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What 40+ year old car would you choose?


Six-cylinder

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If I needed a dependable daily with a bit of character, I'd wait two years and then run a Mazda 323 BD estate. I drove one back in around 1993 and I really liked it. Basically a 1500cc mk1 RWD 323 with a BD nose, so a very different beast to the FWD BD hatch which was a racecar in contrast. 

Apparently @Hirst (Made Under Licence) (is that the Hirst?) owns this one. Now in single figures I'd imagine. A better car than the equivalent Ford undoubtedly. 

 

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This one used to live near to our place- not seen it for a decade but apparently still on SORN... wonder if it's been dry stored? 

 

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4 hours ago, JeeExEll said:

Interesting styling at half-time. 

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Slightly Fuego-ish with the wraparound window. 

But look what happens if you put the 100S top on a 924.

Je9BaPO.jpg

I like it, a lot.  Like a slightly scaled-down early 70s supercar, with  a neat body size and great handling.  I want one.

 

ATCNBE 😜

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On 10/6/2021 at 2:34 PM, Spurious said:

Sometimes I think a £99 per month Dacia would be far more easy than working a shonky 40 year old daily.  If you've only got space for one and one only, the last think you want is your Lada not starting Monday morning when you need to be in work. If you had a spare Lada, maybe that could work then?

 

I dailied Ladas a few years ago, albeit the super modern Riva, but never had any real issues. 😊

 

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Of all the things mentioned on here so far, the most realistic has to be the Mercedes W123 or Volvo 240. 

Something like an Allegro or Dolomite would need a garage to live in, and if you can afford a house with a garage in the ULEZ zone, you ain’t going to be worrying about ULEZ charges. Or 40 year old cars.

You’re just going to be stressing about the plebs opening doors against the flanks of your new F-pace or XC90 in Waitrose car park.

Actually, you’re not, because you use Ocado. 

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16 minutes ago, AnthonyG said:

Something like an Allegro or Dolomite would need a garage to live in, and if you can afford a house with a garage in the ULEZ zone,

you would be surprised at the amount of Street parked shite around here!

just downstairs is currently this wonderful scene :) im really hoping the SD1 and Volvo hang around like this until I can get REV here so I can park her in front and really get a line of shite going :) 

image.thumb.png.9f01836f611cfafbb9ccfa26f054aaaf.png

and elsewhere locally I know of several street parked Morris Minors and other such assorted vehicles, one of the things I have been planning on doing for a long while is when I get REV home is drive round and photograph everything :) and see if I can catch some of the owners and get chatting see how they manage things/what garages they use so I stand as best chance as I can have with maintaining REV

 

for those wondering I do have finally got a plan in place to finally talk with the owner Rover SD1 in the next couple days hopefully as I am worried about that one as its not old enough to be ULEZ exempt yet, and it means a lot to me, I literally grew up with that car so I would be very unhappy if it suddenly vanished one day with no idea as to what happened to it and without getting its story, I have known about it my entirely life but I have no clue as to what its story is! so its high time I finally try and find out

 

(I sadly have no idea who owns the Volvo, it showed up a few months ago, then vanished for week or so I thought at first oh just visiting then, but it then returned and has not vanished for any extended amount of time since...)

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If I could afford to...

1981 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 for sale on BaT Auctions - closed on June 27,  2019 (Lot #20,337) | Bring a Trailer

1981 Camaro, last year of the second gen F-Body. The Z28 put out a whopping 165Bhp at that point from it's 5.0 V8. 

Bonus points if it's cosmetically challenged but mechanically and structurally sound! 

If I'm going to be exempt from paying the ULEZ to be going into a city center, may as well find the most inefficiently-efficient way to do so. 🤣

 

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Mk2 granada 2.8i ghia Estate or a mk1 golf for me. 

My mk1 GTI cab goes exempt in 6 yrs and its sat for the previous 10 so I'm tempted to just wait for that. No doubt Swansea will have one of these stupid schemes by then because we seem to have a huge issue with the car, despite having no acceptable alternative like a decent train or bus service. 

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On 10/7/2021 at 11:32 AM, MisterH said:

I have fancied one of those on and off for a while now, what are they like to own and drive?

I hear it was originally meant to be an Audi so might be interesting to do a what if job on one

The Audi engine in the bog-standard 2.0 924 (or "N/A" version as it's known in the club) feels a bit agricultural compared to moderns and it's no rocket ship but it can get out of its own way at least. I find it quite comfortable if you don't mind the arse-on-the-floor-feet-out-in-front-of-you driving position. No PAS, so turning circle depends on how hard you can heave on the steering wheel.

Because a lot of the bits aren't actually Porsche-specific, spares tend to be less expensive than other Porsches and it's mostly quite straightforward mechanically. On the other hand the 924S or 944 with the "proper" Porsche engine is nicer to drive (based on a very brief go I had in an early 944) but less nice to maintain.

Oh and here's a photo from a book of a styling model (which I think I might have uploaded before) showing how it would have looked with a VW badge and a Wolfsburg numberplate. 

VW924.jpg.e34acb942b783000416f4be0c0d2a283.jpg

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On 10/6/2021 at 6:25 PM, MrGTI6 said:

If I lived in the ULEZ and was being forced to get rid of my non-compliant but efficient 1990s car, I would replace it with the smokiest, most antisocial 40-year-old diesel I could possibly find, purely out of spite for the craic.

 

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Wow I have some rich friends judging by the cars you are selecting to drive daily!

I have a 1976 Jag that I can just about afford to run on special occasions but as a daily will be far too expensive for me in both petrol and maintenance.

There are lots of older cars I like, but as a daily, driving home on a damp, dark November evening I would not be so keen. Yes I have got soft in my old age and used to daily a Triumph Vitesse and still like them very much, but demising/defrosting them was always tough and the heater was never more than a warm trickle etc. Any old diesels prior to XUDs were just diabolically awful.

@chaseracerare you mad, an Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire as a daily in a city!

 

I can’t find a 40 year old MK2 Cavalier for sale and buying one that is a couple of years away is going to be expensive in mean time.

£12.50 per day, say 5 days a week, say 48 weeks a year = £3000 a year in ULAZ tax

I have found a 1980 MK1 Astra/Kadett 1.3 that I think would be a good substitute @Daviemck2006 & @406V6 and I like the idea of of an Audi 80 @Spiny Norman.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234101122755?hash=item368183a6c3:g:6NMAAOSwWQ9g-r8-

Astra MK1.jpg

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I've looked at the advert for that one a few times. It's in Scotland too so although a few miles away, it's closer than a lot of collections I've done. If I had 20 grand to spare I would go for the white one with the v8 rear wheel drive one on ebay just now. I do not know how to link to it.

Sent from my SM-T585 using Tapatalk

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1 hour ago, Six-cylinder said:

I can’t find a 40 year old MK2 Cavalier for sale and buying one that is a couple of years away is going to be expensive in mean time.

You have a lovely orange Cavalier ( unless I missed something ). If I was going to have a Cavalier then this would be my top choice ( maybe excluding a mk3 which really are good but too new) a mk1 is also driven by the correct wheels so should be more pleasant to drive. 

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1 minute ago, Shite Ron said:

You have a lovely orange Cavalier ( unless I missed something ). If I was going to have a Cavalier then this would be my top choice ( maybe excluding a mk3 which really are good) a mk1 is also driven by the correct wheels so should be more pleasant to drive. 

My Mk1 Cavaliers are sold.

I feel the Mk1 Cavalier drives quite old fashioned compared to the MK2 and as a daily the MK2 would work a lot better. The performance of a 1600c MK1 is average for a 1970s car, while the performance of a 1600c MK2 is exceptionally good for a 1980s car and more than capable of living with todays traffic.

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32 minutes ago, Daviemck2006 said:

I've looked at the advert for that one a few times. It's in Scotland too so although a few miles away, it's closer than a lot of collections I've done. If I had 20 grand to spare I would go for the white one with the v8 rear wheel drive one on ebay just now. I do not know how to link to it.

Sent from my SM-T585 using Tapatalk
 

I have seen the ad for the V8, but I think that would be a high days and holidays car and I was looking for an everyday car ULEZ free.

In truth after I started this thread I found our 2001 Alfa 156 2.5 V6s are in the clear and are great to use as dailies. The maintenance costs are fairly high and 25 mpg, but not impossible to live with.

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8 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

 

@chaseracerare you mad, an Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire as a daily in a city!

Yes, yes I am - this fact having been proven on many occasions!

However... most of my business mileage is done in and between places that don't - currently - have restrictions, but I do need to get into central (inside the ring road) Brum fairly often.  I can claim the full HMRC rate, so... 😎

image.png

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19 minutes ago, chaseracer said:

Yes, yes I am - this fact having been proven on many occasions!

However... most of my business mileage is done in and between places that don't - currently - have restrictions, but I do need to get into central (inside the ring road) Brum fairly often.  I can claim the full HMRC rate, so... 😎

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Do they have power steering?

 

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21 minutes ago, chaseracer said:

Nope - but a recirculating-ball system and twirling a decent-sized tiller several times lock to lock should be reasonably manageable.

And you could take up shot put to prepare yourself!

You think your a young invincible man, next you are going to think those comfortable bench seats are going to help you pull a girl!

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