shite cars Retroshite

[yes oui si]

Acclaim? 

[MorrisItalSLX]

It’s a high spec one too with those wheels.

[captain_70s]

WHIT?!

Is it the one over near Cumnock which fails it's MOT almost every year on rot in the same places?

[DodgyBastard]

WHIT?!
Is it the one over near Cumnock which fails it's MOT almost every year on rot in the same places?

The very one!

Sent from my G3121 using Tapatalk

[DodgyBastard]

With just a few hours sleep after a 12 hour night shift welding inside a nuclear submarine I set off to buy a car I'd never owned before, a Triumph Acclaim.

RJC_3729 by srblythe, on Flickr

I set off with the Mrs in the 305 estate on a 2 hour journey across Scotland in wintry conditions. The 305 drove perfectly for the whole journey.

We got to the seller's house and got a look at the Triumph for the first time, he showed us all of the areas which he'd welded to a decent enough standard, he'd even cut out the rear quarter to access the inner wheel arch and strut top and welded the rear quarter back on without it looking totally shit. He showed us some of the other modifications he'd done including some bright as fuck LED headlights and an LED lightbar butchered into the front grille. As if that wasn't bad enough it had some of the worst looking aftermarket alloys I'd seen in a while fitted to it. My heart sank a little when I saw the wheels.

RJC_3731 by srblythe, on Flickr

RJC_3732 by srblythe, on Flickr

RJC_3734 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

 

Not only did the wheels look shit, it also had some bad steering wheel vibrations at 55 to 65mph which made the 2 hour return journey a bit rubbish.

Fortunately the original wheels were included with the car so first thing I did when I got home was stick it up in the air for a look underneath and to fit the steel wheels.

 

RJC_3735 by srblythe, on Flickr

RJC_3736 by srblythe, on Flickr

RJC_3737 by srblythe, on Flickr

RJC_3740 by srblythe, on Flickr

RJC_3742 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

Much better. All of the welding underneath looks to be done to a decent standard, he'd come to the conclusion that it had a bent mot on it before he bought it but has actually fixed all of the rusty areas on the car.

With the original wheels fitted the steering wheel vibration has gone.

The car seems to drive quite well and should be a decent daily driver.

 

 

[Zelandeth]

Civic Del Sol alloys?

[Mr_Bo11ox]

My god, those wheels!!! Mind boggling!

[yes oui si]

I'll have the three spokes... 

[yes oui si]

Actually no. Just zoomed in and they have the bolt holes showing. Ew. 

[Cookiesouwest]

My Auntie had an acclaim when I was a lad. Great little car. Looks much better on the steelies too.

[J-T]

Bloody hell, I had to look twice then. This was my mum’s circa 1996ish

Same down to the 6 digit plate! Just keeping next door’s Reliant Kitten company which you can just about see. 

I thought it was dead posh as it had leccy windows all round, all of which needed help to open/close.

Please rid it of that light bar 

[somewhatfoolish]

Liked for losing the horrid alloys and reinstating the wheels of steel.

[adw1977]

CD, top of the range!

[captain_70s]

That looks way better than mine, is top spec and was cheaper.

 

Wank.

[sdkrc]

Yeeeeaaaah booiiii. I posted this a few months back on the eBay thread. I'm glad she's in safe hands.

3 spoke alloys ftw

[cort16]

Whats with the LED light bar was he using it for hare coursing or something?  It was Cumnock where it's perpetually 1989 so those wheels are right on trend.

[somewhatfoolish]

18 minutes ago, cort16 said:

Whats with the LED light bar was he using it for hare coursing or something?  It was Cumnock where it's perpetually 1989 so those wheels are right on trend.

Could be worse, it might have been Auchinleck.

[Noel Tidybeard]

maybe the light bar was to make it look like a marina

[Cheggers]

It looks like it's sitting a bit high (looking at the wheel-arch gap), but I guess that may be where it's been off the ground for the wheel change.

Lovely old thing, well saved.

[JeeExEll]

Could we see a pic taken in the dark with the light bar lit?  (Please).

If it's still fitted.

Might start a new trend.

[andy18s]

22 minutes ago, JeeExEll said:

Could we see a pic taken in the dark with the light bar lit?  (Please).

If it's still fitted.

Might start a new trend.

 

[DodgyBastard]

10 hours ago, JeeExEll said:

Could we see a pic taken in the dark with the light bar lit?  (Please).

If it's still fitted.

Might start a new trend.

Light bar

RJC_3752 by srblythe, on Flickr

RJC_3747 by srblythe, on Flickr

RJC_3749 by srblythe, on Flickr

RJC_3754 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

Headlights

RJC_3750 by srblythe, on Flickr

RJC_3748 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

 

[DodgyBastard]

RJC_3743 by srblythe, on Flickr

RJC_3745 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

That's got to be some calendar material there!

[rainagain]

I’d happily re-home the light bar if you don’t want it. Did I mention I have some 2kg boxes of Sol Gryn  

[sdkrc]

38 minutes ago, DodgyBastard said:

This really reminds me of this. I forget who the photographer is but his repertoire consists of crushingly shite photos of the UK

 

[captain_70s]

You should check out the photo selection of 1980s Glasgow by Raymond Depardon.

Proper grim.

[Out Run]

12 hours ago, andy18s said:

 

Big shame to see that without the period - and pretty useless in comparison - light pod, you would expect to see.

[brownnova]

On 2/13/2020 at 7:11 PM, DodgyBastard said:

With just a few hours sleep after a 12 hour night shift welding inside a nuclear submarine I set off to buy a car I'd never owned before, a Triumph Acclaim.

This is possibly one of the best opening paragraphs to a collection I have read!

 Don’t know how I missed this in the week, but what a lovely lovely looking car... once you’ve de-modified it of course! Well purchased! 

[DodgyBastard]

RJC_3755 by srblythe, on Flickr

RJC_3760 by srblythe, on Flickr

RJC_3762 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

I killed the Acclaim a couple of times on the way home from Perth earlier after driving through some big puddles, the first time it died straight after the puddle but restarted a short time later after drying out, the next time it died halfway through the puddle and took ages to dry out and it kept stalling/cutting out for the majority of the journey home. We got there in the end but what should have been a casual 40 minute journey turned into a 2.5 hour ordeal with having to stop, letting the car dry out then continuing before finding out it wasn't quite right and stopping again.

[barrett]

My Allegro used to do that when you went through a big puddle (I remember one winter when this seemed to happen a lot). Usually you'd splash through and it would chug on for a few yards before the distributor realised it was full of water and stop producing sparks. All you could do was sit and wait for a few minutes until it was ready to go again. Probably should have started carrying a can of contact cleaner or whatever after the first time, but sitting on the side of the road with the radio on smoking a fag for five minutes seemed to fit well with the general vibe of Allegro ownership.