Harrison's Garage - it’s all gone to shit and I’m borrowing a car.

[rob88h]

Harrison’s History - #20 Sad Face Ford Fiesta mk4 S195 AGD

Technically the Fiesta after this one replaced the Volvo, but I’m struggling to remember the exact timeline and this one came and went while the Volvo was around/leaving. I got it from a friend at work for basically free and after replacing the heater control valve and temperature control resistor – like everyone who’s had this generation Fiesta or Puma – I sold it on to my brother for what it owed me. I don’t know how my friend had coped driving regularly between Essex and Glasgow that summer with the heating on full, it’s no wonder he wanted to get rid of it! I also replaced the door with a colour matching one (wow!) for a more rust-free and rust proofed version from a mk5. The bump trim didn’t match, so at least there was some visual oddness to it. My brother and I both agreed that the 1.25L Zetec was a good match in these little cars and my brother only eventually sold it because he had too many things on the go.

[rob88h]

Harrison’s History - #21 Ford Fiesta mk2 F738 HKE

I’d spotted a mk2 shaped gap in my Fiesta history which coincided with finding this lovely mk2 diesel at a local garage forecourt for an absolute steal. This was my first foray into Diesel ownership, and the naturally aspirated 1.6L Ford LT Diesel I think was a good example of the shortcomings of diesels. Driving back up the M2, which previously I’d not realised was uphill, requires a downshift and I was still firmly in the hassled-by-trucks category. Then there was the noise! This thing was an absolute tractor and starting it up in the mornings I’d wish I’d parked it away from civilisation as to not annoy too many neighbours. Amazingly the thing had scissor timing gears (presumably broken!) to try and reduce rattle

Refinement and performance aside, the car was pretty good. With a different engine I can see this being as good as the other Fiesta’s from the era, which it is largely similar too anyway. Personally, I prefer the looks of the Mk1 and I have the first-car-affinity to the mk3, so this one is only my third favourite Fiesta. I took pretty standard care of the car yet learnt the value of replacing fuel filters after running the tank down to get a good average for a fuel economy calculation. It all came to a head when my partner tried to join a dual carriageway with a maximum speed of 25mph – and because it wasn’t a Metro she had no sympathy. I sold the car as I was still doing quite a few motorway miles and the Fiesta was more suited to chugging around town never leaving 3^rd gear. I got probably the most profit I’ve ever made on a car selling this one due to a bidding war between two people who learnt to drive in one like it. They both seemed to have a now or never crisis as according to howmanyleft.co.uk it was one of two surviving 1.6L Diesel mk2’s. Personally I wouldn’t bother…

[rob88h]

Harrison’s History - #22 Volvo V40 W691 XPP

My big car, little car, big car swing was still occurring, probably because I did about 5 miles a day going to work and then 500 miles a weekend on mountain bike trips or visiting family. A Volvo estate should be perfect then right? Well, maybe, if I hadn’t bought a high mileage 1.6 petrol… Like the diesel Fiesta, this thing also required motorway shift downs and lived constantly in the hassled-by-trucks category. It was really underpowered and fuel consumption was pretty high because the engine was working so hard all the time. I think the V40 from this era is a pretty good-looking machine though, especially in this colour! My friend managed the elusive £1 buy for a white one of these (not a 1.6L), replaced a MAF and has managed tens of thousands of miles since. The dream.

I rebuilt the shift linkage mechanism on this car because 5^th gear was not always possible to get to – with parts the Volvo dealers were still stocking which was impressive. I also enrolled it in the official Volvo High Mileage Register as an ode to the commitment of whomever had the patience to get it there. I sold it pretty swiftly for another little car.

[Eyersey1234]

Nice Fiestas and Ovlov. 

[rob88h]

Harrison’s History - #23 Toyota MR2 L84 GAA

By late 2014 I had the itch to retry my ill-fated Land’s End to John O’Groats Christmas trip. The brief I’d set myself was that it had to be in a sportscar in homage to the attempt made by the Porsche 924S, or at least something you’d consider a sportscar - and it had to be less than £500 due to financial constraints. I managed to get this SW20 MR2 from somewhere on the South Coast, high mileage, warped discs, no history. One of the previous owners had heavily smoked the indicator lenses and fitted weird HID lights to it. I restored the car back to its factory settings with eBay spares and sold on the HID lights kit and smoked lenses to make the whole endeavour pretty much cost neutral. Except two new rear tyres... They’d cost more than I’d paid for the entire car FFS.

After a basic service I pressed the car into daily use to build up some confidence, and then on December 22^nd we set off for or second LEJOG attempt. Unfortunately for anyone still following this thread, the car provided zero entertainment other than one low oil pressure warning, swiftly remedied with a top up.

I sometimes miss the MR2, it was a fun car and I’d definitely have one again – but it was not suited to transporting a mountain bike, so it had to go. Until this point I’d often owned more than one car at once, but I’d not unlocked the next tier of taxing and insuring multiple cars (save for the Missus’ Civic on her policy) thanks to extortionate young man insurance.

[Eyersey1234]

I've often thought about doing Land's End to John o Groats, will have to see if I can persuade my OH when this virus has fucked off

 

[rob88h]

Since I did it in the MR2 in 2014 I've done it twice more, in 2016 and 2018. The Land's End to John O'Groats trip has become a biennial Christmas tradition for me and one of my old school friends who shares the driving/co-driving. We're both living in Essex but make the trip to Yorkshire for Christmas the long way round every other year. (In the off-years we stay at home or visit my wife's parents). I'm due to make another stab at it this Christmas, maybe in the XJS... maybe something else. If nothing else it's a good excuse to get a cheap sports car every couple of years!

I had meant to only do it the once with the 924S, but because that went wrong it became unfinished business, which then became a retry, which then became a tradition. It's a nice achievement but it is a lot of driving, ha. We try and mix it up by adding a bit of a spin to it each time: 2016 was no Motorways, 2018 was top down all the way. Any ideas for 2020? We've been thinking of incorporating the North West 500 into the trip "while we're up there".

[Eyersey1234]

28 minutes ago, rob88h said:

Since I did it in the MR2 in 2014 I've done it twice more, in 2016 and 2018. The Land's End to John O'Groats trip has become a biennial Christmas tradition for me and one of my old school friends who shares the driving/co-driving. We're both living in Essex but make the trip to Yorkshire for Christmas the long way round every other year. (In the off-years we stay at home or visit my wife's parents). I'm due to make another stab at it this Christmas, maybe in the XJS... maybe something else. If nothing else it's a good excuse to get a cheap sports car every couple of years!

I had meant to only do it the once with the 924S, but because that went wrong it became unfinished business, which then became a retry, which then became a tradition. It's a nice achievement but it is a lot of driving, ha. We try and mix it up by adding a bit of a spin to it each time: 2016 was no Motorways, 2018 was top down all the way. Any ideas for 2020? We've been thinking of incorporating the North West 500 into the trip "while we're up there".

I'll have a think, I'm Yorkshire based so don't know the North West that well. I drive buses and coaches for a living so the driving doesn't bother me. 

[rob88h]

Harrison’s History - #24 Volvo 440 M93 CEC

Also during 2014 I acquired my illustrious Volvo 440 SE as a gift from my cousin who in turn got it as a gift from our nan who had bought it new. As I still have this heirloom I didn’t know what to write about it in this little history section I’m running, but I’ve decided to summarise on what it’s been up to from 2014 until 2020 and then hopefully you’ll see more of it in the future as it continues on being awesome. I’m in a (fairly) unique situation in loving a 440 so much, but because of the sentimentality of it I’ve kept it six years now, the longest I’ve ever had a car, and we’ve really bonded. I’ve seen a nice Blurple one floating around on this forum which is also highly rated beyond its renown as a 440, so maybe there is more to these articles of chod than most people realise. There was a time when a 440 was my least favourite Volvo, if there is such a thing (analogous to a least favourite type of bacon sandwich I suppose), but now the 440 is easily a top 20 Volvo for me.

M93 CEC was ordered by my Grandpa for my nan and came from Marlborough Road Volvo – which I can’t find anything about on the internet. I am told that this was not actually the car they ordered due to a mistake during its registration. My nan who had started driving as an ambulance driver during the war (didn’t have to take a driving test!) had by chance only ever owned cars with a registration divisible by three! Her history of Standard Eights, Morris Minors and alike had all been divisible by three and she’d become quite auspicious to the fact. Their order had been registered with a registration that didn’t have 3 as a factor and that was serious enough that they were going to walk away until Volvo managed to secure her this car through the dealer network, similar to the one they’d ordered. I used to spend every summer holiday at my grandparents, and I can remember going to PYO strawberry fields and going to see Heysham Nuclear Power Station in this Volvo, aged 6, my feet unable to touch the floor and feeling the velvet of the seats on the back of my legs. Sadly, my nan passed away recently and we’ve not been able to attend any funeral due to the covid19 lockdown. We’re planning a memorial when we can travel and meet-up and the whole family is of course looking forward to seeing the Volvo there.

My nan stopped driving probably 10 years ago and the Volvo went to my cousin who had no car at the time. He liked the Volvo more than my Nan somehow, had the crusty arches addressed and used it as his car for everything, taking care of it whenever it needed anything. I still think he’d say this is his favourite car! He only passed it to me because he smashed a rear light cluster putting a pram in the boot and conceded that he needed something more practical for family duties. He was so mad with himself for breaking the light I think he didn’t want the car to get any more worn through family duties.

For me the Volvo has been the perfect interim car. It’s always there, the fleet keeps changing and the Volvo always plugs the holes between purchases, or when nothing else is working. I seem to average about 4000 miles a year in the Volvo, sometimes parked up for 6 months at a time followed by periods of intense usage, sometimes just gentle consistent use. I’ve replaced the broken rear light cluster, had the rear arches re-redone, replaced the front lights as the beam adjustment had broken, replaced vandalised wingmirrors (grrr!), neatened up the pealing black plastic coated aluminium roof strips, replaced a leaky radiator, had the rear inner rear wells welded, replaced the alternator, had to do something confusing with a mega fuse that I forget now, replaced the exhaust and services and such. In retrospect it feels like it has caused me a lot trouble on account of all the things I’ve had to repair, but then I’ve had it longer than anything, so my time exposed to repairs is probably pretty fair all things considered. It’s currently blooming blooming in rust on the door bottoms and front wings (and probably inner wings). I’ve been trying to buy a spares car while they’re cheap to do some panel swaps and have a bit of a store of parts but in the last few years the 440’s of our streets have vanished. Also, my developed affinity to the 440 means I’m having a hard time coming to terms with the idea of taking one off the road to feed mine, I’d probably just end up trying to save two!

Sorry that was quite an epic on this car – but it deserves it.

[rob88h]

Harrison’s History - #25 Mazda MX-5 K559 BOF

By this point, if you couldn’t tell, I was getting quite serious about cars, but I hadn’t really developed many real skills other than just attempting stuff out of necessity. Something I really wanted to be able to do is welding, so when I was offered a £200 MX5 in 2015 (because it was that bad!), I thought that this would be a good car to practise on. I have aspirations of restoring a car one day, but I don’t want to start on something that I really want and make a complete pigs ear of it and have to scrap it – that’s where the Mazda project comes in, it was already beyond economic repair and there are still loads around so I don’t feel too bad if it comes to the worst. I have already learnt the first lesson, however bad it looks, its always worse once you start investigating.

I’ve done a welding course in the evenings at a local college and I think I’ve learnt enough to realise it’s pretty hard, especially with bad prep and welding upside down against gravity – all the things I have to do on the Mazda… I’ve not given up, it’s just I’ve not started in 5 years. Lockdown has helped though, I’ve bought a welder finally. I just need steel, gas and the humility to criticism as you join me on my journey of learning to weld. The goal is “road legal”. Every two years my sights are set on making it a LEJOG car, and every two years I buy something else because I haven’t started.

[rob88h]

Harrison’s History - #26 Volvo 440 M639 EVL

M93 CEC developed a sever stigmatism, sever enough to fail an MOT. Adjusting the dipped beam alignment was not possible as all the plastic screws having disintegrated with age and trying to find elusive replacements was not bearing fruits. I started looking at headlamp assemblies which were about £200 each and ended up buying M639 EVL for just over £400… Things escalated that way, we’ve all been there. After swapping the offending light over M93 CEC had an MOT, job done. Having done about a thousand miles in the spares car I sold it on for what I got it for. I wish I hadn’t – I’m looking for another one again now and it’s proving much harder to find one now.

[wesacosa]

couple of pre face lift 440s on eBay at the moment @rob88h, although I am sure you seen already

[rob88h]

eBay sends me a notification when anyone lists a 440 ?. That and Ford Granadas.....

[AlsoMike]

On 5/22/2020 at 4:00 PM, rob88h said:

I went to look at a Renault 5 just like this years ago, it was tucked up in a garage on road just like this... it all looks very familiar.

[rob88h]

@AlsoMike - I notice that your location is Lincolnshire..., I sold the R5 from Gainsborough.... (I think, as this photo is definitely from Gainsborough). You should have bought it! it was a real beastie with the benefit of rose tinted hindsight. 

[AlsoMike]

It was in Gainsborough! Just did a googlemaps search to remind myself. Cant think why I talked myself out of buying it tbh! Looks pretty good in the photos. And that is a cracking selection of chod you've had over the years, well done!

[rob88h]

Harrison’s History - #27 Ford Galaxy T292 YPP

This next purchase was for another cheap car rally type trip similar to what me and my friends did back in 2006 in the Volvo 340. This time, rather than using my everyday car, we plumped for a dedicated vehicle and this afforded us the ability to get something a little roomier as a fifth person wanted to come along. There was a budget of something like £500 and my requirement was that it had to be a manual for the Pyrenees. My friends’ only requirement was that they didn’t want to search for it, pick it up, buy it, insure it, service it or be responsible for the car in any way, haha. Luckily I’d had a bit of practise and although it was a bit of a struggle I managed to get a fairly knacked Ford Galaxy 2.3L Manual – and amazingly it was only from 15 minutes down the road. I drove the car as my daily for a while to fault find and fix important things ahead of the trip.

With it being a Galaxy we came up with the theme of being “Guardians of the Galaxy”, we being the “guardians” of the Galaxy painted in Galaxy branding and dressed as characters from the Guardians of the Galaxy comic/film. A tour de force of anything relating to guardians and Galaxies. Pretty proud of the outcome actually!

We drove the Galaxy to Marrakesh with little to no trouble, a splash of oil every now and then. We parked it up in some underground carpark for a week for us to do tourisms at the end of the trip and instead of money we gave the proprietors all the removable spare seats which they were really keen for. Someone flew out of Africa, so we only had the front seats and third row seats with acres of space in the middle – should have done it sooner. We had to drive the car back to Europe as the shipping papers prohibited us from selling or scrapping it in Africa. Once back in Spain our piece of art was taken away for scrap as had been pre-arranged by the event organisers. We spent quite some time the night before working out ways of getting it home, but we all had jobs (boo) so couldn’t afford the extra time off for the long drive back from south Spain.

[rob88h]

Harrison’s History - #28 Renault Clio N631 OBO

It was a pretty stable stable, my wife using the Civic and me using my Volvo 440 with an MX5 project in the garage. I’d had a couple of fourth car excursions with the donor Volvo and the Galaxy Galaxy, but I had mostly tried to avoid something additional that didn’t have a purpose. It was therefore impossible for me to say no when someone offered me a free Renault Clio. It was an “enabler” at work who’d seen it on a local Facebook page who alerted me to it and I went round that day to get it. Behold Nob-o, aptly registered to relate to the annoyance it caused with its really infuriating flaky ignition system.

This thing was solid – the sills were like new! I don’t think I found any rust on the car. The previous owner wanted rid of it because it was pink (I don’t have any pre T-Cut photos, sorry) and because someone had smashed a rear passenger window. I replaced the glass, gave it a cut and polish and drove it a round for a bit. It was a nice drive, kind of reminded me of the R5, but it broke down a lot to start with! Always ignition system and like with the R5 cooling system I should have just done one major overhaul rather than fixing it every single trip one piece at a time. In the end it was what I deemed reliable and all that was missing was a door trim strip that I could not get a hold of for sensible money. I sold the car to the highest bidder through eBay. My wife liked this one because it reminded her of a Rover 100/Metro.

[rob88h]

3 hours ago, rob88h said:

Harrison’s History - #24 Volvo 440 M93 CEC

I had been waiting to make this post in the hope that the Harrison Archivist could dig something up but unfortunately I gave in at the eleventh hour. No sooner than I had posted did this scanned image come to light! Below is an early photo of M93 CEC with Grandpa Harrison. It's amazing. 

Can anyone help with the grill badge on the right? I think the left is AA.

[wesacosa]

3 minutes ago, rob88h said:

I had been waiting to make this post in the hope that the Harrison Archivist could dig something up but unfortunately I gave in at the eleventh hour. No sooner than I had posted did this scanned image come to light! Below is an early photo of M93 CEC with Grandpa Harrison. It's amazing. 

Can anyone help with the grill badge on the right? I think the left is AA.

Institute of advanced motorists?

[outlaw118]

16 minutes ago, wesacosa said:

Institute of advanced motorists?

Or CSMA? Was he a Civil Servant?

I've spotted your fleet a couple of times whilst at work, and always thought about taking a pic. Now I don't have to!

[Eyersey1234]

I think it's Institute of Advanced Motorists too. 

[rob88h]

I'm asking around to see if any of the family have those grill ornament trinkets in a box in a garage somewhere with the hope or re-uniting them with the Volvo. Maybe I can make a recreation of the photo - I just need to sort out my wardrobe first to find something similar to the photo!

[rob88h]

Harrison’s History - #29 Volkswagen Golf Driver G294 JWA

While driving around in the Clio I was given my other Grandad’s Golf to sell. He was giving up driving and given how many cars I’d bought and sold in the last 10 years the privilege of selling it was given to me. We agreed that I’d drive the car for a while as he’d only been doing MOT-and-back mileage for a few years, then I’d sell it on his behalf. He’d owned it since new, but even though the Driver edition is pretty high up the spec scale, I’d been brought up with it always “not being as good as my last one” which I’m told was a pretty base Mk1 Golf. Personally, I quite liked driving the Driver and this one was pretty minty – less than 50,000 miles, always garaged, rust free and only a little bit of damage on the passenger front door. I guess certain versions of these old Golf’s are always going to be desirable and I got a decent price for him on it despite the damaged door, which had been part of the reason he’d stopped driving it. I had tried to replace the door, but this car seemed to be in some rare paint code for Golf mk2’s and I could only find donors with the more standard Sliver/Blue rather than the specific paint code labelled on this one. An interneting rabbit hole lead to finding out this particular code was predominantly a Porsche paint code and I gave up on that in the end due to driveway stackage. The guy I sold it to managed to get it replaced, but with the near match more common colour and it didn't look too bad.

[rob88h]

Harrison’s History - #30 Porsche 944 F757 RYT

Somehow two years and six cars had passed and it was again time for my biennial JeJog attempt. The MX-5 had made it from my driveway into my garage and was not going to be on the road in the short amount of time I’d left myself to organise the trip. The Volvo 440 didn’t fit the “sports car” mantra and I think I’d probably sold everything else (except the Civic). It’s hard to remember only having 3 cars, they were simpler times… I cast my net wide and caught a Porsche 944 for £900!

You may think that was a heroic find, but the following is to be taken into account: Auto (3 speed?), hand painted matt black (badly), zero history (except a water damaged MOT fail sheet in the glove box), dented n/s door, dented rear wing and the front n/s bumper hanging loose. Personally though, I couldn’t have been happier with it and driving this thing round daily to gain some long distance confidence was ace – a real dick swinging car – and I actually quite liked the rat look as it came to me, even though I’d have never done that myself. Trying to go a little sideways in it was lethal thanks to the kickdown invariably happening mid-manoeuvre.

After successfully completing LeJog in the MR2 with no notable events two years previously we decided to make things more exciting by enforcing a strict no Motorway policy in 2016. The Porsche ate it all up with ease and was really enjoyable on the dual carriageways as a cruiser and hilarious fun in the twisties somewhat thanks to the dim-witted transmission in my opinion. The only real discomfort was the freezing rainwater dripping pouring onto my foot on the accelerator during some Glaswegian monsoon we passed through. I guess that a leaky bulkhead explains the water damaged MOT fail paperwork in the glovebox…

I put it straight up for sale when I got back, I don’t know why, past me is sometimes an idiot. I did get £1300 for it though and all I’d done is zip-tie the loose bumper on and thrash it. I remember selling this one vividly, I went for the strange tactic of telling the guy to walk away as it was way to rough for what he was after. I’d had loads of interest it and the first guy was aspiring to do a full restoration – this rat-bag was more suited to contentedly limping through ropey MOT’s. He bought his 944 expert friend with him who said “don’t touch it!”. He paid me in full later that day. I hope he did fix it up, this car deserved it.

[rob88h]

Harrison’s History - #31 Austin Mini A654 WOV

May 2017-ish sees the arrival of my other Mini, shown here against an old new Mini for context.

I wrote a bit about this one already and if I’ve done things right you should be able to see that here: If not, it’s on page one somewhere.

On 3/31/2020 at 9:50 AM, rob88h said:

I came across A654 WOV whilst trying to find any A-reg car to complete my challenge of having owned a car from every registration prefix (except Q, they don't do it for me). The fact that it was an unmolested mk3? Mini made me look at it more than I should have done. It was cheap but very close to terminally rotten with a no doubt crooked ticket. I got it into my head that this one ticked a lot of boxes and if I didn't go for it I'd probably would never get another Mini on account of them costing too much. So in May 2017 I picked up my new Mini and have proceeded to spend the thousands I should have spent on a buying a good one on putting in new floors, sub frames and sills. This Mini was using floor mats (five per side!) as a structural element to disguise the flex in the holed floor when resting your heels in the pedals area. It is really satisfying to know I've saved it for a while though. The Mini is probably a long term keeper for me given the story behind why it's here. It's essentially the reincarnation of my first car (that wasn't my first car).

One edit to make on what I wrote before is that I didn’t buy this to complete my Number Plate Challenge to myself as I had thought. Turns out I still had a few more letters to go at this point – but what is true is that it far too heavily influenced my reasons to buy. Also mentioned before were the structural floor mats, so have a gander at what they were hiding and the subsequent floor replacements (both fronts and o/s rear). Additionally, it needed new tyres and I didn’t want to put them on to the old minging wheels, so I had the original 10” steelies refurbed and powder coated white (not the standard silver, I’ve let myself down I know). They’re way too good for the car but I think it adds to the trying-too-hard-to-survive look. Also refurbing your only wheels is an absolute logistical nightmare!

The picture with the bike on the roof went down well – so have some more with other bikes! I seem prefer transporting my bikes around on the Mini but I’ve only just realised this. I guess it’s because I don’t have to take a wheel off. Unless a Motorway is involved, then never… take… the Mini…

Other than the stupendous rampant corrosion this Mini has not been too bad and mechanically I’ve only had complete clutch failure and complete brake failure. The clutch was just the slave cylinder and was a doddle to fix. The brake is (I presume) a wheel cylinder, given that a relatively new-ish looking shoe on the n/s front had turned completely to pâté and fell off it’s backing plate when I knocked the drum off… Me thinks it was weeping for a while and finally went pop randomly when I wanted to use it. Luckily I was braking for no real reason round a sweeping corner and not stopping for a junction or anything! I was able to get a bit of life out of pumping and roll the thing to a stop. Check your brakes people. Naturally I’ve ordered new wheel cylinders and shoes for each and every corner. You see, I’m learning from the R5 cooling and Clio engine bay wiring and replacing the lot once one part has started to fail rather than repeating the same issue again and again. I certainly don’t want brake failure again, least of all in a heavily corroded Mini.

This is where it sits now, in shame, while it waits for parts and for forgiveness for having tried to kill me.

 

[Dan302]

So nice to see a mini that isn't turned into a cooper replica, it reminds me of the minis I used to see all the time in the 80s and early 90s.

[rob88h]

12 hours ago, Dan302 said:

nice to see a mini that isn't turned into a cooper replica

I tend to stick to originality as a general preference with my cars. I don't mind preserving what someone else has already done to a car by the time I've got it, as I can tell myself it's part of the car's history... It was a difficult decision for me to change the Mini wheels to white and the thought of whether it was the right thing to do or not still bothers me more than it should. If it comes to full respray I was anticipating an Old English White roof with the rest the standard Primrose and I though the white wheels and roof would be a good look. However, I've already decided for sure that if it ever gets does get re-sprayed (I'm currently in the wear it's patina camp) then it'll only ever be Primrose all over. 

[rob88h]

Harrison’s History - #32 VW Golf GU02 HTZ

This next purchase of mine was from a little initiative called RobinBuyAnyCar.com, slightly ripping off a certain company. I’d had a few little profit makers over the years and I enjoy the process of getting something, improving it slightly and mostly experiencing all sorts of different cars, then selling them on because life is too short. My general premise was that if someone I knew was trying to sell a car to that internet company, I would swoop in and offer them the WeBuyAnyCar.com price +10% with the added benefit that they know who it’s going to (at first). From fifty quid, to a thousand quid etc… etc… My first bite was from my brother (in-law?)(once removed?)(basically my brother’s wife’s brother) who was replacing his 2002 Golf mk4. I shifted this car on way too fast; before I’d even picked it up I had a bloke at work lined up to buy it and because I’m weak and he was a friend I didn’t even make any profit, haha. In fact, a loss when you consider a months tax, the insurance policy adjustment and a couple of trips across Dartford Crossing.

This car nearly threw a spanner in works for the whole Harrison’s History thing articles because its life with me was so short very few photos were ever taken, and they were all in the time period between back-ups and HDD failure. The guy I sold it to gave it to his daughter’s boyfriend and wasn’t much of a photo your car guy and the guy I bought it from who’d had it for years could only come up with this:

Then a few days ago – Jackpot, a photo of me driving the Golf away when I bought it surfaced from his partner, so this is my only photo of this car in my ownership! Enjoy.

[Dan302]

10 minutes ago, rob88h said:

I tend to stick to originality as a general preference with my cars. I don't mind preserving what someone else has already done to a car by the time I've got it, as I can tell myself it's part of the car's history... It was a difficult decision for me to change the Mini wheels to white and the thought of whether it was the right thing to do or not still bothers me more than it should. If it comes to full respray I was anticipating an Old English White roof with the rest the standard Primrose and I though the white wheels and roof would be a good look. However, I've already decided for sure that if it ever gets does get re-sprayed (I'm currently in the wear it's patina camp) then it'll only ever be Primrose all over. 

Wheels can always be repainted if you decide to go back to original, I think they look cool though. Minis just look so much better on 10" steels ? I love the colour and the patina. Its a nostalgia thing for me, minis generally weren't mint when I was a kid!