What would you buy & why?

Here's the place to chat about all things classic. Also includes a feedback forum where you can communicate directly with the editorial team - don't hold back, they'd love to know what they're doing right (or wrong of course!)
Message
Author
rich.
Posts: 6804
Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2011 9:18 pm

Re: What would you buy & why?

#951 Post by rich. » Sun Dec 23, 2018 8:44 am

JPB wrote:
Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:20 am
:lol:

I doubt that a Crayford William - or the same vehicle going by any of the other brand names - would have sufficient weight to do significant damage to a cat. Cats, you see, have armoured bodywork and can survive massive impacts, which makes them pretty hard to squash. Or is that Woodlice I'm on about? I frequently mistake one for the other.
:|
i think you will find woodlice are great for catching mice... or is that cats? :?
meanwhile
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254036099462
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/143056410373
i find myself looking at these more & more :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops:
https://www.leboncoin.fr/voitures/1540346116.htm/

User avatar
JPB
Posts: 10319
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:24 pm

Re: What would you buy & why?

#952 Post by JPB » Sun Dec 23, 2018 2:11 pm

:drool:
Shiny Maxi, but unless its displacers are as new or have had valves fitted so that the nitrogen level can be adjusted, then it's overinflated and will fall to earth shortly after it gets off the dealer's forecourt. Great looking body though, but any Hydragas car is a risk as the youngest (MGFs) are now getting on a bit and the Maxi's older still. I'd love another Maxi, but it would have to be the earlier (pre-1975) car, which had the bouncy but less unreliable Hydrolastic suspension; all fluid so no gas to escape.
I wish I'd kept my Volvo 345DL now, seeing as they seem to be worth shedloads of cash! OK, so there's always the old argument which says that you couldn't restore a rough one for that money, but there are quite a few left on the roads and the Volvo engined ones are fun to drive, but worth that much? Well probably, to the right mug marque enthusiast..

Fiat sell plenty of those things, so they must have something about them. I tried one a few years ago during my regrettable, short lived foray into new cars. It was very short of leg room and felt about as lively as the famously slow, rear engined original but it was quite nicely built and had a decent radio. Isn't that what sells a car to buyers these days?
:|
J
"Home is where you park it", so the saying goes. That may yet come true.. :oops:

GHT
Posts: 1523
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 3:09 pm

Re: What would you buy & why?

#953 Post by GHT » Sun Dec 23, 2018 6:36 pm

JPB wrote:
Sun Dec 23, 2018 2:11 pm
:drool:
Shiny Maxi, but unless its displacers are as new or have had valves fitted so that the nitrogen level can be adjusted, then it's overinflated and will fall to earth shortly after it gets off the dealer's forecourt. Great looking body though, but any Hydragas car is a risk as the youngest (MGFs) are now getting on a bit and the Maxi's older still. I'd love another Maxi, but it would have to be the earlier (pre-1975) car, which had the bouncy but less unreliable Hydrolastic suspension; all fluid so no gas to escape
I really must remember to find the number of a good shrink that I can put you in touch with. The words 'Maxi' and 'good looking' is akin to having a paint spray of pink and black on your car. You might think that I am simply anti B/L cars, and dead right you would be. But The Maxi, dear oh dear, you cannot begin to believe that car.

To my absolute shame, I bought three B/L cars, pristine, out of the showroom, in the 1970's, all brand new. A 1972 Mini, as rubbish goes that car was rubbish, but if you define rubbish as something disposable then the Mini was acceptable. Then, because no other dealer would touch the Mini, in 1976, I bought an Aggro, please, please, please can I have my Mini back? The Aggro took the definition of rubbish to another level. Body rot before the warranty expired, mechanical failure on an epic scale and a completely new definition of shake , rattle and roll. For the same reason as The Mini, I just couldn't get any dealer to give me anything but scrap value for a two year old Aggro, so, in 1978, I bought a Maxi. 40 years later, I'm still in therapy.

Six weeks old, the overhead chain drive snapped, my fault, (they said) but eventually paid for. Three months later the suspension gave up suspending, my fault, (they said,) but eventually paid for. Then the windscreen popped out, my fault, of course. Then within a month the wheel alignment went out of kilter, my fault, well of course it was, I had the temerity to drive the car. What you're supposed to do is sit in the driver's seat, with the engine switched off, and make brum, brum noises. The Maxi went on to cause a near divorce, a personal contact with the B/L garage that we became Christmas Card friends and such a drain on my credit card that Barclaycard issued me with their first ever platinum card, so impressed were they of my spend.

So what would I buy? A bloody horse and cart, that's what.

rich.
Posts: 6804
Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2011 9:18 pm

Re: What would you buy & why?

#954 Post by rich. » Sun Dec 23, 2018 9:41 pm

So reading between the lines ght, don't buy a used car from you?? :scared:

GHT
Posts: 1523
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 3:09 pm

Re: What would you buy & why?

#955 Post by GHT » Mon Dec 24, 2018 12:46 am

rich. wrote:
Sun Dec 23, 2018 9:41 pm
So reading between the lines ght, don't buy a used car from you?? :scared:
Did you work for B/L in another life, Rich? Blaming the buyer is exactly what they did. Had I the foresight back in the 70's, I should have bought the new (at the time) Golf. Then instead of throwing good money after bad, I would either have a stream of buyers knocking at the door, or I would have a car that no longer attracts road tax and can be insured as a classic for pennies. Still better late than never, her Ladyship's Golf is 21 in February and still going strong, and no, Rich, you can't buy it.

rich.
Posts: 6804
Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2011 9:18 pm

Re: What would you buy & why?

#956 Post by rich. » Fri Dec 28, 2018 6:52 am

not guilty ght, :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
having owned a lot of bl tin i can say the build quality isn't up to vw standards.. but mine were always cheap & cheerful got me where i needed to be.. (most of the time) what surprises me is the price of mini's.. cars that 15 years ago i would have paid £50 for is making £2000 :? nice cars but id rather spend that on a micra and have change..

User avatar
Paul240480
Posts: 466
Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2011 4:28 pm
Location: Nivillac
Contact:

Re: What would you buy & why?

#957 Post by Paul240480 » Fri Dec 28, 2018 8:39 am

Talking of hydrolastics cars.....
I had a 79' Allegro , bought in 90'. It was a heap, had to de-ice inside and out of a winter, but it I did make a profit out of it, incredibly :lol:
Bought £250 as a 2nd car for work hacks.
Found it smoked and drank oil like fuel a short while later.
Rear end (very minor ) shunt equalled insurance write off.
I bought it back for £25 and the insurers have me £200. ( if they took it I have for £225. ) I fixed it for £16- new (scrappy) rear cluster and a lump hammer!
Had my local garage put a silver-seal engine in, (used) £150 as they let they're apprentice loose on it to 'learn'.
Ran it 2yrs no issues.3rd MOT they failed it -terminal rust.
So the garage bought it off me for £70 as they wanted the silver seal to put in another customers mini.
Bargain :lol:

rich.
Posts: 6804
Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2011 9:18 pm

Re: What would you buy & why?

#958 Post by rich. » Sat Dec 29, 2018 8:29 am

they were great little cars the aggro's we had 4 in our family..
meanwhile ght a present for your long suffering wife? :lol:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123567852699
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/153320561150

GHT
Posts: 1523
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 3:09 pm

Re: What would you buy & why?

#959 Post by GHT » Sat Dec 29, 2018 10:57 am

What a thoughtful chap you are, the problem is though, both models are rag tops, my missus is asthmatic, that's why I didn't buy one of the wartime MG sports cars.
Well that's what she tells me. She once had a rag top that she managed to lock the door with the keys in the car. After much fiddling with the lock she phoned me. I'm getting very worried, she pleaded, I've locked my keys in the car, please bring me the spare keys and do hurry, it's about to persist down with rain and I've left the top down. Believe it or not, my missus is a red head.

User avatar
JPB
Posts: 10319
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:24 pm

Re: What would you buy & why?

#960 Post by JPB » Sat Dec 29, 2018 6:39 pm

GHT, please may I find your wife's situation amusing? I would just post a whole line of "ROFPMSL" emoticons but don't want to be thought cruel.

Red Head? Isn't that also known as strawberry blond? I was very blond when I had hair, this most probably explains my having forgotten that, prior to going into the cinema with the five friends who'd travelled with me in my utterly dependable Morris Oxford VI, 4388DG, I unclipped the distributor cap, removed the rotor arm and locked said ignition component in the handy wooden cabinet the car had in its boot, fitted by its original owner to carry his spare parts and tools for use on the regular trips he made to far off European parts in the car.

Coming out of the film, we all piled back into the car and I put the key in its slot and turned it to the start position. This was always a "first piston over the top" starter, wet or dry, winter chilly or summer scorching, but not this time. So I went back into the foyer of the cinema and called for the AA (no mobile phones were around then, unless the user owned a Porsche, a set of braces and a Platinum AMEX card). The AA chap arrived in under half an hour, so far so good right? Er, no. Not exactly, the guy managed to remove the distributor cap but failed to notice the fact that the arm was missing, so he spent an hour scratching his head and then gave up and called out a recovery truck.

Half way home, some eighty miles into our journey to drop off one of the couples who had been travelling in the Oxford, I remembered that I'd removed the arm. Now, the decent thing to do would have been to 'fess up immediately and ask the recovery driver to drop us, and DG, at the next passing place where I would then refit the arm and start the car on the handle as the AA guy had flattened the car's enormous battery in his futile attempts to get the engine going.
But.. :twisted: Though it was my remarkable ability to forget things that had caused the non-breakdown in the first place, I figured that not only ought I to have remembered sooner, the AA patrol should have spotted the absence of the arm straight off, and as we would potentially have used a further £7 (around four gallons at the time) of petrol to get us the rest of the way, the devil on my shoulder came into play and said "stuff this, the recovery fella can take us home and save me some fuel!"
We arrived at the couple's home and I was offered a dry steading for the car for the night, where I managed - after a further five minutes - to "fix" the car and the remaining four of us then set away for home with the car's usual behaviour returning and the journey being completed in comfort, albeit with no lights on for the first twenty miles, to give the poor battery a better chance of getting enough juice from the dynamo.

I neglected to mention the facts of the situation to my travelling companions and they remain blissfully unaware to this day. :oops:

I found the Oxford's original petrol and maintenance book recently, which the original keeper had kept up from 1964 when the car was new, to 1987, when I bought it from his grandson, here are a few pages, note that the Oxford travelled to places as far off as Rome, Zurich and even Wales, which I still hold responsible for the very small amount of rust that had to be repaired in the Summer of 1987 ;) :

Image
Image
Image
Image

33.3mpg average wasn't too shabby for a 1622cc B series car, the original owner always drove gently and I remember being disappointed that, despite my best efforts to beat his average, the car only ever managed 32.9 in my ownership!
J
"Home is where you park it", so the saying goes. That may yet come true.. :oops:

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 18 guests