My spottings, old and new - Nessie

[stuboy]

4 hours ago, bunglebus said:

Think I've seen this before, but today it was unattended. Love the hi vis stripes and giffer tat

do love a cavalier...........

[bunglebus]

First adventure of the year out on bicycles this afternoon. Passed the now landlocked MK3 Cortina that's been in this front garden since 1876 or so

A lot of bay window busses around Chelmsford, this is one of the very last, with a water cooled (spit) engine

This one is a few doors down, looks very similar but is about 35 years older

As is this very similar one around the corner

Still German, somewhat posher

Lastly, a good old British Mini with a rusty door

 

[bunglebus]

Very nice half timbered Tudor outside the church in Maldon. Seemed to belong to the Reverend/Vicar/Rabbi as he was sat in it later on

[bunglebus]

Bagged Bimmer parked next to me today

Chavved up Escort van at the boot sale

An an Astra estate doing An Car duties

[bunglebus]

"Get a picture of that Panhard for me please"

"What's a Panhard?"

"That is"

Stripped out and caged Porker outside the pub. Number plates need incinerating

MK2 Sport burbling past while we were on a bike ride. My god I love the sound of an Escort with a decent exhaust brrraaarpp-urrrrrr

Horizontally opposed twin charabanc at Fairfield. Motor vehicle tech has come on a long way from having a leather strap on the outside of a brake drum for deceleration, but I'd rather tinker with this than a modern

[bunglebus]

Saw this rusty old nail the other day, someone's been giving it a tickle with the sparkle stick I think going by the red primer

MK3 Golf at the boot sale

[Lord Sterling]

12 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

Saw this rusty old nail the other day, someone's been giving it a tickle with the sparkle stick I think going by the red primer

Oooh, memory unlocked!

I have some small affection for these flat-backed early Mk5 Escorts.

Many years ago, before I could drive, I used to hang around with a bag of Yemeni lads from Halesowen. One of them, a good mate of mine had somehow gone from a really neat a nice R8 Rover 216 GSi in red and grey (G???GOM) to this Ford Escort, also in red (in between, he'd also borrowed a black Renault 19 for a few days).

I remember that some "Max Powa" 17" 5-spoke alloys were added which I always thought looked desperate.  However, I also wanted buy it and run it for a bit.

Eventually this Escort got sold onto a recovering crackhead called "Ali 2" who lived in it for a bit and drove places without tax, insurance and an MoT. He once dropped me home too. I last heard that the car was dumped on the side of the M6, presumably it went to scrap.

[bunglebus]

5 hours ago, Lord Sterling said:

presumably it went to scrap.

Best place for it! I had a MK5 shape Orion, and there were various MK5/6 Escorts owned by mates etc when they were common, and all were just crap. Dodgy fuseboxes and stalks, rust, scratchy plastic for the seat backs, just generally poor quality. The only type of car I took great delight in taking them to the weighbridge and watching the claw do its thing on them.

[bunglebus]

Old Honda hanging out in Inverness 

[MiniMinorMk3]

On 17/03/2025 at 11:23, Lord Sterling said:

Oooh, memory unlocked!

I have some small affection for these flat-backed early Mk5 Escorts.

 

I had a Mk6 as a company car. I gave it back after a few months and negotiated a pay rise instead. I promptly went out and purchased a low mileage 205 GTi, and thus enjoyed my drive to work from then on.

My mother had a Mk4 at some point. It was a horrible rattley pile of crap that was even more horrible to drive. FWD Escorts are shite. I currently have a Mk2.5 Focus as my daily drive.

[Lord Sterling]

40 minutes ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

I had a Mk6 as a company car. I gave it back after a few months and negotiated a pay rise instead. I promptly went out and purchased a low mileage 205 GTi, and thus enjoyed my drive to work from then on.

My mother had a Mk4 at some point. It was a horrible rattley pile of crap that was even more horrible to drive. FWD Escorts are shite. I currently have a Mk2.5 Focus as my daily drive.

I can certainly imagine the difference. When I worked at a garage, we had a Mk6 Escort and a Focus in at the same time. I drove both back to back and the difference was night and day, the Escort was also a looked after example yet the Focus was an everydayer, but still drove better than the Escort.

[bunglebus]

I really enjoyed my MK4 shape Orion 1600E, although mine ended up with a Ghia interior out of a MK3 shape one, it drove really nicely other than unexpected lift-off oversteer, but then my MK5 shape 1.6i Ghia Orion suffered that too. The MK4 didn't have electrical maladies and rusty nuts though 

[stuboy]

On 02/03/2025 at 23:48, bunglebus said:

much like

[FakeConcern]

12 hours ago, bunglebus said:

I really enjoyed my MK4 shape Orion 1600E, although mine ended up with a Ghia interior out of a MK3 shape one, it drove really nicely other than unexpected lift-off oversteer, but then my MK5 shape 1.6i Ghia Orion suffered that too. The MK4 didn't have electrical maladies and rusty nuts though 

I had a Mk3 XR3i and a Mk4 XR3i and loved them both, they were pretty nippy for the time and handled well. I never experienced lift off oversteer in either, maybe I wasn't trying hard enough!