Tales from the banger auction. 1980's style.

[UltraWomble]

22 minutes ago, Rod/b said:

WTF is a Volkswagen Take Up? 

 

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/volkswagen/up/18640/volkswagen-take

 

UP

[chaseracer]

26 minutes ago, Rod/b said:

Did it go back through about ten minutes later, covered in powder and smouldering?

At Cannock, it would has.

[EyesWeldedShut]

50 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

In the 1990s I remember the oul man going off in the morning with a friend to BCA (or was it ADT) in Enfield......

Moral is buy at one, sell at another (Plymouth > Exeter was my usual if I bought a dog at either as you never seemed to see the same buyers at either).
Bedford used to be good for really cheap tat (£60 on a 2 door Volvo 340 in 1998 that did me about 14 months). That one sounded like a bucket of bolts at tickover - after a few months pulled the water pump and found all the vanes were clattering around inside the housing, it never did overheat though (well at least not when I had it). 
Nearest auction here is 80 miles away and closed for the duration (Power sledge came from there). I do like to peruse their listings though and play 'spot the tat with a too high reserve' as it comes around for the third or fourth week. I'm guessing that the stuff left on there at the moment may be a bit cheaper at the first auction?

http://www.leominstercarauctions.co.uk/stock-list.aspx

[bigstraight6]

On 2/4/2011 at 10:11 PM, bigstraight6 said:

I still mourn the banger auction that was held on friday evenings locally too me at the old Plympton cattle market up until about 8 years ago, it was great entertainment in every respect from the ruddy faced old farmer auctioneer who was always 'well on the way' after spending a few hours in the adjacent British legion club prior to the auction, and encouraging the driver of every old heap to enter the arena too "rev it up, sounds good!"

 

I did actually find a buyer for a friends Citreon Visa GTI on it's last legs at this auction, as it was driven into the arena it kept stalling and the exhaust was blowing badly but some mug still bought it!

Holy thread resurrection! At the time I didn’t recollect what happened about a week after, said friend was woken up early one morning by lots of Police banging on the front door of his house, apparently the Visa had been used in an armed robbery but luckily he’d kept the receipt from the auction. Oh how we laughed!

[Tadhg Tiogar]

3 minutes ago, bigstraight6 said:

....the Visa had been used in an armed robbery but luckily he’d kept the receipt from the auction. Oh how we laughed!

Low budget robbery, was it?

[Vince70]

What honest robbers buying rather than stealing a motor lol

It must be Citroen thing with robbers buying rather  than stealing motors to do a job as my friend bought my dads Jewish racing gold Xantia cheap and drove it around for a year then left it on the drive and a bloke knocked on his door asking if he wanted to sell it.

The next day after he sold it the car was used in a Ram raid on a small post office and he ended up getting taken down the station by plod for an interview.

So I guess soft Citroen suspension is a must for a less stressful robbery and when you hit a wall those lovely soft seats just cushion the blow and you can feel a lot more relaxed when your car has done its final journey when getting out the car with a shotgun.

Also if its not a one way ticket for your  Citroen you can do your escape President de Gaulle style with A tyre shot out knowing you car isn’t going to tip over so really Citroen is the thinking mans version of an armed robbers perfect car.

So that’s why all those crooks got caught in the Sweeney driving old S types 

[vaughant]

18 hours ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Moral is buy at one, sell at another (Plymouth > Exeter was my usual if I bought a dog at either as you never seemed to see the same buyers at either).
Bedford used to be good for really cheap tat (£60 on a 2 door Volvo 340 in 1998 that did me about 14 months). That one sounded like a bucket of bolts at tickover - after a few months pulled the water pump and found all the vanes were clattering around inside the housing, it never did overheat though (well at least not when I had it). 
Nearest auction here is 80 miles away and closed for the duration (Power sledge came from there). I do like to peruse their listings though and play 'spot the tat with a too high reserve' as it comes around for the third or fourth week. I'm guessing that the stuff left on there at the moment may be a bit cheaper at the first auction?

http://www.leominstercarauctions.co.uk/stock-list.aspx

I love Leominster, bought some really good stuff from there over the years, generally astra diesel estates back in the day then later VAG stuff as they sold on so easily. Great drive home over the beacons but almost always greeted by the 5-0.

[vaughant]

Leominster showing 25th June open next? I'd love it if that was true, even socially distanced, might make a trip up as its only an hour and a bit from here. 

[CortinaDave]

I was briefly an auction driver in about 1998 at Kinross. Some cars were like old friends, coming back week in week out.

My job was to run the car through, wait while it sold, then drive it out of the auction hall and round the corner to the storage yard. You were told not to go higher than 2nd gear and to do your best to disguise faults.

One night I had command of a very tidy B plate Golf GTi and after it sold I couldn't resist giving it a bit of welly round to the storage compound. It was at that point t I realised it had no brakes whatsoever and I watched in what seemed like slow motion as the guy whose job it was to guide me into the car's allocated space disappeared under my front bumper.

Thankfully he was fine but that was my last night working for them!

 

[EyesWeldedShut]

1 hour ago, vaughant said:

Leominster showing 25th June open next? I'd love it if that was true, even socially distanced, might make a trip up as its only an hour and a bit from here. 

25th may be a possibility over in Engle-land the way things are going - just need to be in Heddlu avoidance mode if you're traipsing over the border as I don't see Cardiff allowing much by then?
It's two hours for us so I tend to wander over when I have a car I want to dump sell - usually through boredom. If I see something I like I'll go for it and then just leave the old car there as an entry for the next week with no reserve. 
That way I don't have to deal with absolute t*ssers trying to beat me down on price/failing to turn up etc etc. Last car I flogged at Leominster was a 2007 1.6 Berlingo Multispace with 10 months MoT/150,000 miles on it - got £650 which was good enough for me. Came home in a Subaru Outback which was a first one of the marque for me - it's a nice car TBH. T'missus was expecting a small estate car for dog transporting. I told her it was a small car just parked very close to the house - she didn't fall for that one.

[EyesWeldedShut]

@vaughant - just read http://www.leominstercarauctions.co.uk/stock-detail.aspx?sale=2351&regno=X1 

Says 25th will be online and 'trade only'??? Weird as I never see too many obvious trade buyers there - maybe they need to shift stock regardless of price

[xtriple]

We used to buy at Exeter and sell at Saltash, or vice versa. Usually could get out of trouble if you bought a 'wrong 'un' doing that. To be honest, Exeter got so bad it was not worth buying anything from there - everything was shit. So the odd decent car made good coin.

I used to like the auction scene, at Saltash if you hung around until the end the ladies on the food van would give you burgers with everything piled high in them for nought. Lose all your money and get fat... winning all round  

[vaughant]

18 hours ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

@vaughant - just read http://www.leominstercarauctions.co.uk/stock-detail.aspx?sale=2351&regno=X1 

Says 25th will be online and 'trade only'??? Weird as I never see too many obvious trade buyers there - maybe they need to shift stock regardless of price

No me neither? Perhaps just to stop the usual meat heads turning up and not socially distancing. 

 

Still, they'll be too busy pulling down a Nelsons column or the like!! 

 

Good idea that with a crappy p/x, saves a lot of hassle. I have a car trailer but really need to sort the brakes first, don't fancy hard stopping down the A419 @ Birdlip with no brakes!!!! 

I looked into a trade account there years ago and it was a cinch to do just didn't have the business paperwork on me at the time. 

 

I'm considered an essential worker so ok for moving around. 

[EyesWeldedShut]

13 hours ago, xtriple said:

To be honest, Exeter got so bad it was not worth buying anything from there - everything was shit. So the odd decent car made good coin.

I used to like the auction scene, at Saltash if you hung around until the end the ladies on the food van would give you burgers with everything piled high in them for nought. Lose all your money and get fat... winning all round  

We left Devon in 2011, last car out of Exeter was probably 2009 and t'missus picked up a nice little (ex-mobility) Escort from Saltash around 2008 that was a great little commute car for her down to your neck of the woods (we used to live in Torquay and she had a job at Beacon Quay). Probably a lot of the shit at Exeter was my quality* cast offs  

[sierraman]

Think I’ll take a trip to the auctions once this lockdown bollocks has been lifted. Does Bawtry still hold the prize for stomping ground of knackered cars? 

[xtriple]

1 hour ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

We left Devon in 2011, last car out of Exeter was probably 2009 and t'missus picked up a nice little (ex-mobility) Escort from Saltash around 2008 that was a great little commute car for her down to your neck of the woods (we used to live in Torquay and she had a job at Beacon Quay). Probably a lot of the shit at Exeter was my quality* cast offs  

Oh so it's YOU I get to blame for some chod! Good golly there used to be some right mingers (cars and...) at Exeter.   I bought a series 3 XJ 4.2 from Exeter that put a rod through the block on the way home. Was that sod one of yours? If so, you effin' owe me!  

[vaughant]

13 minutes ago, xtriple said:

Oh so it's YOU I get to blame for some chod! Good golly there used to be some right mingers (cars and...) at Exeter.   I bought a series 3 XJ 4.2 from Exeter that put a rod through the block on the way home. Was that sod one of yours? If so, you effin' owe me!  

Nothing as exciting as a big jag but my mate bought a fiesta 1.8d from there back in 2000,lovely clean little thing but no history. 

Went to do the belt but so impressed with the economy of his purchase decided to go to the auctions 5 up and either make a bit of money on the journey in the hope one of the lads would drive a shitter back for him as a way out of coughing up. 

Did the belt on the brecon bypass. 

 

D'oh. 

Worthless car, no auction, no AA, long walk into Brecon to get the bus.... Which wasn't running but so as they were 5 up, had to make 2 trips. 

After that i always religiously did the belt on any 1.8d. 

 

Still, buy something cheeky (ZX Volcane seemed the order of the day) and the drive home was fun to say the least. Could wind a ka up well around the twisties on the way to Penderyn from the reservoir. 

[Timewaster]

Another auction memory is BCA Peterborough.  Probably 1996ish, another mate had decided he wanted a mk3 Cavalier 2.0GL.

We went to see one sale where there was a dozen to choose from.  

A couple of weeks later, we both had the day off work, he had got the cash together so we went back all ready to stick a hand in the air.

It was a bloody Fiat special sale. Where there had been Astras and Cavaliers there was Tipos and Tempras. Plenty of Puntos and a few Dedras.

We found one Cavalier in the whole lot. It was an automatic. 

 

After a burger and polystyrene cup of "tea" we gave up and returned home empty handed.

A week later and he had given his cash to a local dealer instead.