AUTOTRADER - june 1992 - suits you sir?

[HMC]

Its 1992 in the depths of a recession. Which sub 1k motor takes your fancy from REGAL CAR AND LIGHT COMMERCIALS, bradford?

[HMC]

Im Going to plump for the £195 ‘79 opel ascona and cross my fingers.

[HMC]

Meanwhile over at ATLANTIC CAR SALES…

tempted by the £395 ‘tina

Which lasted another year going by the DVLA

 

[EyesWeldedShut]

 

That or the A Reg Colt simply as I've never owner/driven either. Top list I'd have the crumbly Capri you also picked out - unless they'd take a £999 offer on the £1295 2.6 SD1?

[HMC]

Meanwhile over at RALLY autos what will £99 buy?

 

Or something left field from DELIGHTFUL DEMMICKS (!)

[Spottedlaurel]

What a time it was to be buying cars then. Cherry Europe at Rally Autos! Several tempting Mantas in the ad's too.

In reality probably the Cherry at £895 or Sunny estate at £995, both pretty close to the FWD Sunny 1.3 4-door I bought for circa £750 in 1992.

The RWD X-reg Sunny for £495 is an interesting one. If I've got the plate correct as YWU 394X then its last tax expired in May 1991, so a little odd that it was for sale in June '92 with 12 months' MoT and never seemingly saw the road again. That time was just before they started being worth a bit for export, a Sunny 4-door with the old A-series OHV engine like that would become very sought-after.

[Ghosty]

Torn between these...

[MorrisItalSLX]

Looks very tempting…

But this sales pitch has won me over.

[bezzabsa]

brings back memories of the Bargain Pages and the "To Clear" section of most traders ads. 

[HMC]

Burton street car sales has you covered including a £125 cherry @Spottedlaurel

[Spottedlaurel]

13 minutes ago, HMC said:

Burton street car sales has you covered including a £125 cherry @Spottedlaurel

Thanks! For me that would have been like going back to 1988, as a silver X-reg Cherry hatchback was my first car then.

Doesn't look like that one above saw the road again (legally at any rate), with no tax since the beginning of April '92.

[ETCHY]

I used to love Autotrader ( Automart when I first started getting it).

Seemed cooler than Internet somehow.

[Datsuncog]

1 hour ago, Spottedlaurel said:

The RWD X-reg Sunny for £495 is an interesting one. If I've got the plate correct as YWU 394X then its last tax expired in May 1991, so a little odd that it was for sale in June '92 with 12 months' MoT and never seemingly saw the road again. 

There's a slim chance that one may have ended up in Northern Ireland - my own FWD Sunny Coupe (A798UHX) is shown on the DVLA database as last taxed in April 1997 (with no export marker) but it was brought over to Belfast and reregistered and taxed with the then-DVLNI.

I sold it in August 2000 and I think it lived on for another year after that.

The merger of the then-current database, but not any of the historic records, when DVLNI was absorbed into DVLA in Swansea in 2014 seems to have thrown up a number of weird anomalies.

[somewhatfoolish]

BX for maximum citroenic weirdness, although a haggle for the 2.6 VdP is tempting too.

[HMC]

WAKEFIELD ROAD MO CO Can even satisfy the discerning buyer after an EMAX sierra @sierraman

[HMC]

canal road car centre

”20 ESCORTS WANTED NOW!!!!!”

”open  till 8pm or as late as you like”

and “yes a y reg” @Spottedlaurel

[sierraman]

32 minutes ago, HMC said:

WAKEFIELD ROAD MO CO Can even satisfy the discerning buyer after an EMAX sierra @sierraman

The EMAX couldn’t pull a greased stick out of hookers fanny. 

[Schaefft]

An E23 7-Series for 895 quid? I'll have that or the Lincoln Mark IV.😂 "For the spoilt connoisseur of motoring", perfect.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

These are reminding  me what terrible old shit was foisted on the gullible public in those days( not least by me!) I used to have at least one terrible car in the local paper every Thursday, around this time . I seemed to specialise in vans and oddballs bought for £100 or often much less , “proper” traders only wanted Escorts, Astras, Fiestas etc at auction.  Id be the one with a mint Skoda Estelle with 8 months ticket for £40 or an ugly Signwritten Sherpa for £50 . A Saturday afternoon with Wob, paint and polish would usually mean I could have it in the paper for £250 the next week. Unlikely any of them made it past the next MOT  but gave me less trouble and as much cash as when I moved “upmarket” into £800 Cavaliers and Montegos- I still usually only made a couple of hundred quid. 
 

My favourite so far is that MK1 Granny Ghia for £595 , it must have been immaculate for that money.

[EyesWeldedShut]

37 minutes ago, HMC said:

canal road car centre

In a place that begins with 'B'? 

(No not the Cyanide Canal 'B')

 

[Fat_Pirate]

Do the rules permit me to borrow* £695 from my nan to afford that MG Montego?  It's a beautiful white stallion amongst a herd of scruffy donkeys.

[HMC]

Some personallised bangers for the connoisseur 

 

[Bren]

The definition of excitement was buying the auto trader and poring over the piss poor quality photo's. While we mourn the loss of the traditional banger lets be honest - there was some utter turd for sale back then - some of it bought by me.

I have had cars full of filler. If I had hit a pedestrian the impact wouldn't have seen them off - it would have been the lung cancer from the filler.

[camryv6]

I wish i had bought a fields worth of Cortina's 

[HMC]

lots of “clean car for year” - which harks back to stuff often lasting 10 years tops before being ruined bodily.

[EyesWeldedShut]

21 minutes ago, Bren said:

While we mourn the loss of the traditional banger lets be honest - there was some utter turd for sale back then - some of it bought by me.

You bought out of the photo pages? We bought the real crap in the text only adverts at the back - not sure if it was any better than Exchange & Mart at that level.....

[HMC]

10 minutes ago, camryv6 said:

I wish i had bought a fields worth of Cortina's 

I’ll do a quick round up of mk2 escort ads later- i can only imagine most (at 12-17 years old) must have been hanging structurally.

[camryv6]

True, but i would rather own a Cortina than an Escort now

[camryv6]

I remember phoning up and asking what colour it was or how many doors it had, as not in the advert and no photos

[EyesWeldedShut]

2 minutes ago, HMC said:

lots of “clean car for year” - which harks back to stuff often lasting 10 years tops before being ruined bodily.

Last one I bought out of AutoTrader was a 1979, 80,000 miles,  Cortina estate that needed a clutch (and had a cracked bellhousing(?)) for £250 in 1990.

Bodily it was 'meh' - best  bit was the front wing that had been hammered back out after a prang so looked like something a steel band could play a decent tune on. The tyre on that side had a proper flat spot from when the car was smacked up. New tyre, clutch + bellhousing (Court Lane, Iver - three proper scapyards, one had a pyramid of Ford gearboxes/bellhousings just waiting for customers).
As a 'get you through your divorce' motor it was brilliant, as an actual car? Shagged out . totally.