Practically Classics Forum

Rare Mitsuoka? eBay currently has dozens of them, all automatics as they're the default transmission option in Japan. They don't seem to represent the best ever VFM either, if the prices being asked for the best examples are any guide.
Princes autos per se, yeah, fine, but the E6 engine is one of those that's wonderful when it's been assembled and treated properly and a hastily cobbled together money pit when it's not. OK, so arguably the remaining ones are wednesday cars and the really bad examples are all long since dead, but that in a Princess spoils a car that otherwise I love, even though my B series one was really pretty well shagged too..


The last two owners of E6 engined cars I spoke to both had clear symptoms of post traumatic stress following their receipt of typical bills from specialists who had carried out valve seat work on the heads of their engines. The O series works best of the lot in an ADO71, IMHO, if only because you won't have any valve seat recession to worry about and they're generally quite sweet if not in the way that a 2CV engine is..

Pao? Not feeling that one having found that although they're roughly the height of the K10 on which they're based, the seat is at Figaro level.
Anyhoo, older would be preferred, there must be something out there?

i thought the red one just might tempt you no trouble with wearing your hat etc..
how about these..
http://www.lesanciennes.com/annonce/A12 ... fcat=autos

https://www.leboncoin.fr/voitures/10784 ... tm?ca=12_s

https://www.leboncoin.fr/voitures/11078 ... tm?ca=12_s

https://www.leboncoin.fr/voitures/11075 ... tm?ca=12_s

https://www.leboncoin.fr/voitures/10935 ... tm?ca=12_s

https://www.leboncoin.fr/voitures/11038 ... tm?ca=18_s

https://www.leboncoin.fr/voitures/11067 ... tm?ca=18_s

Aye, the red soft top thing did catch my eye but I really want to avoid owning too many modernish cars. People would think I'd become eccentric in my early middle age.


These Solara and Alpine jobbies are comfy things but don't float my boat in the same way as a Tagora does. Tagoras are probably a little low in the cushion nowadays but at least I drove a good one several times and that ticked a box back in the eighties.

Is that right about the Dauphin having a Diesel engine and an automatic 'box? I know that I mustn't have a Diesel in a car used in connection with work, but I'm intrigued about that one, especially as they're a cute shape.
An auto converted (Jowett, not AMC) Javelin is still in joint number 1 spot - along with the Aven't-time in spite of its newness - from the suggestions received to date, but I have yet to try a Javelin on for size, whereas I know that the weird plastic Renault would fit me in spite of the weird door's limited opening angle..


Edited on the Saturday afternoon:

Rich, I found another car exactly like my daily, but with different wheels , should I buy this one? It costs three times over the amount I gave for my low mileage January '06 model but it's the same colour and the hinges on its front doors appear to be broken, so maybe the dealer would take less for it:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CUSTOM-TOYOTA ... Sw5cNYPYrH


Whereas, on planet sanity, I found something much more like the job:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/London-Fairwa ... SwOgdYv9Wv
and another as a spares car: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/London-Taxi-f ... SwWxNYovsf

Ideal for shows as camper interiors in ready to fit kits can be had for these, so that bogging interior in the cheaper one wouldn't matter.

buy the modded thing & park next to ghts mg

have you considered one of these?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/camper-van/26 ... 2451483269

this needs work but you get the idea




or this?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/bond-bug-supe ... rmvSB=true

Camper vans are a genre of vehicle that appeals generally. Bond Bugs. Hmm, even when I could have lifted my legs over that huge sill to get in, the seats are fixed to the shell by poppers so cannot be moved rearwards and my raised knees prevent the canopy from closing as their seat to pedal box distance was designed for people with an inseam of precisely 31 Inches. Anyone even shorter than that can always shove a cushion behind their back to help them to reach the pedals, but anyone longer than that is screwed! A shame, as being a passenger in one was fun and I was always considered useful as ballast for events where right hand bends were involved.


Maybe there's a camper van out there which has a floor the same height from the ground as a UK market Yaris, but with a seat some 30" from the ground? Well there is, since the bB - in common with most JDM MPVs - has a bed facility, but if these criteria were available in something thirty or forty years older than the daily, combined with either a CVT or a similarly automated device that has some gears, that's the solution. That, or having six inches chopped off the end of my legs which would work but I'd then be shorter and still couldn't afford a Webster Bug, with or without a shan "1972" identity attached!

rich. wrote:buy the modded thing & park next to ghts mg

No chance, the Toyota might end up having its engine "borrowed" by a gang of bloodythirsty Jowetteers armed with toenail clippers and Handy Bars or "Car Cane" as they're known

http://www.lesanciennes.com/annonce/A13 ... fcat=autos

you could easily fit an auto box...

or

http://www.lesanciennes.com/annonce/A12 ... =automatic

Way too low, though you're right, a R5 with or without the pointless boot can be fitted with automatic as it was an option on the cars but that would mean finding a suitable engine & box from a LHD model to suit and then I'd be left with an automatic paperweight instead of a manual one as I've never been able to fit into the old 5s, now I'd need the fire bobbies to come and cut the roof off to get me into the thing. Old taxis appeal and have a low enough floor with a seat that can be raised by a further four inches to provide access to the pedals, but strong though the Nissan Diesel is, it's still a Diesel and one that's too old to be allowed onto the car parks at my work, though even this needn't be enough to put me off as long as I have the current van-like thing and can avoid travelling for work in anything with a 20th century Diesel.

Fiats of that age are about as much use as, erm, breasts on a haddock, the height thing again and I could reach the steering wheel but would still be far too low to get onto its pedals. The Barkas and a converted Javelin are the only things so far that would (Javelin) or may, subject to how low the floor is (Barkas) be physically suited to my proportions. Transits have a seat height that's perfect, but only relative to the ground outside, even if I could devise a means of transferring to the driver's seat without major structural work, the floor is too close to that seat once I'm in, thanks to the "car like" driving position that was one of the Transit's USPs among its rival vans back in the day.

Then it came to me in a nightmare dream.. The original Fiat Multipla has a very low floor which, because they're short and tall, means that the seats must be high. Economical to run on petrol, bed can be made as it can in a Panda but better, great to take to the shows, plenty of space for a chair, a stationary engine, a small generator and a couple of people who'd be chosen for their suitability as ballast on the windy days. Unless of course I get a spare set of panels for a bB and nail them to the Fiat seeing as they work to keep the tall, narrow Japanese modern running straight in even the very worst of the crosswinds that come across the spine road from the mouthes of the Wansbeck and the Blyth on my typical run down to one of the southernmost work campuses.

...Then I looked up the prices of the four Multiplas currently available to buy in the whole of western Europe. F*** ME BACKWARDS!!! (They're very not cheap).

I'm buying the neighbour's automatic Beetle in the mean time, it's a solid car that's only done 117,000 miles from new, has decent tyres, belts in the back in case I have to use it for work and is tested to next January, but even that isn't ideal as I'm bound to forget that its "automatic" transmission requires the driver to change between the two available ratios manually, well it is a few decades since I last had one . I may have to learn all over again! Still, it'll be something to fill a space and at £<400 isn't as ridiculously overpriced as many of these are. OK, so it's slow, noisy and smells weird but there is a theory that owners end up resembling their dogs..

pics please john!!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/322453271607? ... rmvSB=true

JPB wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2017 9:12 amThen it came to me in a nightmare dream.. The original Fiat Multipla).

You were right when you said that you had no taste. The Fiat Multiplas, the original or any other: