just a spare that sits in a little recess between the other two. 

Same with my '61 Reliant Regal.

[Six-cylinder]

3 minutes ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

I started at Tunbridge Wells in  May '83. I was only there for a couple of weeks and then got moved to Tonbridge.  The company always felt as though it was on the brink of disaster to me as orders started to not get filled. After a year I decided to go back to college and waste a couple more years in education.

I think the slide started at Easter 1982 when sales were below target across the company. It was all built on bank money and then we could not buy the advance seasonal stock to get best price and more and more supplies put us on stop. The figure that was banded about in 1985 was the company went down for 11 million pounds.

 

[Six-cylinder]

11 minutes ago, Yoss said:

That's two more than my Triumph has. It has one for the stuff that runs through the ignition and one for the stuff that doesn't. Except the headlights, they're not fused at all. Technically there is a third fuse but that's just a spare that sits in a little recess between the other two. 

My 1970 Triumph Vitesse has two fuses in the main fuse box and a factory in line fuse under the dash left side. 

[Mrs6C]

Interesting. Triumph Heralds only had one fuse, in-line for the headlamp flash circuit... 

[Yoss]

Ah well, the 1300 is a limousine in miniature* hence having two whole fuses. 

 

*or so the period adverts tell me. You might struggle to convince people of that today. Especially if you show them my one. 

[hairnet]

we're all whippersnappers compared to the old duffers on this thread

 

[richardmorris]

I bought stuff from motorist discount centre in Wrexham in the 1990s- same company or a spin off?

 

edit: I’m still using the battery charger I bought there in 1993!

[LightBulbFun]

amusingly despite my car only having only 2 main fuses 

I have been told its over-fused, as everything (except the high current starting lead going to the dynastart) on the car runs through those 2 fuses  

theres also a 3rd fuse in the engine bay to protect the charging circuit, and amusingly this of a European style!

 

are there any other cars out there that use 2 completely different styles of fuses?  

[Six-cylinder]

53 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

I bought stuff from motorist discount centre in Wrexham in the 1990s- same company or a spin off?

 

edit: I’m still using the battery charger I bought there in 1993!

There were a few Motor Accessory Business called Motorist Discount Center or Centres, the one I worked for went bankrupt in 1985.

Was the battery charger branded like ours?

[richardmorris]

34 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

There were a few Motor Accessory Business called Motorist Discount Center or Centres, the one I worked for went bankrupt in 1985.

Was the battery charger branded like ours?

 

[Six-cylinder]

1 minute ago, richardmorris said:

 

Not the same.

[richardmorris]

As a 20yr old I had no money and I remember my gran gave me the money for my birthday to buy it.

[Six-cylinder]

My treat today was to borrow my favourite garages Triumph 2000 estate fitted with a 2.5Pi engine for a TSSC meeting this evening. I don't have to give it back until Thursday!

[wuvvum]

A Mk1 2500 estate is near the top of my classic car want list.  Decent ones are sadly out of my price range these days though.

[hairnet]

been there

it was rustier than the mx5

 

[Markeh]

The village I grew up in had a small local motor factors using the Motorist Discount name - been there as long as I can remember but maybe it took inspiration for its name from MDC?

[mat_the_cat]

On 10/16/2022 at 5:24 PM, Six-cylinder said:

I think the slide started at Easter 1982 when sales were below target across the company. It was all built on bank money and then we could not buy the advance seasonal stock to get best price and more and more supplies put us on stop. The figure that was banded about in 1985 was the company went down for 11 million pounds.

Do you think this was around the sort of time when the average motorist started to lose interest in cars, and when they began to become appliances? I vaguely remember in the early 80s it wasn't unusual to see folk working on their cars in the street, and by the 2000s (with hindsight) it was rarely seen, apart from me!

[bobdisk]

On 10/16/2022 at 5:16 PM, MiniMinorMk3 said:

I started at Tunbridge Wells in  May '82. I was only there for a couple of weeks and then got moved to Tonbridge.  The company always felt as though it was on the brink of disaster to me as orders started to not get filled. After a year I decided to go back to college and waste a couple more years in education.

Trying to place where in Tonbridge this was, I used TonTyres at the bottom of Quarry Hill in the 70s/80s for lots of things when I lived there, but cant think of another shop in Ton or Tun  Wells.

[Dobloseven]

A nostalgic thread for me, bringing back many memories. There were several MDCs in Leicester. One quite near where I worked in the late seventies /early eighties. That was my go to place for car stuff for a long time. Digressing slightly, in Leicester at least, when the influx of Asians expelled from the African nations, particularly Uganda had settled, a lot opened small open all hours, corner shop motor spares places. Probably successful businessmen back home, they were invariably helpful,nothing was too much trouble. If they hadn't got it they'd get it for you. Remember someone I worked with in the late eighties building a Mini based kit car and one such shop got him Austin Rover parts direct from a contact at the factory. This personal touch was a contrast to Halfords type places with a manager answering to head office and the ubiquitous spotty youth assistants.Only a few left now. The owners have mostly retired and sold up, their families uninterested in  carrying on the businesses. 

[MiniMinorMk3]

5 hours ago, bobdisk said:

Trying to place where in Tonbridge this was, I used TonTyres at the bottom of Quarry Hill in the 70s/80s for lots of things when I lived there, but cant think of another shop in Ton or Tun  Wells.

Tonbridge shop was on the High Street. On the right hand side as you travelled north before the river. Ton-Tyres was much bigger than the MDC, and you could park outside. Being on the High Street the only time you could park outside was on a Sunday.

The Tunbridge Wells shop was on London Road, on the corner of Castle Street. 

[Yoss]

On 10/18/2022 at 4:30 PM, Six-cylinder said:

My treat today was to borrow my favourite garages Triumph 2000 estate fitted with a 2.5Pi engine for a TSSC meeting this evening. I don't have to give it back until Thursday!

Marked sadface because jealous. 

[Six-cylinder]

1 minute ago, Yoss said:

Marked sadface because jealous. 

I am very lucky to have friends who lend me cars like this.

I took it to do errands this morning, changes a tedious journey into an event. 

[Yoss]

What are those front seats? 

[Six-cylinder]

Another busy afternoon with the help of @Slowsilver.

We are working on getting our cars put away for the winter, but there are a few things to check along the way.

The Gamma spat some water out when I forgot to switch on electric cooling fan. We had added fresh coolant but did not have enough fuel to test drive it so today we tipped in a gallon and took it out. The good new is I don't seem to have done any damage from the coolant loss, but the indicators seem to have stopped working. Also it needs a new battery and has a small stutter at low rpm and light throttle I don't remember it having.