Look what they've done to my car, Ma.

[IronStar]

This thread is a reminder of why I never sell any of my cars, if I ever needed one. I like my cars too much to let general public fuck them up or drive them into the ground. 😅

[Markeh]

A former colleague of mine's quite nice but a bit tired Mk3 Mondeo (early Ghia X with the V6) was spotted a few months after he traded it in down south for a Freelander, it had made its way a lot closer to home again but with an interesting* paintjob.

[HMC]

[Schaefft]

Quite a few cars that sold and I managed to keep track of:

Anything owned in Germany and not mentioned below: export

Mint '92 Galant: Sold on here and spun into a ditch

Manual 540i saloon: Currently sorn, needed so much work that I'm surprised it made it through an mot once

'99 SL320: Local guy bought it, managed to get it running, was then sold with mot, currently sorn

My first E38 years ago: Sold to colleague who scrapped it, maddening 

Both my green E38s: Currently sorn, one owned by enthusiast, one by someone who might not work on his own cars

My German 523i Touring: Restored by a local German enthusiast

My silver Final Edition S8: Nuts and bolts restoration by German enthusiast 

Forum bike A8: Thankfully still in the forum and driven

My German A6 Avant, sold to apparently well know neo Nazi lol

XM: Sold to Rocket88, then to classic car dealer, currently sorn?

Turquoise XJ Sport: Sold for parts to enthusiast 

Alfa166 TS: Sold to enthusiast for parts

Safrane: Sorn but still on the forum!

Velsatis: Now owned by kiltox

GS300: Sold to a mate who loves it

I usually try to find a good home for my cars knowing that with a little bit of effort there's little stopping them from staying on the road. I think it usually works out well, I'm glad that only the stuff even I deem not worth saving actually got scrapped in the end, with two exceptions (that I'm aware of).

[sierraman]

46 minutes ago, HMC said:

This is the chance you take unfortunately with old cars. Most rational people take a pragmatic approach, considering where they’d keep it, have they got the time, money and requisite skills to keep it on the road etc. Unfortunately there is something about cars (particularly old ones) that attract people that have the intellectual capability of a single celled amoeba.
 

EBay for instance is littered with people that thought one Friday night they’d buy that 1988 Cavalier SRI to restore despite working a 60 hour week, living in a tower block and the fact they couldn’t mend a puncture on a bicycle. Invariably this is passed off as ‘never got round to…’ it’s never put as ‘I’ve not got the capacity or attention span to think beyond the next forty minutes’. You’ve no control over someone like that buying it. Often they’ll fall at the first hurdle by discovering they can’t tow it back from Dundee to Gravesend. 

[RoverFolkUs]

On 19/05/2025 at 14:06, eddyramrod said:

Those are the pair I spotted the other day!

And I agree, having spoken to the lad, I think he's the right owner.  Only a couple of streets away from me...

Ah that's amazing! What a small world - I'm glad to see it ended up in good hands because it was a genuinely good example of one

[MrBig]

16 hours ago, morrisoxide said:

Someone spotted my old Oxford recently, good to see it still being used. 🙂

At least it's in appropriate county for an Oxford 😁

 

All my old cars just seem to vanish into thin air. I saw my old B5 passat about 5 years after I sold it, looking very scruffy and minus it's alloys.

I rescued this Derby from a forest near Slough, it then went to a friend of mine who sold it to someone else who went to town on the resto. See it regularly at shows and it always makes me smile that I had a hand in saving it (despite the fact someone else put all the money and effort into it!)

 

 

Finally, my Jetta coupe appeared in a youtube video fairly recently with a 1.8T conversion. Not the engine I would have chosen, but it had a god-awful single point injection 1.3 in it when it was mine, and we had a 2nd child instead of putting a VR6 in it 🤐

 

 

[captain_70s]

1 hour ago, sierraman said:

This is the chance you take unfortunately with old cars. Most rational people take a pragmatic approach, considering where they’d keep it, have they got the time, money and requisite skills to keep it on the road etc. Unfortunately there is something about cars (particularly old ones) that attract people that have the intellectual capability of a single celled amoeba.

American cars in particular seem to attract people who's mechanical ability extends to fitting shit wheels and applying Confederate flags to every surface. Usually found rotting into the ground outside a council semi on an estate the police won't enter.

It's bizarre how folk will spend decent money on a car and then just completely give up at the first £300 repair bill.

[quicksilver]

This is on SORN and last MOTed in 2016 and is now black. A lot of mentions of corrosion on the MOTs around 2008-10 disappeared at later tests so it looks like it had a restoration and respray then. No new V5 since 2011 and the last few MOTs were clean passes with very few miles done so hopefully it's in dry storage somewhere.

This is taxed. It seems to have changed hands several times and was last seen on ebay up north a couple of years ago sporting Sprint alloys and a chin spoiler. Last V5 in September 2023 fits with it selling then.

The hateful Corsa that I'm not going to sully this thread with a photo of was sold to a local dealer. I did see it parked in town a short while later but it's dead now. No great loss.

 

[sierraman]

6 minutes ago, captain_70s said:

American cars in particular seem to attract people who's mechanical ability extends to fitting shit wheels and applying Confederate flags to every surface. Usually found rotting into the ground outside a council semi on an estate the police won't enter.

It's bizarre how folk will spend decent money on a car and then just completely give up at the first £300 repair bill.

The type of people that get up on a Wednesday morning and decide to paint it with a roller.

[sierraman]

1 minute ago, quicksilver said:

This is on SORN and last MOTed in 2016 and is now black. A lot of mentions of corrosion on the MOTs around 2008-10 disappeared at later tests so it looks like it had a restoration and respray then. No new V5 since 2011 and the last few MOTs were clean passes with very few miles done so hopefully it's in dry storage somewhere.

This is taxed. It seems to have changed hands several times and was last seen on ebay up north a couple of years ago sporting Sprint alloys and a chin spoiler. Last V5 in September 2023 fits with it selling then.

The hateful Corsa that I'm not going to sully this thread with a photo of was sold to a local dealer. I did see it parked in town a short while later but it's dead now. No great loss.

 

Is it just me that thinks that beige actually quite suits them? 

[Datsuncog]

My cars?

[mk2_craig]

On 18/05/2025 at 19:23, DSdriver said:

What has happened to your cars after you have sold them?

This car has had its life prolonged a couple of times.

I picked it up with a shagged clutch and needing a few other bits.  Slung an XR2 engine/gearbox in it and used it for a while.

Stripped it down intending to restore as an XR2 replica.  But then life changed course a couple of times and the shell sat in a council lockup for several years.

I gave it away with a bunch of bits to a lad who was keen as mustard to put it back together,

Amazingly he saw it through and it hit the road again a few months later (Now with Mondeo Zetec power)

I also had an '04 Focus ST170 that's now had the bucket seat and rollcage treatment too but that one had a few owners after me.

[sierraman]

40 minutes ago, mk2_craig said:

This car has had its life prolonged a couple of times.

I picked it up with a shagged clutch and needing a few other bits.  Slung an XR2 engine/gearbox in it and used it for a while.

Stripped it down intending to restore as an XR2 replica.  But then life changed course a couple of times and the shell sat in a council lockup for several years.

I gave it away with a bunch of bits to a lad who was keen as mustard to put it back together,

Amazingly he saw it through and it hit the road again a few months later (Now with Mondeo Zetec power)

I also had an '04 Focus ST170 that's now had the bucket seat and rollcage treatment too but that one had a few owners after me.

What colour red was that? Looked a nice car in its day 

[HMC]

A 67 GT6 I owned in 2012 has been put back to original spec

When i had it, it was bumperless and had  painted wire wheels.

[HMC]

Whilst a little austin a35 I got out of a shed and did nothing to in about 2011…

(i remember liking that it still had its original reg, and plates with the slightly larger pre 63 characters)

has been restored (photo taken in norfolk about 3 years ago)- still with plate.

[mk2_craig]

58 minutes ago, sierraman said:

What colour red was that? Looked a nice car in its day 

Good question! It was a non-metallic burgundy that seemed to feature on a lot of early Orions.  Set off nicely by what I think Ford called "Taupe" for interior trim i.e. beige with brown accents

[Wibble]

12 minutes ago, mk2_craig said:

Good question! It was a non-metallic burgundy that seemed to feature on a lot of early Orions.  Set off nicely by what I think Ford called "Taupe" for interior trim i.e. beige with brown accents

Wasn’t that called “Lacquer Red”? It was a nice colour.

[DSdriver]

32 minutes ago, Wibble said:

Wasn’t that called “Lacquer Red”? It was a nice colour.

As opposed to Lacquer Peel Red?

[bunglebus]

There have been lots, so I'll pick a few that have interesting tales.

MK2 Escort estate. Bought this when I was about 19 I think, had it absolutely donkey's years and got some work completed like A pillars, arches, wings etc as well as lowering, partially shaved rain gutters (it was the 90s) and the interior out of a MK1 Fiesta XR2 including a recovered rear seat.

Eventually sold it after kids etc meant it just sat in a lockup for years. Kept popping up on eBay and at one point was to be a drift car 😐

By pure luck, I got in contact with the current owner, who's doing a proper job of it and lives quite close to me - hopefully I can go and see it soon, as I really wanted to get this one done

 

[bunglebus]

My Sierra. Bought for the princely sum of £80 after the previous owner pranged the driver's door of a Calibra that got opened as he was driving past.

A new wing and used bonnet, painted in two pack by an idiot without the right breathing apparatus, saw it looking good again. This was a really good, rust free car that I drive all over the place, put a GLX interior in it and the usual lowering with a set of wheels trims. I did have plans for 15" Mondeo steels, trims and a 24v Cosworth engine out of my Scorpio, mated to XR4i running gear, but ran out of steam despite having all the parts. Sold on eBay to a mad (in a good way) Irishman who drive all the way to Essex just to look at it and bought the car and all the spares, to go back home and become a tarmac rally car. He showed me pics of the one he'd already done so it's in good hands, in a barn full of RWD Fords somewhere!

 

[bunglebus]

My Beetle. I take no credit for this, it rolled in at Bug Jam one year and I nearly fell off my perch, as it was almost exactly how I'd have done it myself in an ideal world.

The planets aligned not long after, when a redundancy payout came my way, as the car went up for sale.

This was a really solid 1968 1500, not some rotten heap full of filler. There were a few things perhaps not quite finished on it but I've never owned a car that turned so many heads, I still laugh about the bloke that nearly fell out of the pub door as he was so shocked/pleased to see it driving by.

Unfortunately a series of events meant my Beetle and T3 van had to go, I ended up sleeping on a mate's sofa bed for a few months while I rebuilt my life.

The guy who bought it loved it to bits...

...and put his own stamp on it, fair enough

However I think he sold it, and again it popped up on eBay a few times, having lost more of what I regarded as the cool bits each time

I mean, who takes of the nerf bars and fits Europa bumpers? As for re-fitting all the chrome trim and extra badges, aerial etc, yuck

Think the decklid was also a stock one when last seen too.

I'd still like to know where it is, I've been told it's sat on a drive somewhere but that's all I know. I'd take it back...

[sierraman]

My father in law had a custom Beetle back in the day, used to take it to shows etc. By nothing more than pure luck it’s still alive albeit it looks like it needs restoring. Pure luck as he doesn’t normally do anything to them, literally has it fixed when it breaks. 

[Wibble]

1 hour ago, bunglebus said:

There have been lots, so I'll pick a few that have interesting tales.

MK2 Escort estate. Bought this when I was about 19 I think, had it absolutely donkey's years and got some work completed like A pillars, arches, wings etc as well as lowering, partially shaved rain gutters (it was the 90s) and the interior out of a MK1 Fiesta XR2 including a recovered rear seat.

Eventually sold it after kids etc meant it just sat in a lockup for years. Kept popping up on eBay and at one point was to be a drift car 😐

By pure luck, I got in contact with the current owner, who's doing a proper job of it and lives quite close to me - hopefully I can go and see it soon, as I really wanted to get this one done

 

I remember my sister’s boyfriend in the 80’s going to look at one of these. £495ono, was the advertised price. Will you take £490 said the bf😂🤦‍♂️. Sold! Seller just winked at me when he saw my 15 year old’s look of dismay.