IET - Most Decrepit Car photo contest!

[M'coli]

A recent newsletter email from the Institute of Engineering and Technology had this gem of an article, hunting fro the most decrepit car that was still running, and I thought it worth sharing here.

 

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2017/07/world-s-worst-car-reader-s-photo-competition/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_campaign=New%20EandT%20News%20-%20Automation%20FINAL%20-%20NON%20MEMBER&utm_medium=Newsletters%20-%20E%26T%20News&utm_content=E%26T%20News%20-%20Non-Members&utm_term=https%3A%2F%2Feandt.theiet.org%2Fcontent%2Farticles%2F2017%2F07%2Fworld-s-worst-car-reader-s-photo-competition%2F

 

About 15 years ago, I found myself temporarily residing in the seaside town of Folkestone, Kent, UK. Long before its much-publicised regeneration, the town looked and felt neglected and downtrodden – “not a Rio de Janeiro”, as a hero of a Soviet satirical novel would put it. The local newspaper, the Folkestone Herald, was dutifully chronicling that deplorable state of the town’s affairs on its pages, one of which carried a regular ‘Dumped Car of the Week’ column. I still treasure a clipping of one such column, describing that week’s unfortunate vehicle, left (or rather dumped) in Greenfield Road – the area, which, as the cheeky paper itself put it, “is not spoken in the same breath as Beverly Hills or Monte Carlo”.

 

An avid reader of the ‘Dumped Car of the Week’, I was expecting it to gradually evolve into a competition to designate the ‘Dumped Car of the Month’, then perhaps ‘of the Year’, before it was picked up by other newspapers to become a national and international contest, with the winner being awarded an exclusive right to dump his or her car next to such world-renowned sights as the Eiffel Tower, or the Sydney Opera House. Unfortunately, those hopes of mine did not materialise then, and – after a year or so – the ‘Dumped Car of the Week’ column was itself dumped.

 

 

Great ideas never die, though, or so they say. Encouraged by the resounding success of our ‘Crossed Wires’ competition last year, whereby hundreds of E&T readers from all over the globe first sent their pictures and then voted to determine the world’s worst wiring job (the competition was widely covered by national and international media), we are happy to announce a new readers’ challenge.

 

Knowing that most E&T readers are keen motorists, we are now asking you to supply your own original photos – not of dumped cars, for that would be like treading in someone else’s footsteps, which E&T never does – but of the still functional and mobile (if only just) decrepit cars on the road – one place where they certainly should not be! We will then publish the best (worst) photos in the magazine and on our website and will ask the readers to vote for the world’s best (worst) unroadworthy car still on the road.

 

 

What do we mean by ‘decrepit cars’, also known as bangers, buckets, jalopies, rattletraps, clunkers, tins on wheels (a peculiar Soviet expression) and so on? The only coherent definition could be found in good old Wikipedia: “A decrepit car is one that is often old and damaged and is in a barely functional state.”

 

 

“Yet still on the road causing pedestrians’ giggles and posing danger to other motorists,” we could add. Yes, it is important to remember that most bangers – unless they feature in special banger races, or come from Malta where ancient cars are normally well maintained and even considered a kind of national treasure – are not just motorised bundles, or indeed ‘buckets’, of laughs, but also menaces on wheels that can break down, explode or fall apart any moment. So, with hope, our WWB (World’s Worst Banger) competition will make our streets a tad safer by shaming (if not naming) the owners and drivers of the cars that should have long been dumped (at designated dumping sites, no doubt) – as well as the mechanics who mended those leaking buckets and thus allowed them on the road – in short, all those who take too literally the pronouncement, attributed to Henry Ford, that a car is not a luxury but just a means of transportation.

 

 

[eddyramrod]

Surely that's already been won?  Step forward, the Sierra bASe!  Honourable mentions to KruJoe and Vulgalour of course.

[rml2345]

Do you still get properly decrepit yet still unbelievably roadworthy cars? It's been some years since I saw anything really rough and yet still inexplicably chugging around.

[strangeangel]

Step forward, the Sierra bASe! 

 

That Cortina estate spotted by Bollox is far worse!

[Richard]

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[Cavcraft]

Shirley the real winner is the Talbot (Chrysler?) Alpine that one of the AS gang owns? 

[Junkman]

If this is a global contest Britain doesn't stand a chance to be in the top 100.

[Pillock]

Because of our comprehensive and important annual MOT, Junkman? Is that what you mean?

 

*Steps away*

[DSdriver]

Because all our BEST cars have gone to Africa

[JeeExEll]

What about the Cortina with the sagging rear someone posted a while back? Surely that's in the top ten?

Anyone have a pic of the old saggy arse Mk5 estate? Photofuckit has probably lost it on here.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Shirley the real winner is the Talbot (Chrysler?) Alpine that one of the AS gang owns?

SambaS' Alpine is up there with the best.

Amazing work done so far, to be fair.

 

What about the Cortina with the sagging rear someone posted a while back? Surely that's in the top ten?

I'm with you on this one. Ive dug around on google, but can't find Bollox thread on that Cortina - it had a random title if I remember correctly.

[Richard]

.

[anonymous user]

Sadly the Cortina does not appear to have been put in for an MOT this year

[danthecapriman]

I must have missed that Cortina thread.

 

It's fucking spectacular isn't it! I'd gladly take over that thing as a daily!

[JeeExEll]

http://autoshite.com/topic/27332-mr-spudz-astonishing-shite-spot/

Hee hee

[Richard]

.

[JeeExEll]

Sadly the Cortina does not appear to have been put in for an MOT this year

Maybe just a problem with headlamp alignment.

[mk2_craig]

Aye, or one of them suspension bushes wanted looking at.

[Jim Bergerac]

Vaguely remember a spot of a shonky Ital that might be another contender?

[alcyonecorporation]

Knob_van.

[vulgalour]

 

I wasn't breaking any laws when I drove this from the MoT station, just bending them a little.

[DodgyBastard]

Edd's Talbot

 

Rusty shite by srblythe, on Flickr

 

The Samara of many

 

 

Lada Samara by srblythe, on Flickr

 

Lada Samara by srblythe, on Flickr

 

Lada Samara by srblythe, on Flickr

 

The Tata 

 

DSC_0601 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

DSC_0599 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

DSC_0598 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

DSC_0264 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

Derskine's Cortina

 

Shitehole by srblythe, on Flickr

 

DSC_2511 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

Gateside Mills 1970 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

Nisfans 305

 

DSC_0018 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

DSC_0015 by srblythe, on Flickr

[Dick Cheeseburger]

IIRC it was believed to have gone off the road soon after that thread was posted.

Glad someone managed to find the thread! The Cortina is sorned, so someone, somewhere, isn't quite ready to say goodbye to the old snotter yet.

[catsinthewelder]

The BX I was running when I first joined Autoshite was a bit ropey

 

[STUNO]

Looking at what is on here so far I don't think you lot know what really crappy drivers (the cars !) look like. 

This brazil trucking vid is a good example of wtf  truckers.

YES... I know they aren't cars.

 

[chaseracer]

My Dyane...

[M'coli]

Few who have seen this Imp in the rust can ever forget it (it's not mine!)

[M'coli]

More of the shonky Imp!

1967 Hillman Imp by Andy, on Flickr

 

1967 Hillman Imp by Andy, on Flickr

 

1967 Hillman Imp by Andy, on Flickr

[danthecapriman]

That Imp is awesome, a proper relic!

 

When I was younger and used to go up north to visit my grandparents and uncle and auntie there was a mk2 Capri in daily use near where they lived.

It was just like that Imp, white paint with a brown vinyl roof with rust coloured streaks running down it. It had the side trims too which also had rust stains running down from behind them. The sills and lower panels of the car were painted in black underseal, probably from years worth of patch repairs and cover sills.

It stayed in my mind all these years that car! It just looked fantastic and battered to hell. It's a shame cars don't age and look like that anymore.

[tooSavvy]

The 'saggy cortina' was SORN at the MOT expiry June '17.

 

TS