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Dollywobbler's Skoda Pogweasel Debadged One Heck of an Estate


dollywobbler

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I have to admit it's not the car I would go for over the Rover, then again my obsession with Jaguars and particularly those lovely lambs wool rugs leaves people questioning my sanity, so I no longer question anyone's taste! Good work on getting a dream car! Never delay, I agree. Do you think you will manage over the winter in it? I assume a full service, tidy up and a set of winter tyres will be the first order of business?

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You know, I don't think I've ever actually driven a Favorit...

 

I do hope that temperature gauge is lying, or it would have had me having kittens...

 

From what I've heard from a lot of people though, they are very, very good at being exceedingly competent everyday runarounds.

 

With that power output I'm assuming it's the 135 engine as used in the small run of injected Rapids?  That was essentially a 136 engine with different pistons to drop the compression ratio, single point injection and a cat bolted on.

 

...Which in the Rapid used a bloody annoying wideband lambda sensor that was utterly im-bloody-possible to find, so mine never ran right the whole time I had it.  I had designed a pre-amp board to allow me to use a standard one, but never got as far as building it as the car was one of those which just didn't seem to want to live, so I lost interest in it after a while - it stranding me in the middle of Aberdeen when the gear linkage snapped on the way to the Snooker Grand Prix one evening was the last straw as I recall!  It got parked up for six months and I went back to wasting money playing with Saabs instead.

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Oh, forgot to add. Why did the constabulary pull you over driving a perfectly legal car?

 

They could smell cannabis, they reckoned. From behind a truck that was behind me. They suddenly swerved around the truck, then it was pretty quick to the flashy blues. A sight I'm very familiar with after this year! I think I'm up to eight tugs, in five different countries, in three different cars. I can't remember the last time I was stopped prior to the Dacia trip!

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Sorry to hear they were harassing you and not chasing real criminals. Burglaries? no service. People crashing into your car? no service. Man driving an old car taxed and insured and legal in every way? Let’s get him! Absolutely disgraceful behaviour. I’m guessing they were pretty belligerent and also pissed off when they realised they had nothing on you.

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Sorry to hear they were harassing you and not chasing real criminals. Burglaries? no service. People crashing into your car? no service. Man driving an old car taxed and insured and legal in every way? Let’s get him! Absolutely disgraceful behaviour. I’m guessing they were pretty belligerent and also pissed off when they realised they had nothing on you.

 

Let's not turn this into a Police-bashing episode. They were polite, accepted an email discussion as proof of insurance (as I don't get have a cover note) and were good enough to put the lights back on for a photo. The car is still showing as insured, so that wasn't a motive to stop me though.

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They probably just wanted to see what kind of nutter would drive up the motorway in a pogweasel Favorit in 2018.  

 

"Is it your car?" 

"Yes, I've just bought it."

"Where do you live?"

address redacted, but not that far from where stopped

"Where did you buy it?"

"London."

"London?!"

"Yeah, it's what I do."

 

They seemed mostly confused. Like many border guards this summer...

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I've missed out on loads of cars, especially Eastern Bloc stuff - the stuff I remember seeing everywhere and being fascinated by as a child. FSO Polonez? They've all gone. Ladas? Now worth a fortune for reasons I don't understand. Rear-engined Skodas? The same.

There are still reasonably affordable options to get them! Especially from the Skoda motherland.

 

E.g.

 

post-20071-0-25976200-1543787543_thumb.jpg

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£1370 at current exchange rate

https://www.rajveteranu.cz/26832-skoda-120-l-nedasova-lhota

 

 

Too expensive?

 

Well there is:

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£514 but no idea if its road legal though.

https://www.rajveteranu.cz/25085-skoda-105-l

 

 

 

I have a good mate who is Slovakian. I've been rather tempted to give him a call and send him on a mission to find me one. Then I'll drive it back. Unfortantly I have zero room to store it at the present time and unlikely to before Brexit happens. Depending what mess Brexit does, it could make things like this unaffordable due to import duty crap. :neutral:

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I'm looking forward to the collection caper video.

 

Does it actually need anything doing apart from the niggles? I guess Jackytwoshoes had really given it a good shakedown.

 

There is a slight clunk from the front end that I need to investigate. I thought it might be an ARB drop link, but then discovered it doesn't have anti-roll bars! That explains why the doorhandles were in danger. I would like to sort the gauges out as well. Temp overreads, fuel just doesn't update and odo doesn't work.

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so Dollywobbler+eastern-block car=police

 

god forbid Dollywobbler drives or buys Zels Lada as thats about as eastern block as you can get  :mrgreen:

 

tis cool they where nice about it and even put the lights on for the photo :) did they chase after the truck then after they cleared you?

 

I look forward to the video and its amazing* how many niggles/small broken bits it has for only 11000* miles :)

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I saw a Favorit estate yesterday, havent seen one for ages! It was a silver one with alloys - think it was a Flairline? Will be good to see how you get on with this one!

 

I haven't seen the Herne Bay (Express Garage) one for a while, but still has MOT. GLXi

 

post-20084-0-26855000-1543789953_thumb.jpg

 

Regarding people on the internetz moaning about the price - DW's is one of the best left! Numbers on Howmanyleft have halved from 300 taxed to 150 taxed in last two years. Now was the time.

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Have heard from a few folks that the steering in these is quite heavy. Thought, is it the same rack as the Estelle? If so that could explain it if it's geared for far less weight on the front wheels.

 

Fun though they are (I've had three), the headache with Estelles these days is parts. There are more variants than you'd think, and getting even quite simple stuff often seems to involve having to throw Google Translate at eBay.cz unless you "know a guy" who knows someone over there. I bought four sets of semi trailing arm bushes for my 120LX and never did get the right ones. Being fully honest, that's why I got rid of it in the end as spending weeks trying to track down what should be a trivial consumable for the umpteenth time got really old.

 

Shame as when they're working right they're actually surprisingly pleasant little cars to buzz around in. Squidgy seats, suspension that nearly rivals the bump absorption qualities of a Citroen XM (you get used to the gentle bobbing motion of the front end), surprisingly quiet, and just generally nice cars to be in. I did several up-and-down-the-country runs in my first one and it's right up there on the "surprisingly good touring motors" list.

 

Only real downsides, sidewind wandering if you've no weight in the boot, a heater that takes forever to warm up (11 litres of coolant to warm up), and the smaller engined ones do struggle a bit for go on main roads. The 130 though is more than up to the task. Gearchange is...odd. It's actually perfectly good once you're used to it, but it's not like anything in any other car I've driven. Oh, and the fuel gauge on the standard dash does a great job of reflecting the sun in your face. Speaking of the gauge, it only gives a meaningful reading when stationary on level ground. Other than that it's basically a cornering force meter.

 

Lovely little engine when in good tune though, I've never come across another OHV engine which is so smooth and happy to rev. My 130GL was the first car that you actually had to keep an eye on the rev counter as she was still silky smooth and pulling well when you hit the red line.

 

A lot of the cars here seem to have spent a lot of time doing nothing, which is half the problem with them. One that's been regularly used is a far better bet.

 

I still fancy a Favorit. Has a lot of the same charm as the Lada, but maybe a bit easier to live with on a day to day basis.

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