What was the first car you ever purchased on an E bay Auction?

[spike60]

1997 1.9d Polo in 2009 . Bought blind despite only being 10 miles away, it had shocking fresh paint and vibrated like a cheap sex aid. Kept it a while used as kind of a family pool car till the terminal scruffiness got to me and it went back on Ebay. Excellent winter car. This and a couple of other disappointments made me vow not to buy blind any more, it would have to be something special to this again. 

Imagine a much scruffier one of these.

A year ago I went against my vow and bid a wodge blind on a private 1991 black BMW 850i , it was 370 miles away and I was 2nd high bidder. 4  days  later it was for sale at a dealer for twice the winning bid. ?

[Ewan240]

On 15/03/2020 at 22:29, danthecapriman said:

Mine was CRL 99V, a 79 Volvo 244 DL. It must have been about 2004ish I bought it from a guy in Hemel Hempstead. I went to collect it in my 91 Volvo 340 with my dad. I think he drove the 340 home and I drove the 244 with it’s glorious blue interior! I loved it! 

I bought it in about October time as I wanted something built like a tank to use through winter to keep my Capri off the salty shitty roads. A job it did very well. I kept it for another 5 years I liked it so much. After I sold it it was plate raped but it did get a load of bodywork and new paint before going off to live in Scotland (shocker!!). As far as I know it’s still going.

 

Just stumbled across this, I have this car now and yeah it's on a different plate. Currently been in a lockup past year awaiting some light restoration work but was a good old bus to me and was actually my first ever car when I was 17. Would love to find out more about it's earlier life. 

[danthecapriman]

12 minutes ago, Ewan240 said:

Just stumbled across this, I have this car now and yeah it's on a different plate. Currently been in a lockup past year awaiting some light restoration work but was a good old bus to me and was actually my first ever car when I was 17. Would love to find out more about it's earlier life. 

Hi Ewan👍

Good to hear my old 244 is still around, and getting some love!

All I know about it was that it was new to a dealer in Redruth, Cornwall (so it’s been about a bit in the UK!). I think, but don’t quote me 100%, the dealer actually fitted it with the 244 anniversary model black & gold stripes on the sides as some sort of dealer edition. I believe it stayed with its first owner quite some time but didn’t get used a huge amount as it was stupidly low when I got it. 
I got it from a guy in Hemel Hempstead who himself hadn’t had it that long. I think he used it just as a run around for a while. I got it from eBay and went to pick it up, then brought it down to the south coast near Petersfield where I was living at the time. The main reason I got it was to stop my Capri getting ruined in the salt season. I’d always had a thing for old Volvo’s though and also had a 340 at the same time. 
I ran the Volvo over the winter, then moved house again to further south in Waterlooville. For a while I leant it to a friend who was struggling without a car and he used it for a few months before giving it back. Then it just became my daily driver really. 
Eventually I had to sell it on, I think (but could be wrong! It’s been a few years!) when I bought a mk2 Granada estate. I didn’t really want to sell the Volvo but had to - lack of space and too many cars. 
It went on eBay but unfortunately this was a time old Volvo’s weren’t worth much and it sold to a banger racer. Fortunately though his truck went off the road and he couldn’t collect it from me anytime soon so after a while I made my excuse of having no room to store it anymore and he agreed to cancel the deal. It didn’t sit right with me letting the car go to be raced. 
Another user on this site had it off me in the end for less than the banger racer won for on eBay, but the car was going to be safe with him so it was a good deal in my opinion! 
He used it around London for a while, sometimes as a tow car for other project vehicles before moving it on again to a guy on RetroRides forum (Nightmare racing I think his username was?) who was the one who gave it some much needed bodywork and a repaint into blue with silver roof, and put the later 240 bumpers on in place of the big thick early girders bumpers. I’m assuming that’s how it still is?? 
I think he was talking of removing the old B21a engine and fitting a T5 but don’t think that happened.

Ive got no idea when the original number plate was taken off and sold though. Not something I would have done personally but…

The last I heard of the car was it had been moved on again to someone in Scotland, which I guess is you? 
A few photos of it surfaced while in Scotland but I can’t remember where now or who took them.

Have you got any photos etc of it recently? I’d love to see the old beast again!

It was a brilliant car in my ownership though. Not a looker to be polite, but it was rock solid and drove absolutely brilliant. The only time it ever let me down was one day near South Downs College I was approaching a roundabout and the front brake callipers seized somehow, overheating the brakes. The first I knew of it was when I pushed the brake pedal and nothing happened! 
I shit myself as we were coming up on the roundabout (and the back of a learners driver car!😆) fast, so I changed down gears and yanked the handbrake up in desperation. It stopped fine and didn’t hit anything, but after composing myself (and emptying my pants!) I reversed it back up the road into a cul de sac and got it recovered home. 
A few days later I replaced all the callipers, hoses, discs & pads just to be safe. Even then, those callipers weren’t cheap either. 
Apart from that, it was spot on. Funnily enough I’ve only been without an old rear drive Volvo for about a year since that car. The gold 740 saloon behind it in the photo above I had for ages, then sold it when I got my yank tank, then got Volvo withdrawl symptoms and got the 740 estate I’ve got now. Which won’t be going anywhere!

I think I took this pic of the 244 dash/mileage not long before it left me.

 

[Llessur]

My first and only eBay car purchase would have been circa 2005. I had an urge to buy a cheap classic and saw an alright looking (based on early 2000s digital photography) dark green MGB up for 450 quid. It was advertised as a non-runner but that was OK because it even came pre-loaded on a car trailer that was included in the price. The advert didn't really give much information but it suggested it just needed a light re-commissioning. I was young and naive so pressed the 'buy it now' button and arranged to go and pick it up with a towballed pick-up I borrowed from work.

When I arrived at the address (can't remember where now, but it was a good couple of hours away) I found myself at a small, apparently derelict, industrial yard where a fat middle-aged bloke wearing a stained white vest promptly emerged from his caravan abode. He showed me over to the car whilst telling me how he "took it to settle a bad debt" (always a good sign) where it became immediately obvious that the whole package was absolutely fucked. Whilst the body panels looked OK from a distance, 90% of the metalwork in the lower quarter of the car had rotted away to virtually nothing. As for the trailer, the axle and what was left of the frame had parted ways at least a decade previous. Had I tried to tow it I doubt it would have even made it across the yard, let alone any distance along a road.

Luckily, I'd had the forethought to arrange to finalise the eBay payment on collection and didn't pay up front but I still found myself locked in a fenced yard with a now rather pissed off version of Onslow from Keeping up Appearances. I'm not a particularly big or intimidating chap (and was even less so in my mid 20s) so I offered him 50 quid cash to 'cover any inconvenience', he demanded 70, I happily paid and fucked off, having learned a couple of valuable lessons.

Haven't bought a car on eBay since, and never did scratch the MGB itch.

 

 

[warch]

Despite having been on eBay since 2000 I think I first bought a vehicle (motorcycle) in 2019. It is my current Triumph Daytona which I acquired for £1100 which was and is very cheap. Despite a few running issues (now resolved) it’s a good bike. 

I did sell my first bike a Yamaha DT125 in 2010. Interestingly bike transactions are a lot easier than cars usually, sellers aren’t usually on the make and are often quite critical of minor faults or blemishes even on a cheap bike. 
 

Both my current Astra and my Series One Landrover were also acquired via eBay but in the last two years.

[Lord Sterling]

E745MMT. My first pre-88 Rover 800. It was the early 2.5 V6 Honda unit that was later re-engineered and uprated to a 2675 (2.7) rather than the 2494cc the earlier cars had. 

This was the first auction for a real car I had ever won on eBay and since then, the only one. I had bid on another Mk1 Sterling but was advised to pull my bid as someone who had previously dealt with the seller and he wasn't all that truthful about it's condition.

This car, I bid on and won for about £300, but then this seller went quiet. I started getting anxious, I mean come on. Was my first foray into owning my dream car, a Mk1 Rover Sterling going to be taken away from me because of some lazy/lying seller? I just didn't get it.

A few days later though, the seller did contact me and explained that he'd been ordered off the land he was selling the cars on following some dispute. He gave me an address of where the Sterling would be in Nottingham. Myself and my then-fellow Rover 800 nut mate @very tall brad made our way up to Nottingham in Ma_Sterling's Micra. Brad had stuck the Sterling on his insurance. I don't even recall actually getting the car but I do recall the drive up and back. I couldn't drive it due to lack of insurance but Brad did and said it was a good 'un. It needed quite a bit of work but nothing he couldn't help me tackle.

Slowly but surely we started on the car, polishing the paintwork, giving it a service. I got the one non-working reclining rear seat to work again etc... I drove it about for a good couple of years and enjoyed every minute of it. It just cruised effortlessly.

Unfortunately, one day, the Rover had decided it had enough and imploded it's engine causing HGF. 

It lingered outside the house on the street for a few months looking sadder and sadder. Flat tyres and tired paintwork. 

Eventually, Brad made me an offer I couldn't refuse. He was wanting to cut down his collection and make more space at home, he had an identical Rover Sterling, same year/spec and colour. Why not take that one and he'd have my old one for spares/scrap freeing up space. Hence here is the one I had and still own today:

[MiniMinorMk3]

This is the one and only car I have won on an Ebay auction. Won in 2013 for £1401. I needed something bigger at the time and this 49,000 mile old BMW 318i looked promising. It was at a dealers in North Yorkshire on the A64, east of Malton. They had had the car for many years (maybe 8 or 10) and no one had purchased it. It was an ex company car that had had a few bits of paint work. was in probably the worst colour for a BMW in resale terms, and being a 318i, only had 4 cylinders.

After winning the auction I went down to see it, drove it around the yard and said I'll have it.

5 years and 65,000 miles latter I sold it on Ebay for £320.

I sold it as I became the custodian of a 2008 Ford Focus. In the time I had the BMW, apart from regular oil changes and general wear and tear, it needed a replacement wiper motor (Ebay £15), a replacement centre propshaft bearing (£150) and a new radiator and expansion tank. When sold it had an oil leek from the filter housing, the EML was on (due to bank 2), which had caused the fuel consumption to increase by about 20%, and it was starting to feel tired on the suspension. The new owner got another 20,000 miles out of it before it appears to have been retired as the last MoT expired in 2021.

[JJ0063]

205 with an XUD and GTI front bumper. Can’t remember what I paid but wasn’t a lot. Sold to @Arthur Foxhake of this parish.

Must have been 12 or so years ago. 

Still to this day the only car I’ve bought via actual auction I think!

[sierraman]

The only cars I’ve ever bought via ebay were to break so so long as it was roughly what’s in the picture then that was fine. Wouldn’t bother with the bidding bollocks, I haven’t time for that. Plus private sellers often seem to be the biggest set of lying shits going, I’d prefer to see it with my own eyes, then make an offer. 

[Ewan240]

On 04/06/2025 at 00:06, danthecapriman said:

Hi Ewan👍

Good to hear my old 244 is still around, and getting some love!

All I know about it was that it was new to a dealer in Redruth, Cornwall (so it’s been about a bit in the UK!). I think, but don’t quote me 100%, the dealer actually fitted it with the 244 anniversary model black & gold stripes on the sides as some sort of dealer edition. I believe it stayed with its first owner quite some time but didn’t get used a huge amount as it was stupidly low when I got it. 
I got it from a guy in Hemel Hempstead who himself hadn’t had it that long. I think he used it just as a run around for a while. I got it from eBay and went to pick it up, then brought it down to the south coast near Petersfield where I was living at the time. The main reason I got it was to stop my Capri getting ruined in the salt season. I’d always had a thing for old Volvo’s though and also had a 340 at the same time. 
I ran the Volvo over the winter, then moved house again to further south in Waterlooville. For a while I leant it to a friend who was struggling without a car and he used it for a few months before giving it back. Then it just became my daily driver really. 
Eventually I had to sell it on, I think (but could be wrong! It’s been a few years!) when I bought a mk2 Granada estate. I didn’t really want to sell the Volvo but had to - lack of space and too many cars. 
It went on eBay but unfortunately this was a time old Volvo’s weren’t worth much and it sold to a banger racer. Fortunately though his truck went off the road and he couldn’t collect it from me anytime soon so after a while I made my excuse of having no room to store it anymore and he agreed to cancel the deal. It didn’t sit right with me letting the car go to be raced. 
Another user on this site had it off me in the end for less than the banger racer won for on eBay, but the car was going to be safe with him so it was a good deal in my opinion! 
He used it around London for a while, sometimes as a tow car for other project vehicles before moving it on again to a guy on RetroRides forum (Nightmare racing I think his username was?) who was the one who gave it some much needed bodywork and a repaint into blue with silver roof, and put the later 240 bumpers on in place of the big thick early girders bumpers. I’m assuming that’s how it still is?? 
I think he was talking of removing the old B21a engine and fitting a T5 but don’t think that happened.

Ive got no idea when the original number plate was taken off and sold though. Not something I would have done personally but…

The last I heard of the car was it had been moved on again to someone in Scotland, which I guess is you? 
A few photos of it surfaced while in Scotland but I can’t remember where now or who took them.

Have you got any photos etc of it recently? I’d love to see the old beast again!

It was a brilliant car in my ownership though. Not a looker to be polite, but it was rock solid and drove absolutely brilliant. The only time it ever let me down was one day near South Downs College I was approaching a roundabout and the front brake callipers seized somehow, overheating the brakes. The first I knew of it was when I pushed the brake pedal and nothing happened! 
I shit myself as we were coming up on the roundabout (and the back of a learners driver car!😆) fast, so I changed down gears and yanked the handbrake up in desperation. It stopped fine and didn’t hit anything, but after composing myself (and emptying my pants!) I reversed it back up the road into a cul de sac and got it recovered home. 
A few days later I replaced all the callipers, hoses, discs & pads just to be safe. Even then, those callipers weren’t cheap either. 
Apart from that, it was spot on. Funnily enough I’ve only been without an old rear drive Volvo for about a year since that car. The gold 740 saloon behind it in the photo above I had for ages, then sold it when I got my yank tank, then got Volvo withdrawl symptoms and got the 740 estate I’ve got now. Which won’t be going anywhere!

I think I took this pic of the 244 dash/mileage not long before it left me.

 

Hi Dan, that's great to hear so much about it's earlier life. Yeah I was aware it started in Cornwall and looks like it was there for over 20 years according to old paperwork that's with it.  Had no idea about it mebay being a special edition though. That's pretty cool. Yeah I've had contact with the guy who did the respray work a few years back and got some old photos of it before it was painted blue. No idea about what happened to it's original crl 99v plate. Im not sure how or when it ended up in Scotland but Ive had it since 2017 and believe the owner before me had it a few years also. When I got the car it had been fitted with a 'homemade' sort of LPG system, which I have since removed and put it back to standard petrol. The original fuel tank had been removed so I had to source a new one. I used the car daily for about 3 years through Scottish winter salty roads also. It's still fairly solid underneath but is now requiring some sill work and some paint work again. Hoping to get it some TLC this summer.

[danthecapriman]

8 hours ago, Ewan240 said:

Hi Dan, that's great to hear so much about it's earlier life. Yeah I was aware it started in Cornwall and looks like it was there for over 20 years according to old paperwork that's with it.  Had no idea about it mebay being a special edition though. That's pretty cool. Yeah I've had contact with the guy who did the respray work a few years back and got some old photos of it before it was painted blue. No idea about what happened to it's original crl 99v plate. Im not sure how or when it ended up in Scotland but Ive had it since 2017 and believe the owner before me had it a few years also. When I got the car it had been fitted with a 'homemade' sort of LPG system, which I have since removed and put it back to standard petrol. The original fuel tank had been removed so I had to source a new one. I used the car daily for about 3 years through Scottish winter salty roads also. It's still fairly solid underneath but is now requiring some sill work and some paint work again. Hoping to get it some TLC this summer.

That’s great to see it again! 
I must say, it looks much nicer in the blue than the original white.

Pity it’s starting to rust a bit, but it sounds like you’ve got it in hand. I suppose that’s the nature of running cars like this though. It’s why I keep mine off the road in winter. 
Interesting to hear it had picked up an LPG kit though. I remember it did like a drink when I had it though! So I can understand it really. 
I don’t know if you know or not, so apologies if you do, but that car is a changeover model. Towards the end of the original 200 series production they restyled the arse end on saloons to the style on yours, which was more or less what went on to the later 240’s. The front end remained the same on the DL models (like yours) with small square headlights, wide grill and big bumpers. On GL and above models they fitted new wider rectangular headlights with a narrower grill for some reason. They were only like it for a few years until the 240 came out with its own completely revised front end. 
Originally when I got the car it had some very flimsy late model black door mirrors on, which I replaced with early style chrome ones which it looks like it still has. They came off a seriously rotten S reg 244 I found in a scrapyard (which had over 300k miles on it!).   
It did have its share of rust even when I had it though, despite its low mileage. One of the rear wheel arches was in a right state having been bodged up at some point, and the little panel just above the back bumper but below the number plate was mostly filler and what looked like bits of aluminium riveted on from underneath. I seem to remember the two spare wheel ‘arse cheeks’ were a bit crispy too. From memory off the Retro Rides thread all that was fixed when it was painted blue though.

Has it still got the blue fabric seats?   
I remember once driving over some speed humps and on the last one the lumbar support inside the seat collapsed under the weight of my fat arse😄 odd sensation of suddenly collapsing into a very soft seat! I couldn’t fix it though without removing the seat cover which would probably have ruined it.

Im not sure if it was a limited edition model, but it was very odd having those anniversary model stripes on it. The anniversary models were all silver and all 77 cars, so it was obviously not that. But I’m sure some dealerships did their own thing to help sell cars. Basically jazzing up the lower spec cars with bits of extra trim of decals etc to make them a bit different to normal. Ford dealers did it a lot back at the time too making odd models like the Sierra Laser etc. so maybe they had a load of spare anniversary stripe decals to hand and just used them??

[mk2_craig]

Bought two while living in Leicester,

 

This one was SPEARS OR REAPERS and cost about 85 quid I think. Did drive but with expired tax and MOT it was a great excuse to indulge in a spot of A-FRAMIN, no G. 
 

And this came a few months later, with valid MoT this time and only about 40k miles. Piss poor description and single blurred photo meant £123.03 was all that this got bid up to. 

[riek]

Mine was an xudt engined rover R8 with 186k miles. How many shite points for that?

[Metal Guru]

Never bought a car on eBay but I’ve probably  bought enough parts to make one.

[loserone]

First was the 323f GTi.  It was a classified ad tho.  The 206 GTI was a cheeky offer 20 mins before the end of the auction 20% below the start price.  The 205cj was a cheeky 5 bids when it was listed and noone else bid.  There's been a few more too.

[R Lutz]

Austin Metro VDP. lack, 5 door, from Kingswinford. Absolutely shite and not as described 

[Captain Slow]

A £2800 Bentley Mulsanne Turbo without an MoT. 

 

In hindsight perhaps I should have expected the explosion/inferno. 

[DavidB]

I bought a BMW 2002 Tii with completely destroyed floors for £260 in 2004. It had a Turbo body kit , I nearly bought a tidy 2002Tii with the same body kit for £800 in 2005 (on eBay also), they were that cheap back then. 

[Marina door handles]

The first and so far only car I have won on ebay is the Rover 827......

 

[Spottedlaurel]

I've surprised myself by discovering that this was win #1:

£450-ish in 2004 from the original owner in Gt Yarmouth. It took over daily driver duties from one of the 323F GTs in the background.

[captain_70s]

2018, bought unseen for £850. A crispy '83 Acclaim with a dodgy respray, a misfire and a month of MOT. I snapped the only door key opening the fuel filler cap and the exhaust fell off on the trip home.

Has probably been my most reliable car, but was also amazingly rotten. I've done 30,000 miles in it and it's had much welding and been resprayed.

[EyesWeldedShut]

I'd been buying crap cars at 'proper' car auctions since around 1992 then two things arrived (1) eBay and (2) Child Bride (who turned out to be a bit of a petrolhead).
Our first eBay car was this 924 in a deep (not Guards) red colour. £999 in  2002 or so. It lasted 3 or 4 years as my wife's daily driver - it became a bit lumpy in traffic on the commute then both rear wheel bearings/arms got condemned -  so was replaced by a 1.4 runout, ex-Mobility Escort (from Saltash Auctions around 2006).

Since then I've had at least a Laguna, Ovlov 440, 1.8 Mondeo, Sportage, Musso, FreeLander 1, 2 x Binis via eBay. One or two were a bit crap but, in the main, I felt they were pretty much all good value for the money.

Latest eBay one was last month - Child Bride's latest acquisition - SLK 320 on 89,000 miles for £1,000. She rather likes it.

[St.Jude]

On 15/03/2020 at 20:18, St.Jude said:

At 32 years old, and having been using eBay since 2004 when I was 16, I have yet to pop the car buying eBay cherry.

Thanks to @sdkrc for putting this back on my map, I finally popped said cherry a few months ago with the Subaru.

[danthecapriman]

3 hours ago, Spottedlaurel said:

I've surprised myself by discovering that this was win #1:

£450-ish in 2004 from the original owner in Gt Yarmouth. It took over daily driver duties from one of the 323F GTs in the background.

Sitting here in 2025 it seems staggering that a cars like that were around for so little money back then. 
£450 wouldn’t get you much now, and it certainly wouldn’t get you a car as good looking as that. 
Im pretty sure my gold Volvo 740 and the white 244 above were picked up around that time for similar money. Hard to believe that’s now over 20 years ago!

[Snipes]

Imagine daily-ing a 180b. Or a 323f GT for that matter!

[Spottedlaurel]

3 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Sitting here in 2025 it seems staggering that a cars like that were around for so little money back then. 
£450 wouldn’t get you much now, and it certainly wouldn’t get you a car as good looking as that. 
Im pretty sure my gold Volvo 740 and the white 244 above were picked up around that time for similar money. Hard to believe that’s now over 20 years ago!

That amount was very close to my top bid too, I'd been hoping to get it for less. It was just before interest in that kind of stuff really took off, and in the Japanese car world in particular we were used to buying and selling things for not much money at all.

[loserone]

1 hour ago, Sir Snipes said:

323f GTI

I dailied mine (bought for £600) until I bought an Impreza.  Sold it on here for £100 via PayPal, so it could come out of the next paycheque.  

[Bear]

I did have a dig around to see if I'd saved the old listing, but i think I only saved the pictures:

  

Presumably sometime in November or December 1999, me with zero feedback I think, in the UK, and I bid on a car in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Even then I bet they went "WTF, an overseas zero-feedback bidder won my auction? FML".

Naturally I showed up and handed over the $400, having driven at high speed from DFW in my friend's Ford Contour, then drove the Buick back to Oklahoma where I was staying for three weeks.

Soon got comfortable with a CD walkman soved in the bench seat split and Paula Cole's 'This Fire' while heading out for fried Okra and Grits.

With biscuits and gravy obvs.

The back was covered in Hot Topic stickers.

The car made such an impression that when a local Chevy dealer had a $99 car sale prize draw and I wanted one of the cars even if I didn't win the tombola, they asked $500 for it and I had $300 in my wallet. I said $300 and my Buick, they looked, and said $300 as long as I promised to take that piece of shit off their yard.

I didn't win, but the guy who did took a Subaru so...

And my friend's brother in law bought the Buick for $600, so I guess I got a Cadillac for $100. Never thought of that before. Left it there and gave it to a friend in the 'states.

[leakingstrut]

I was straight out of uni, working a shitty temp job putting boxes of tampon wrappers on pallets and my green ZX had shat its second head gasket. This 215,000 mile Volcane TD was acquired from eBay up for £150 with 6 months t&t.

Had a dead front trailing arm bush which meant it jolted to the left when you hit 45mph. That was fun driving it back from Leeds to Alva. Green one donated some parts and it did me well for 6 months until the MOT ran out, it was then sold old eBay for a pound more than I paid.

It was followed up with a succession of mostly far away eBay auction shite…

• 406 estate, Perth auctions 
• E36 325tds, eBay, Kent 
• VW Bora TDI, eBay, Blackpool 
• another 325tds, who the fuck knows where in the sound of England 
• And after a non-eBay e46, a Vauxhall Vivaro from somewhere else in the south.

[Ewan240]

On 05/06/2025 at 09:50, danthecapriman said:

That’s great to see it again! 
I must say, it looks much nicer in the blue than the original white.

Pity it’s starting to rust a bit, but it sounds like you’ve got it in hand. I suppose that’s the nature of running cars like this though. It’s why I keep mine off the road in winter. 
Interesting to hear it had picked up an LPG kit though. I remember it did like a drink when I had it though! So I can understand it really. 
I don’t know if you know or not, so apologies if you do, but that car is a changeover model. Towards the end of the original 200 series production they restyled the arse end on saloons to the style on yours, which was more or less what went on to the later 240’s. The front end remained the same on the DL models (like yours) with small square headlights, wide grill and big bumpers. On GL and above models they fitted new wider rectangular headlights with a narrower grill for some reason. They were only like it for a few years until the 240 came out with its own completely revised front end. 
Originally when I got the car it had some very flimsy late model black door mirrors on, which I replaced with early style chrome ones which it looks like it still has. They came off a seriously rotten S reg 244 I found in a scrapyard (which had over 300k miles on it!).   
It did have its share of rust even when I had it though, despite its low mileage. One of the rear wheel arches was in a right state having been bodged up at some point, and the little panel just above the back bumper but below the number plate was mostly filler and what looked like bits of aluminium riveted on from underneath. I seem to remember the two spare wheel ‘arse cheeks’ were a bit crispy too. From memory off the Retro Rides thread all that was fixed when it was painted blue though.

Has it still got the blue fabric seats?   
I remember once driving over some speed humps and on the last one the lumbar support inside the seat collapsed under the weight of my fat arse😄 odd sensation of suddenly collapsing into a very soft seat! I couldn’t fix it though without removing the seat cover which would probably have ruined it.

Im not sure if it was a limited edition model, but it was very odd having those anniversary model stripes on it. The anniversary models were all silver and all 77 cars, so it was obviously not that. But I’m sure some dealerships did their own thing to help sell cars. Basically jazzing up the lower spec cars with bits of extra trim of decals etc to make them a bit different to normal. Ford dealers did it a lot back at the time too making odd models like the Sierra Laser etc. so maybe they had a load of spare anniversary stripe decals to hand and just used them??

Yeah the colour suits it well, would have been nice if it was fully original too but guess if it was tired in it's original white then it was needing a respray regardless. Yeah was aware they didn't make my exact model for long before changing onto the newer style 240 look. I actually always wondered about the mirrors as any other 79/80 car has the plastic ones, nice to find the reason why they are the better looking silver ones. And over 300k on the mirrors is a nice story.i thank from memory the car is on around 115000 miles now, so not done a whole lot since your ownership. Sure it was about 94k when I got it back in 2017.  As for the seats, yeah still got the blue interior. The drivers seat was well worn and I was actually lucky enough to find someone online that was breaking up a left hand drive 245 for parts and managed to get a driver's seat which was just about brand new condition due to coming from a LHD car. Nice to have been in contact with you and hearing all about it's earlier life and it's changes over the years.