My Motoring past

[Tonka]

These were already scanned and I might have posted them before but over the next few weeks I'm going to try and sort out a lot more more and tell their story.

 

 

Mustang 2 was originally fitted with a 2.8 V6 but when I bought it had an ex-Police SD1 3.5 in it twin side exit exhausts, big and little slot mags....... it sounded far more powerful than it was, sadly I swapped it for this '74 Charger which I kept seeing in a yard next to the A1 near Newark and decided I must have it, never got it to run right and it was fairly rotten so sold it to a local dealer/bodger who tarted it up, it was under powered and overweight, sounds a bit like me now!

 

 

My genuine 1600E bought for £175 in 1983 T&T with an "about to blow engine" replacement GT lump cost me £80 with bills for a full rebuild (those were the days) went well until I found out anti roll bar mounting had rotted off at one side so a months welding started, ran it in primer for over a year after the rest of the Fern Green metallic fell off , fitted a vinyl roof, took a week off work and painted it red , it was a Mk3 Cortina colour I think but it suited it.

 

My one and only straight 6 yank, no power no noise but still drank..... never as nice as my first one but it looked the part until you turned the ignition key.

 

 

Early "N" reg 528 on carbs bought for £170 with a knocking engine, first engine I ever rebuilt, went well even though it was a 3 speed auto, horrible corded beige interior fancied a M535 but couldn't afford it so took another week off work and painted it white n stripes, no vinyl all masked off and aerosol'd.... same as the ones on the 1602 which was a 1 owner, full s/h, £365 then bought RIchard Grant arches and got myself a 2002 Turbo, nearly!

[Tonka]

 

My ex big block Torino 500 sedan which had ended up fitted with a 302 , I owned this twice, then my beautiful 305 V8 Divorce settlement Camaro LT, ex Saudi with 36k on the clock, bought this when I left my first wife because my soon to be 2nd wife loved it, what a woman..... sold it the following year to raise deposit on a house for me and the new boss

 

 

The running still tested S12 I bought for £40, I broke it up as I had a plan to stick it's running gear in my spare Jago,the engine etc sold 2 years later on Ebay, the Jago left here last month and has a Zetec sat in it already.

 

 

This is what the s12 engine was supposed to go in.

 

 

My trusty Accord doing what it did best, towing project Jagos to our house like this purple one which our lass still uses.....

 

 

and this

 

 

Accord towed my Geep all the way to Exeter for a kit car show.

 

 

The Accord was a 2000 1.8 VTEC Sport Auto, great tow car, kept it for over 4 years which is a record for me!

 

Anyway apologies for the reposts will sort out some new older pics for tomorrow

[Tonka]

 

My '03 American built Civic Coupe, another car I loved but traded for the Stagea.

 

 

Our S-MX that got written off, bought it for £2500 got £2600 for it and £500 for the salvage.

 

 

My wife's YRV Turbo which was a hoot to drive with a manic 130 bhp engine but not the handling to match.......

[r.welfare]

Brilliant! Mustang II is the Autoshite Pony choice - a few years back I read in a Mustang book that the US Owners Club refused to acknowledge their existence and would not allow them to be displayed, wonder if that's the case now? I think Iacocca had it on the money with the Energy Crisis playing into his lap.

 

You're also obviously a man of great taste having owned a 2000 Accord 1.8 Sport auto...

[Tonka]

 

Moving back to the 80's .............in reverse order........

 

The Triumph Mayflower I bought when I was 18, it moved and it was T&T but the sills were made of concrete so I embarked on one of those great unfinished restoration project scenarios, 6 years on it was still in bits and had moved three times and was back in my parent's garage where it was first pictured here, there it sat for another 3 years until bits of it went to the four winds, with the rolling shell ending up with another Mayflower enthusiast.

 

The Morris Minor was bought new by my Grandfather in 1955 and I still have it, this is a rare shot in '81 not long before I last taxed it, the young lady became my wife in '83, then in '89 the Camaro came along......

 

The Horizon was a work colleague's I put the third set of front wings on it and it was only 8 years old, it had an electric sunroof woohoo!

 

The Mazda 323 wasn't mine either, I used to rent a small lock-up to store my "scrap" in and did the odd cheap respray to cover my overheads, wish I owned that Mazda now, you can just see the rear of my 1600E in this pic.

 

Finally the Fiat 127, it belonged to a school friend who I met years later, it was given to him by his Grandma and was silver he was buying loads of aerosols in a motor factors so I offered to respray it for him on the cheap if he helped.

[Tonka]

 

The Minis...... the blue one I bought on holiday in Brighton for £40, it was taxed with a weeks MOT, the ignition had jammed burning out the starter, got one from Bridges at Pease Pottage (are they still there?) for a tenner, it had a full tank of fuel which got me back to Doncaster to the MOT and to work before I sold it for £400 to the first person who turned up, the other one was an unfinished project for £25 (those were the days) I resprayed it in something close to Blaze (using paint I had left over to make up a colour) tested it up but before I could start using it someone at work offered me £280 for it so it went!

 

The Toledo was £15, it belonged to the future son-in-law of a lady I worked with and was blocking his parents garage doors for 2 years, his Dad wanted his now restored Morris Oxford out, it ran but the clutch was b*ggered, got it sorted and MOT'd brush painted it with a litre of gloss, striped it up similar to the Dolomite 1500SE I once took in p/x for a Mk3 Escort, then took £100 and a similar green Marina 1.3 Coupe for it, used the Marina for a couple of weeks, when it rained the boot filled up and depending on which way you turned the rear lights would go out but never blew a fuse, the Marina became a Mini and another £100, the Mini was a shed but a young kid near me so so wanted it and £150 changed hands and he drove off happy.

 

Moving on to 1991 and I did some work on a Standard 8 and got the Vanden Plas as part payment, I still have a scar on my hand where the handbrake cable snapped and whipped across it as I desperately tried to fit a new rear wheel cylinder one morning so I could take my heavily pregnant wife to Cleethorpes for the day. I swapped that for two cars, the Bluebird you see here and a W plate 2600SE SD1 which used more oil than petrol and was the car in which our son took his first drive home from the maternity ward, the Rover had 5 months T&T and arches full of filler but a neigbour wanted it and offered me £200 as he had just taken a job at a quarry and couldnt get there on the bus, the Bluebird needed a new cylinder head as it kept boiling up, all sorted two months later I started using it for work only to have SD1 man back looking for something better so I got the Rover back plus £300, stuck it on next doors drive with £125 on it and within a day it was gone!

 

I sorted out some more pics(including my £40 929 Estate) the other week but can't put my hands on them right now, got another photo album to find too but I'll be back with more.