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Most obscure car you’ve owned?


Peter C

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My first car was a £500 Renault 5 Le Car in the mid 90's. 

 

Not particularly rare or obscure at the time but I haven't seen one on the road for at least 15 years. I can't find any pictures but my one was the spit of this, down to the rattle can silver bumpers (not dutch though). 

 

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According to the highly accurate* data from howmanyleft.com there is only a single 1 on the road today. 

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Ignoring the ancient stuff there has been nothing terribly obscure. It would probably be a toss up bewteen a '64 VW1500 Notch which was a daily runner for a couple of years and a Bimota SB6 which was most certainly not a daily runner on account of Bimota's rather optimistic hope that a pair of tiny scoo-ped batteries sitting behind the headlights would crank a GSX-R1100 motor into life.

 

The old man had a '74 Viva 2300SL which was fairly obscure but only because it was a bloody silly idea and the market for a 1300 poverty spec Viva with a 2300 lump in it was rather small.

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 '74 Viva 2300SL which was fairly obscure but only because it was a bloody silly idea and the market for a 1300 poverty spec Viva with a 2300 lump in it was rather small.

I once wasted actual time looking for a 2.3 povvo-spec Viva. Spend money on the big engine, not on the pointless shit!

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I had a Datsun 240K GT. Skyline no less, auto and with a lovely sweet engine but slllooooowww!

 

260C saloon in blue over black. Loved it.

 

Bluebird triple S with the waffy gearbox and much carbs.

 

260Z short wheelbase early car.

 

280ZX x4 red, black, red, and blue. They are brilliant cars no matter that no one else likes them.

 

Toyota Crown 2600 and later, another one but the later 2800. Loved them both. One white, one black, cheaper licence that way :)

 

Jaguar MK X 4.2 in Sherwood green.

 

BMW 518 auto... God, it was slow!

 

633 CS 'Bavaria' with all sort of options not usually found on them.

 

635 with Getrag 'dogleg'  manual gearbox and velour interior.

 

SAAB 90. 99. 95. 9000.

 

Mercedes 560 SE LHD from Germany, special order short wheelbase with electric front windows and manual rear, MB tex and cloth seats, real poverty spec other than that engine!!!

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My first car was a D-Reg Nissan Prarie 1.8SGL which I inherited from my parents when I was 19. It only lasted a couple more years in my incompetent ownership I'm sorry to say. I thought it was bloody enormous, so was surprised to learn years later that it was based on the Sunny. They were only moderately obscure at the time, but they must be properly rare now!

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I've owned a fiat 900 camper van with a graffiti paint job, rear engine Skoda, lads with a genuine body kit, singer chamois coupe. However this is the one I liked the most, Volvo 480de8ff1453b3fd60377768d268b7d068f.jpg

 

Sent from my TA-1012 using Tapatalk

 

 

Mrs BN had one from 1991 to 1997/8, it came with about 400 miles on it as a demonstrator and left us with about 400 million miles. Apart from servicing and tyres I think I had to replace the front DRLs about 6 times, a horribly fiddly job involving winding the pop-up headlights up manually to get at the access screws. Stupid piece of design, the DRL was basically a fuse for the headlight mechanism.

 

Marvellous car though and must have been tough to stand up to the mechanical sympathy* that Mrs BN dishes out to her cars.

 

Back on track, I had a Swiss-spec Audi TT (when I worked in Switzerland). I brought it home once (long story, even longer drive) and the service light came on while it was here. Naturally it wasn't a model that the local dealer or even Audi UK knew the first thing about.

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attachicon.gifZXOC_MyS12_03.jpg

 

My old Silvia Turbo. Quite a crude old thing and occupied an arkward middle ground between 70s Datsuns and 90s Nissans.

See the odd one on eBay for silly money but I can't imagine who would buy one nowadays. I only got it because it was much cheaper than the Corolla GT Coupe that I really wanted.

I had an E plate in exactly the same colour as did a mate of mine. Loved it apart from the disintegrating rubber that was the rear spoiler. Still miss mine.

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Not sure if the most obscure I owned was the Renault 6TL or the Ledbury Maestro.

One of my favourite travel writers has a book where he drives around the worst places in Britain in a black Ledbury Maestro. He bought it from a bloke called Craig and I've always wondered if it was Craig Cheetham who writes for Practical Classics occasionally.

 

You Are Awful (But I Like You) by Tim Moore, if you're interested. I've often thought he'd fit right in here.

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My first car was a Peugeot 404, even then (late 1970s) there were very few around and mine must have been one of the last ones as it was on an L plate. As a teenager I really didn't appreciate it for what it was.

 

About 15 years ago I was offered a yellow SAAB 95 on a K plate that had done about 15k miles and was in lovely condition. I really regret not buying it.

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I wasn't quite so keen on Tim Moore's book, even though I've enjoyed some of the other ones he's done and he can be very amusing.  I've just been upstairs to flick though it to remind myself what it was like.   

 

I had two main issues with the book; the first was that there was too much emphasis on 'awful' and not enough on 'but I like you'.  The second was that he appeared to become weary of the enterprise (or maybe homesick) as the book progressed and I think the later chapters suffered as a result.

 

Many of his descriptions reminded me of those on 'Crap Towns' where places like Royal Tunbridge Wells are depicted in terms more suited to suburban Detroit.    I had a nice wander round Great Yarmouth last weekend, and although it is undeniably seedy (the book covers this bit ok...), it has a very fine beach and a wonderful collection of mostly Grade II listed theatres and early cinema buildings along the seafront and is a thoroughly enjoyable place to be (...but not this, so much).   There were a number of other places I've visited, which even though he was doing it for comedic purposes I thought he was unfair to. Similarly, his description of the Maestro that he travelled around the whole country in made it sound much shonkier than I remember even the most knackered examples pulled from auctions in the '80s being.

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Ditto, except £500 and from a chap in Chichester in the owners club magazine. Still wonder what happened to it.

The old man's one which he owned in around about '83 was originally white (as I believe all the 2300SLs were) but that was pretty grim so it when it was rebuilt - which was very extensive even though the car was only a decade old at the time - it was turned out in British Racing Green. It carried the rather memorable registration of YES 666M. Given how bleak the brown vinyl interior was it ended up with a black interior from  Magnum. It also had the grille and headlamps changed to the 4 lamp set up of the Magnums. The front bumpers were quartered too. He sold it to his brother who put a brand new (4 speed for some inexplicable reason) gearbox in it and a set of Minilites. I was rather young at the time but even then my memory of it is of something whose dynamic abilities were on the bad side of complete piss. Nice engine, though.

 

I last heard of it about 9 years ago when it was owned by a chap I know not where who had bought it with the intention of rebuilding it. The rather poor quality photos certainly showed a vehicle which had not been loved for quite some time. With various server moves the photos he sent me have gone AWOL.

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Yugo 513, bought for £10 from Telford Auctions. (£35 Inc fees)

 

Brilliant little car. Surprisingly quick. Would love another.

We had a 511 when I was a kid. Bought for 400 ran for three years sold for 400. I agree it was good. Ours, however, wasn't quick!!
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