Practically Classics Forum

Hi all!

My name is Ashley & I'm from Kingston Upon Hull, East Yorkshire. I'm a HGV driver, I work for a Dutch firm and I regularly travel all over Europe.

Only just found this forum but have been a fairly long term reader of the PC mag so I thought I'd introduce myself & my vehicles.

Firstly, this is my Peugeot 309 style (1.3 petrol) with 88,000 on the clock.

The car was purchased new by a chap who lived in Hedon, just outside of Hull, in February 1990 as a present to his wife. She had driven around in the car for 18 months quite happily and uneventfully until she was involved in an almost head on crash with a HGV. The car apparently suffered a fair amount of front end damage but it was presumably only cosmetic as the insurance had the 18 month old 309 professionally repaired & painted.

Unfortunately, after the accident and when the car was repaired and returned, she refused to drive it as she said it gave her flash backs to the accident. Her husband for whatever reason was not interested in the 309 and promptly sold it to his uncle extremely cheaply.

The uncle lived in the same village as his nephew, but literally only used the car to go between ASDA and the post office once or twice a week, from 1991 until 2008.

By 2006, the owner had failing health and was beginning to suffer with Altzheimers. He was going to shops in the car, parking it, forgetting where he parked it & on two occasions reported it stolen to the police when it was actually parked outside the village post office exactly where he left it the day before!

He was also becoming a danger on the road and so his family stepped in & said he really needed to give up driving and persuaded his wife to sell the car.

Back in 2008, I worked with the brother of the owner and needed a car as my old Fiesta failed it's MOT on four pages of defects and thus had sadly reached the end of it's life and had to be scrapped. I viewed the 309 one weekend and bought it for £200 - and it had 6 month tax and 6 month MOT !!

Since 2008, all the 309 has asked of me (apart from wear & tear items such as a set of brake pads etc) is a new front brake caliper (but I replaced both anyway), a rear wheel cylinder, a rear wheel bearing and a pair of new rear shock absorbers. Initially I had problems with rough running & stalling which was basically down to a blocked up carb.

I've travelled across Holland, Germany and Denmark in my 309 and it's never let me down once. It was also the last car my dad drove before he died suddenly & unexpectedly in 2008. Apart from my grandmother (who passed away last year), they where the only family I had but my 309 almost feels like a family member as I've been through so much with it as my car.

Upon returning it from Holland in October 2012, it was immediately SORN'ed and stored in my garage. I have begun stripping it down and as I'm planning a thorough nut & bolt restoration to how it was when it left the showroom when it was new. I've also started some welding to the drivers side floor pan / sill.

More info and pics on what exactly I've done so far will follow at a later date...........

http://i938.photobucket.com/albums/ad22 ... G_3163.jpg

Next, is my 1998 Peugeot 205 1.6 automatic with just over 55,000 on the clock.

I have the complete owner history of this vehicle (courtesy of the DVLA - you need to complete a V666 form and a £5 cheque / postal order!) and it was purchased new by a Dr Eric Twiss who lived in Shorham by Sea / Bournemouth area. He owned the car for seven years before selling it on to another local chap. After that it seems to have passed around a certain family who at some point moved up from Bournemouth to a village called Woodmansey which is in the Hull / Beverley area.

In 2005 it was purchased by a chap named Geoff, as a present to his wife who despite being in her mid 50's, had only just passed her driving test.

Unfortunately, she took an instant dislike to the car and proceded to chastise her husband profusely for buying an 'old' car as she wanted something nice and either new or almost new, not an 'old' car as she ungratefully and a tad insultingly described the 205.

Due to lack of parking outside his house after he got his wife another car (he had a Vectra as his own daily car), Geoff parked the unwanted 205 in his works car park on the container terminal on Queen Elizabeth Dock in Hull. The 205 sat there looking sorry for itself for about 6 months untill the MOT expired. Geoff then had the car put through MOT (which included a brand new set of tyres all round and a new rear exhaust back box) and parked it back up at his works car park.

Apparently there was a chap he worked with who was going to buy it on several occasions but never had any money (time waster) and Geoff lost interest in it and basically it sat there on the dock and exposed to the elements for over 6 years.

In 2011 I was put on container work for a few weeks by the company I work for to cover a driver who was off work recovering for a few weeks due to an operation he'd had. I regularly used that container terminal and noticed the sad 205 parked in a corner, obviously it had been there for some time, but I could see that under the dust and dirt it was completely straight and rust free. I made some enquires with the guys in the office and eventually managed to track 'Geoff' down, who turned out to be a crane driver & supervisor.

I told him I'd be interested in the 205, but before I could even make him an offer he said, "You can take the f***ing thing away for me son, I'm fed up of the sight of it!"

The only condition was that I had to organise a new log book in MY name as he'd lost the old one. That was easy enough to sort out (cost £25) & when I showed him the new log book in my name two weeks later he was happy for me to have it recovered and taken to my garage.

The brakes where badly siezed & I've had them replaced front & back. I fitted a good brand new Bosch battery and gave it a thorough service and replaced the timing belt. It started up almost on the button after priming the fuel system with fresh fuel (after parked up over 6 years!) and passed it's MOT on the second attempt (has ongoing niggly electrical faults I've not got round to sorting such as the front electric windows).

I've used it as a daily run around for a few months last year while the weather was good and I used it to travel from Hull to Liverpool and back and it never missed a beat.

Currently back on SORN and tucked away safe and dry in my garage.

Still some minor electrical gremlins I need to sort (as mentioned earlier) but I think the carb (and possibly fuel pump) could do with being stripped, cleaned thoroughly and reconditioned.

The car has never been welded and is all original apart from the wheel trims (it didn't have any when I got it).

In the future I will return the 205 to 'as new / showroom' condition, but for now the 309 is the focus of my efforts and £££££'s. I will keep the 205 MOT'd so I can put it back on the road every few months just to keep everything running sweet for now.

And last but not least (although I'll probably get scalded by the admins because it's not a car....) is my Minsk.

Minsk is a Russian manufacturer who sold their bikes in the UK for a few years during the '70's & '80's, sometimes under the names Regent, Neval or Cossack.

They where very cheap however not popular due to the fact they where about 15 years behind everyone else techonogically and the build quality was not a particularly strong point.

My Minsk is a 123cc two stoke (pre-mix) with front and rear drum brakes. How very 'old school' compared to other bikes on the market even in 1986.

My Minsk was purchased new buy a middle aged chap who lived in Healing, near Grimsby back in 1986. He used the bike for just three years until late 1989, when he decided to remove the cylinder head to de-coke it.

Unfortunately, he never finished it and the bike bizzarely remained in his garage under a tarpaulin sheet from 1990 until 2011!

By 2011, the owner, now retired and with failing eye sight, decided it was time to have a good clear out of his garage and enlisted the help of his neighbour, John. The owner wanted to take the bike to a scrap yard but the neighbour, John, interveaned & said it was in far too good a condition to scrap and offered to put it on eBay with no reserve. I didn't win, however the guy who did was a complete time waster and I was offered it again a few days later.

I happily bought the bike. Everything needed to rebuild the engine was in the rear storage box and also all of the recepts, handbook and original bill of sale where all there. Even the 1986 - '87 and '88 - '89 tax discs where still in the holder as was the old style blue paper log book. It's only done just over 2,500 miles!

Parts are unavailable in the UK now, but there are several online stores in Romania and Lithuania who have every part you could possibly need and incredibly cheap (new engine just £120!!!!).....but delivery is not quick.

I have rebuilt the engine and it now runs. Tyres need replacing and brakes need adjusting and then it's not far off ready for an MOT. I've just not had the time to finish this one yet.

One more thing, according to the web site 'howmanyleft', there are just THREE Minsks in the UK on the DVLA's database - ALL of which are SORN'ed. It would be great if I could get mine through an MOT and own the only one of it's type on the road in the UK.....it's just work keeps getting in the way!

Looks like you have a good collection of cars We do have some threads on motorcycles on here. The magazine concentrates on cars but on here you are 100% welcome to post about your bike.

like your lorries too..

fairway1 wrote:My name is Ashley & I'm from Kingston Upon Hull, East Yorkshire. I'm a HGV driver, I work for a Dutch firm and I regularly travel all over Europe.

Oh you lucky bleeder,I have Class 2 and not had the chance to put it to use,because of the economic downturn,so there's not a good number of companies out there. Plus,I used to live in Germany,and to drive a truck through Germany would be a delight

fairway1 wrote:Firstly, this is my Peugeot 309 style (1.3 petrol) with 88,000 on the clock.

Having just done a google search to remind me of what one looks like,it is quite refreshing to see one. Some lovely history behind it.

fairway1 wrote:I've travelled across Holland, Germany and Denmark in my 309 and it's never let me down once.

It's a great feeling to experience having purchased a £200 bargain

fairway1 wrote:Upon returning it from Holland in October 2012, it was immediately SORN'ed and stored in my garage. I have begun stripping it down and as I'm planning a thorough nut & bolt restoration to how it was when it left the showroom when it was new. I've also started some welding to the drivers side floor pan / sill.

That'll be an interesting project. Are repair panels easy to come by?

When I saw "Minsk" in the thread title, I was expecting a dyslexic Hillman

Good news! There are far more (OK, twice as many) Minsks left in the UK at least. There's a fella who stays by Perth and is a member of a classic vehicle club to which I belong, his collection includes Urals, an off road combo or two with driven chairs and not one but four of these; one a Minsk and three aliases.

Howmanyleft only counts English and Welsh - not all UK - registrations as a result of the different way the Data Protection Act works under Scottish and NI law.

JPB wrote:Good news! There are far more (OK, twice as many) Minsks left in the UK at least. There's a fella who stays by Perth and is a member of a classic vehicle club to which I belong, his collection includes Urals, an off road combo or two with driven chairs and not one but four of these; one a Minsk and three aliases.

Howmanyleft only counts English and Welsh - not all UK - registrations as a result of the different way the Data Protection Act works under Scottish and NI law.

Thats great, is this chap a member on here? I'd be interested about where he is sourcing spares for his bikes from.

I know theres a few Minsks kicking about out there but I've yet to actually find another that is tax'd, MOT'd and on the road.