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Odd, bad or just plain exotic...
PLEASE NOTE:-
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Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 13 Feb 16 at 18:03
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One for Pat. Seen twice today, once approaching Carmarthen pulling a flatbed with a 40 foot container, and this evening going t'other way empty; a very smart and clean Volvo F10, on an old "V" plate so 1980-ish. Light blue, with "Lawson" on the headboard. Outside of the fairground community, very rare to see a 35 year old artic still at work earning a living especially in general haulage.
Those F10's set new standards in performance and driver comfort when they were introduced in 1977. It was pretty much every driver's dream truck. They don't look particulary old-fashioned even today.
Last edited by: Harleyman on Mon 26 Oct 15 at 17:53
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Now that I would love to have seen HM.
It certainly was my dream truck all the time I had the F86 and then an F7!
I can even remember my first F10 number plate CVG 547T
Pat
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Here in the outer reaches of the Celtic fringes you see many older trucks still in harness. A couple of companies spring to mind. Must be expensive to keep them safe and legal but I guess economics work out differently in a poorer rural area. Wales' answer to Eddie Stobart, Mansell Davies seems to run a very large fleet of very recent tankers, there must be some money in hauling milk !
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>> Here in the outer reaches of the Celtic fringes you see many older trucks still
>> in harness. A couple of companies spring to mind. Must be expensive to keep them
>> safe and legal but I guess economics work out differently in a poorer rural area.
>> Wales' answer to Eddie Stobart, Mansell Davies seems to run a very large fleet of
>> very recent tankers, there must be some money in hauling milk !
>>
They can afford to run decent trucks; it's the money they save on drivers' wages!
Actually all those new ones are leased, MD buy them back at about 3 years old. As they're a Volvo main dealer it would make financial sense, and their main yard at Llanfyrnach is full of old lorries which they cannibalise for parts.
They do get stratospheric mileages out of their vehicles though, and to their credit even the old ones look reasonably well kept. They're still running first generation FH's on general haulage, and even a few FL's (about 20 years old) on tipper and bulk blower work. Up till about three years ago they still had one or two F12 units kicking about but they're now retired.
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>>
>> Wales' answer to Eddie Stobart, Mansell Davies seems to run a very large fleet of
>> very recent tankers, there must be some money in hauling milk !
>>
The older tankers have a beautifully-painted elaborate MD&S monogram on the back end.
Also their drivers were notably courteous, pulling into laybyes if a queue built up behind. But standards have slipped, and the newer tankers are plain stainless steel, and the drivers more thick-skinned and ignore queues.
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I see loads of them - using the 487 and 470 to get to Bala today - must have seen a good 10 of them in that short time.....Last day on the outreaches !
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>> Also their drivers were notably courteous, pulling into laybyes if a queue built up behind.
According to local driver rumour, that had more to do with being hourly paid than courtesy!
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I've seen a number pulled into various lay-bys on my travels...now I know why. Nothing to do with driver breaks probably....how many journeys can they fit into a day...one up one down ?
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I'm not exactly sure where they run to.
Wouldn't have thought it was much more than a round trip; we both knowe how notoriously slow that coast road is. I wouldn't fancy it every day.
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A '92 Panda has appeared in the works carpark.... not perhaps that unusual (although a 23 year old FIAT in daily use in Scotland must be rare, the rest have dissolved!), except that its reg is Jxxx NSM and I used to have a BX that was reg J527 NSM!
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 27 Oct 15 at 12:53
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I think you're confusing FIATs with Mercedes-Benz there, Richard, when it comes to rust.
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 27 Oct 15 at 12:53
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By 1992 even Pandas were galvanised. My F reg one had no rust at all unlike the 'bread van' Polo that replaced it.
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>> By 1992 even Pandas were galvanised. My F reg one had no rust at all
>> unlike the 'bread van' Polo that replaced it.
The lower rear spring cups weren't. Mine rotted through and not cost effective to repair.
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My rear spring cups and dead axle are not looking too good at just 5.5 years old :( It seems to be a weak point on Fiats.
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It's only done 28k seemingly, and has failed more than once on corrosion....!
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www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201504012244714
No thanks.
A real mish mash of a design.
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 29 Oct 15 at 21:41
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I like it. Like the Virage, much more character than current Astons.
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The Vauxhall Nova steering wheel stalks are a bit iffy !
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If I won millions.... no way would anything like that interest me. It's horrendous inside. I'd not even pay £99k for it. Actually not even £9k.
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It looks like a bad kit car. It looked like a bad kit car when it was new, which is why no-one wanted the things.
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>> It looks like a bad kit car.
>> It looked like a bad kit car when it was new, which is why no-one wanted the things.
>>
I thought it looked like an" under the arches" body additions job.
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I'd rather drive a Lada......not that I could get in it !
www.youtube.com/watch?v=46kvybZzk0Y
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If I won the lottery I would buy a Lada Riva though I doubt I would drive it much! Still cannot believe my dad sold his for £15 when you consider how expensive the RHD ones are now.
Truly truly crap car though. My dads been driving for 45 years and has owned many cars none of them ever needed any clutches over than the Ladas. They seem eat starter motors, clutches and radiators. My grandad had one that needed a new flywheel and starter motor at the same time, I think the alternator was going too!
If I had a spare £500 I might be tempted
www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C661044
However I think this one is too far gone rust wise.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Thu 29 Oct 15 at 21:35
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I very nearly bought a 1976 Lada 2102 a few weeks ago.
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www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201509257224472
Genuine and Unmodified Classic Car.
Classic? errrrr
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 30 Oct 15 at 09:25
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>> Classic? errrrr
Translated into Russian = crap.
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Memories..............like the corners of my mind..........
Great motors. Invincible even through multiple Soviet winters.
But in reality all of them became Trigger's broom within a few years.
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Guy at work bought a brand new Lada in the late 70s or early 80s. It was in a lurid light/mid blue of the shade you will only see these days if buying a house that hasn't been decorated for 40yrs... and the interior was all black plastic of a finish and quality akin to a pound shop toy.
He was the same grade as me, both on a well paying car scheme, and I was running a mint 2yr old Citroen CX 2400 Pallas... talk about chalk and cheese in the staff car park.
He'd only had the Lada a few months when he commented to his wife they would have a proper car next.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Fri 30 Oct 15 at 11:07
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I used to 'tune' all those Lada, Moskivitch, Yugo, Polski Fiat's, even the Dacia 1300 which was based on the Reno 12.
If I had to choose between driving one of those, and boiling my head in oil, it wouldn't be an easy choice but.
I would go for the Dacia in preference to the other junk cars.
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>> I used to 'tune' all those Lada, Moskivitch, Yugo, Polski Fiat's, even the Dacia 1300 which was based on the Reno 12.
I clean forgot about the other junk car make ... Skoda!
:o}
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Trabant.
No need for a troublesome fuel pump: just site the fuel tank above the engine....
Last edited by: Lygonos on Fri 30 Oct 15 at 13:42
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>>Wartburg?
Yep! .. two stroke though, so I didn't do too many of those, thankfully. Never managed to poke my head under the bonnet of a Trabant though, but Christ did I see some in Czechoslovakia back in the early 90's.
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Wartburg?
Saw one of those in Athens this week. Beige, of course. Parked, but looked as if it had been moving recently. I'd forgotten it had a two-stroke engine.
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>> Guy at work bought a brand new Lada
My former supervisor bought a brand new Lada Riva estate in the 80's to replace his aging Austin 1300, which he also owned from new. He absolutely loved it. To quote him "it was built like a tank". The chassis consisted of 2 H beams and the rest of the car was built from extremely thick metal. He had it for several years and nothing ever went wrong with it.
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Ladas were OK. Engine was a bit of a nail - I know because I rebuilt one for my sins - and it wasn't very economical. But it was OK if a bit lumpy.
The Skoda Estelle in most of its variants was far better though. Good entertaining handling, very economical and engine a doddle to tune.
Dog is an utter moron on this one. Sorry Perro, but I wouldn't have let you mess with any of mine. You're just a garage man and God knows we know what they are like.
So there. I speak from proper experience.
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Anyone who had penchant for the God awful rear-engine Skodas is clearly an utter moron, where cars are concerned.
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You have the judgement of a dog comrade. Don't have a clue about cars. Sorry.
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Put another record on, prat.
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>> Put another record on, prat.
Was I boring you Perro? We all repeat ourselves here.
Prat is a bit rude really, but I suppose moronic was too. Hasty choice of words, genuine difference of opinion. Don't take offence, you weren't meant to.
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Yep, we can all get a bit hasty at times, and click send before we've really thought properly about what we are sending. My counsellor friend would say transference had a play in it. My poor sister, who is just 5 years older than me, having recently had a mastectomy, has now got to travel from Wellington in Somerset, to Exeter 3 times per week for renal dialysis as she has end stage kidney disease ... How some people suffer!!
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>> she has end stage kidney disease ... How some people suffer!!
Sorry about the sister Perro. No doubt she was maternal towards you when you were small.
Something like that in the background can make anyone a bit snappish.
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She gets on with life Sire. She was orf to Waitrose this morning when I phoned; how the other half live eh!
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>> Anyone who had penchant for the God awful rear-engine Skodas is clearly an utter moron,
>> where cars are concerned.
So a rear-engined car with unequal length front wishbone suspension and 4-pot front callipers would only be bought by an utter moron?
Any Porsche owners here care to comment?
;>)
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>> Anyone who had penchant for the God awful rear-engine Skodas is clearly an utter moron,
>> where cars are concerned.
>>
And probably has a cracked exhaust manifold which was almost a standard fitting.
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>> And probably has a cracked exhaust manifold which was almost a standard fitting.
Only ever experienced one of them on my Triumph Vitesse.
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i had two Ladas in the eighties. Pretty basic and not the best thing to drive but provided me with very cheap family motoring at a time when money was scarce. Best thing about them was the heater, built for Moscow winters. A good tool kit too. Still have the Indian tyre gauge and the primitive but effective tyre pump.
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I remember the heater, the fan always seemed to make a racket until it had heated up, maybe a motor bearings issue. What my dad always used to say the worst thing about the Lada was the heavy steering.
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>> What my dad always used to say the worst thing about the Lada was the heavy steering.
Dunno if it was the worst Lada feature Sheikha, but it was heavy all right. Mine was an estate, and I put the higher-ratio back axle from a saloon in it. Didn't make much difference but I suppose it could go a bit faster than a standard estate.
My wife learned to drive in that car. She's quite strong so could cope with the steering, and she absolutely loved the car knowing no better.
When we got a better car I gave the Lada to some youngsters here. They killed it in short order wheelspinning it around in a bumpy muddy field, you could hear the engine screaming and the car crashing over the bumps until it died. Damn little hooligans, I thought they would learn to drive in it. Some hope!
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I guess you know those large articulated transporters? Not car transporters, but the sort of low thing used to transport diggers, tanks, earth movers and the like?
Well on one of the busiest roads in Santiago this morning, 4 lanes of one way city centre traffic, one of them managed to drop his trailer onto the floor. Literally, on the floor. - the king pin, or whatever its called these days, was buried into the tarmac and the tractor unit 100yards down the road in a different lane.
Total chaos.
Cranes required, I guess.
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.*******
I'm shagging s***ging sodding sick of stuff vanishing.
I think I'll give this place a rest for a while.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Tue 3 Nov 15 at 01:42
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Or perhaps someone is sneaking in here and shuffling stuff around......
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>> perhaps someone is sneaking in here and shuffling stuff around......
I posted something in this thread twice yesterday, and each time it disappeared without an explanation. Enough to annoy a saint.
But on reflection I would quite like my bad-tempered and rude post above to disappear too.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Tue 3 Nov 15 at 16:33
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Or maybe it is an alien getting into AC and shuffling the brain around. Time for one of these methinks..... www.stopabductions.com/
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In the last two days I've seen a Rover SD1 (blue, tatty, smoking about a council estate), an orange 2-door Mk3 Cortina with black vinyl roof, looked like a collector's piece in good condition), and a 70's Mini Clubman estate in orange with the woody bits, in rotten condition being driven on to the Duke of Wellington's estate by some scruffy looking crusties.
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Now here's an unusual sighting. Well, I think so.
In the middle of the car park at Lidl in St Junien, near us in the Haute-Vienne, is a very tidy looking Renault Avantime. Two weeks ago I remarked on the fact there was an Avantime there because you so rarely see one. Last week I remarked it was there still. Today the gendarmes were poking around it. It has no insurance or test stickers on the windscreen so it does, indeed, appear to be dumped.
Not my cup of tea and never was but I know 'some' liked them and I suppose it was a brave attempt at being different. What future for it now?
Moved to correct place - as per the "Please Note" request at the start of this thread. Thought you might have remembered this time, seeing as one of your previous postings vanished into cyberspace last time it happened!
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 14 Dec 15 at 18:40
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For the Avantime in general, Mike, or for that one in particular?
Always liked it, for much the same reasons. Can't imagine it was mechanically or electrically robust when new, though, so what chance of a 15-year-old one surviving the kind of epic road trip it deserves to be used for? I'd love to drive one across France but with all that glass you really want the air conditioning to work.
Driving one to Lidl seems demeaning, like 'lions sniffing the exhaust fumes of queueing trippers in a safari park', to borrow from a 1976 What Car? article about the neutered Ford Mustang.
On the other hand, perhaps time will have weeded out the shoddy ones, so those still running are the durable exceptions. Still think I'd take a 1992 Saab over a 2002 Renault, though, however stylish the Avantime may be.
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Mon 14 Dec 15 at 16:29
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Avantime was a weird one, a sort of luxury Renault Transit bus thing. Quite a pleasant vehicle but not durable, a bit floppy. Any driver would prefer a proper car to a people carrier...
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 14 Dec 15 at 16:56
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The Aventime was brilliance, sheer brilliance. It looked fantastic in a futuristic way (specially in a bright metallic blue), it was comfy and roomy. Ok no great shakes if you were a drive by the seat of your pants type, but as a cruiser? stunning. I wanted one like you wouldnt believe.
I am glad I didn't have one, it made the Espace look like a paragon of good build and reliability and twice as difficult to fix.
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Exactly, Z. Bright blue with the off-white roof was a fabulous combination - although the bright metallic red was pretty stunning too. If I knew of a good one, and had plans worthy of the machine, I'd love to borrow it for a week. Maybe even buy an LHD one in Normandy, drive it to Nice and sell it to fly home!
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I've posted something twice in this thread I think, about an orange Bentley. No sign of it here or anywhere else.
Either someone's got it in for me, or VxFan has done another conjuring trick and tidied it away somewhere.
It's not that I really mind or that the post was important in any way, it's just that I just can't help noticing.
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I suspect a forum search for the word Bentley in message body will flush the posts out AC.
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It's in the 'All about not caring' thread.
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For once, AC is right: it was here. I thought he was due for a ticking off from the Thread Structure Police for tacking one unusual sighting on to the end of another, but maybe they're off catching the real criminals - the ones who say 'bottom' and 'trousers' and who quote too much of other people's posts.
};---)
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>> For once, AC is right
Whaddya mean, 'for once'? I am seldom wrong.
The Bentley mentioned in the not caring thread was my own old R Type. The one that's gone missing is a new bright orange VW Bentley standing out from a row of dark-coloured ones in the local posh car dealer's front yard.
What's wrong with bottom and trousers? Are we supposed to say nyash and kecks or something?
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Tue 15 Dec 15 at 18:09
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A coupé though, and the colour isn't quite right. Not metallic glaze like that and more yellow in the orange, as I remember. It's probably still there. I'll look again if it is.
I think it looks really good in orange, but you wouldn't want one like that. You would be noticed and people would think you were a car salesman.
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>> Are we supposed to say nyash and kecks or something?
Sorry, not 'something', that's poncy. What I meant was 'summat'.
:o}
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I thought I'd seen Lud's Bentley somewhere....It's just as when he owned it !
s479.photobucket.com/user/1400ted/media/luds%20car.jpg.html
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>> I thought I'd seen Lud's Bentley somewhere....It's just as when he owned it !
>> s479.photobucket.com/user/1400ted/media/luds%20car.jpg.html
Mine still had its engine Edouardo you cheeky fellow.
Can't tell whether the one in yr link is a Mk VI or an R Type though. They were very similar at the front end, but the R Type had a quite elegant extended boot.
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>> or VxFan has done another conjuring trick and tidied it away somewhere.
It probably got lost in cyberspace.
Now I'm sure I've mentioned this one or a billions times now, but for some reason the message STILL isn't getting across!!!
If you follow the "Please Note" request at the start of this thread when talking about a totally different vehicle to someone else, then there's a very strong likelihood that it won't vanish because I won't have to come along later and try and move it to the correct place.
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 15 Dec 15 at 23:32
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So you prefer it lost rather than simply slightly misfiled?
How do you keep losing stuff? The software works, its only if you type in the wrong ID it goes wrong, isn't it?
Last edited by: No FM2R on Tue 15 Dec 15 at 23:40
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>> It probably got lost in cyberspace.
>> Now I'm sure I've mentioned this ....message STILL isn't getting across!!!
>> How do you keep losing stuff?
Dave is still deleting posts in the wrong place instead of thinking they might not be seen. And all using his unpaid time.
Basically, he's thinking this is in the wrong place (again) and removes it. Instead of (a) moving it - he can't be bothered but this is where he'd like it or (b) leaving it where it is.
CAPITALISATION IS SHOUTING DAVE.
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THIS IS IN THE WRONG PLACE :-)
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I'm sure that I'm being dense, but I don;t understand this sentence...
"Dave is still deleting posts in the wrong place instead of thinking they might not be seen."
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What I meant is Dave has decided that if something is in the wrong thread, or even the incorrect part of a thread then it should either be:
1. Moved to the right part of a thread or the right thread.
2. Deleted
Option 1 takes more time so he is taking option 2.
However, option 3 was leave it where it is and it might be in the wrong place and be more difficult to find with a search engine.
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Granted Rob, I may have done something like that on occasion when I'm pushed for time, but not in the case of Luds missing post.
If I'm using my desktop, it's fairly easy to move something. If I'm using my iPad then it's a bit more involved. i.e. I can open multiple windows and multi task far more easily on my desktop pc with a mouse & keyboard than I can with a tablet and having to hold down fingers on screen until copy/paste commands occur and then convincing the item I want to copy is selected rather than the tablet selecting something else.
I'm getting a technophobe in my old age.
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Part of the charm and quirkiness of car4play is that the most unexpected things crop up where you least expect them to.
It's a bit like discovering a quaint country cottage with alcoves and niches which may go nowhere but more often lead to where you least expect them.
I think Dave is OCD about being tidy:)
Let the threads wander, and just enjoy the journey:)
Pat
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Having spotted two tatty VW Corrados with a mile of each other the other day, I espied a real rarity - a Mk1 VW Jetta. Brown, obviously, and also a bit tatty and daily-looking. Can't be many of those around in the Yoo Kay.
Another weird observation - it has always struck me that the Mitsubishi Lancer estate is quite a rare beast, but yesterday I saw 5. I was only doing the work commute of 50 miles round trip, so that struck me as a remarkable number of them to see at once. I did wonder if someone from this board had crossed the checkpoints and was getting a bit of culture out this way.
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If he does, a dose of Canesten ought to fix it.
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...followed one of these converted to a camper van for a few miles today.
S-reg and LHD, it looked just like the (two-tone) proverbial hen-house on wheels.
I sort of want one, but don't, if you know what I mean....
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Seem to see a lot of these (if they're the ones I think of as Inspector Clouseau vans) used for outdoor catering - South Bank during the Olympics and Portsmouth Historic Dockyard are two examples that spring to mind. Given that they're so numerous, I wonder if they're original, or if someone is building modern lookalikes like the VW campers you could buy new until recently.
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...I don't think the one I was following had been "done-up" for some time.
The corrugated sides were beginning to achieve a somewhat "Nissen Hut" patina, and the fabricated roof-rack and ladder could only be (properly) described as "rust red".
Do the catering van conversions down South serve cuisses de grenouilles et frites?
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A florists down the road from my office have a non-road-going H van parked on the forecourt in front of their shop - they use it as a shed for non-valuable floristry supplies etc.
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Saw one flying down Constitution Hill in London this morning, lights flashing, siren wailing. Not that uncommon in London. Except this was an I3. Range Extender, judging by the 'noise' it made. Well, it would have to be - imagine chasing a criminal and having range anxiety. It wasn't half moving, though. Most impressive!
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Spotted a very nice looking - and sounding - Lotus Esprit in a town near Limoges yesterday. Can't remember the last time I saw one in the UK, let alone in France.
Incidentally, while I was between internet providers over the festive season the Avantime disappeared from the Lidl car park. I wonder...
Last edited by: Mike Hannon on Fri 15 Jan 16 at 11:52
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Only 30 of the production run of 200 were allocated to the UK, and one of them is in the Motorline VW showroom in Coulsden, Surrey. You don't see many because they cost £98,000 for a tiny 2-seat coupe with a 2-cylinder 800cc Diesel engine plus small leccy motor. You certainly won't see them at fuel stations because they do up to 313 mpg! Highly aerodynamic and less than 800kg, it can do 125 mph, apparently. Tiny rear-facing door mounted cameras replace door mirrors in the pursuit of aerodynamic efficiency.
My 12 year old son loved it, and I thought it fascinating!
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Impressive.
I like the line in the pdf brochure "If necessary, the XL1 - whose top speed is 160 km/h - can accelerate to 100 km/h in just 12.7 seconds". That's similar to 0 - 60 and that's a fairly slow time, I'm no longer a speedster but for me that time would be necessary all of the time!!
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Returning from Gorran Haven beach with my 3 dogs yesterday aft noon, I cee'd a 40 year-old Citroen 2CV.
The nut behind the wheel had long grey hair plus matching beard, either that or I woz looking in the mirror.
^_^
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My lad reported Some new shaped land rovers of some kind (believed to be Discos but with old disco interior) and Jaguars (believed to be a new xf variant) dressed in camouflage seen in a cargo hanger at Heathrow.
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Saw a ragtop Evoque on the M6 yesterday. The words "prototype vehicle" on the back bumper.
As with some sights you can encounter in holiday resorts, some things really shouldn't be seen topless and this was definitely in that category.
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>> Saw a ragtop Evoque on the M6 yesterday. The words "prototype vehicle" on the back
>> bumper.
Saw a Jaguar F-Pace (SUV 4x4 thingy) on the western M25 last night. No disguise/camouflage, but the same "prototype vehicle" sticker on the rear.
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I saw these two young men driving it around a field in the Lincolnshire or Cambridgeshire fens in the mid sixties.
farm2.staticflickr.com/1561/24346024889_1f6800fb99_c.jpg[/img]
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"I saw these two young men driving it around a field ......."
Morris Marinas used to look like that after 4 years!
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Volvo F10 - Harleyman
