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Tizer
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16/01/2008
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16:27
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I've opened this thread to make a place for some pictures of motor vehicles - interesting or attractive or just simply curious. I've started it below with three pictures taken at a steam rally a few years ago. I've got a few more but please feel free to contribute pictures.
Tizer
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pluggy
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Posted - 26/01/2008 : 11:49
Just so Stanley doesn't jump on me for being negative again (something I will admit I'm good at ). Here a bit of positive on-topic. The best two cars I ever owned, the last two cars I ever owned, both diesel, one I still own and the other I gave to my Sister-in-law 3 years ago and is still running.
The Mk3 Golf, the bottom of the range diesel. The LD. I bought it in 2001 with 108,000 on the clock. Never a moments trouble, ran it for 3 and a half years and 58,000 in my care. More torque than you could shake a stick at, in any gear and was a delightful plodder with the window wound down. Sounds like an old fat cat purring at idle. I gave it away because I was offered a pittance against this :
My current car. A Skoda Fabia, 1.4 TDI. Fun to drive and makes a delightful growl when you push it hard. Spectacularly economical when it isn't growling and very comforatble for a small car even for me who isn't the most compact of people. I bought it new in 2004 and intend the next owner to be a man with a crane and an oily field.
Edited by - pluggy on 26/01/2008 11:51:23
Need computer work ?
"http://www.stsr.co.uk" 
Pluggy's Household Monitor  |
softsuvner
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Posted - 26/01/2008 : 16:29
OK Pluggy, I meant a V8 not a V6. If you look up Coventry Climax on the Web it is much more complicated than we thought. The Imp engine started life as a 4 cylinder portable fire pump, and the V 8 is derived from a marine engine!
Lotus and Cooper both used the CC derived engines, Jim Clark won two F1 titles with CC power.
I had a cousin who was an Imp fanatic, until he tried to tow a small caravan with one, he swapped it for a Magnette saloon very quickly!
Only once had a drive in a borrowed Singer-branded version (was it called the Impala?). Felt to me like a more sophisticated but less nippy car than my minivan.
Many years ago in the BBC (Before Bl....y Clarkson) days , there was a car poll amongst G.P.s. and the VW Golf came out top as the Family Doctor vehicle of choice. Reliabilty and starting were the main positive issues if I remember right.
Nothing wrong with Skodas Pluggy. I was in the Czech Republic (at the Ostrava Motor Show) when the new Skoda Octavias were launched onto the domestic market in May 1997. I thought then that the Octavia seemed a blooming good car. Currently, I am carrying out a long term test of a high-miler second hand Octavia "oiler". Nothing to report at 125k.
Malcolm
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pluggy
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Posted - 26/01/2008 : 17:17
OK on the V6 thing, just me being a pedant again. The imp was a fairly powerful car but it was a rust bucket and it was a real pig to work on.
Skodas are just VWs these days. The Fabia is a Polo with a different body. In the past I have owned 'real' Skodas in the shape of the Estelle. Jasper Carrott had it right, they were c**p. He doesn't make a living telling jokes about them these days.
Incidentaly when I was in the market for a new car, I went to look at a MK5 Golf with the SDI diesel engine, but when we turned up at the showroom in Skipton in the tatty example in my photo, the Salesman looked down his nose at us and made us feel most unwelcome, We voted with our feet and went to Simpsons to look at an Octavia, but it looked huge in the showroom and I wound up going for the Fabia. I don't regret it, its been a great car. No issues in 47,000 miles now.
Need computer work ?
"http://www.stsr.co.uk"
Pluggy's Household Monitor |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 27/01/2008 : 09:17
Biggest problem with the Imp was the all alloy engine. Get it hot once and it warped the head and the block.
Best car engine I ever came across was the 1.3 in my first Fulvia. I ran it into the ground and scrapped it but pput the engine/clutch/gearbox unit into another Fulia I bought for £100 because it had a bad oil leak between the block and the crankcase. This was a common fault caused by using the wrong oil and revving it while cold, it blew a tuppeny paper packing out and to repair it you had to do a complete strip-down. While we had the unit out of the old Fulvia we put a new clutch in and while we had is split I noticed the fwheel had a lot of holes drilled in it. I contacted my mate Roger who was a Fulvia fanatic (he had the Stratos I rebuilt the engine on) who had sold me the Fulvia in the first place and he went berserk! Turned out that the engine I had was rebuilt for competion by some firm in Milan and they were famous for their performance and longevity. I can't remember the total mileage in the end but it was over 200,000 and they say that if it could be found again it is still worth a lot of money. Ah well..... I sold it to two students from Leeds and made them sign a paper to say they recognised that I had sold it as inroadworthy. The front sub frame had parted from the chassis yet again......
Thing that struck me about the first Fulvia was that after 160,000 miles it still had the factory supplied Michelin X tyres on the back axle. Worn but serviceable, the only problem was sidewall cracking due to the ultra-violent. The back axle was a piece of steam pipe and if you look it up, they were made to track in like front wheels.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Tizer
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Posted - 27/01/2008 : 11:32
"Biggest problem with the Imp was the all alloy engine. Get it hot once and it warped the head and the block."
Th Alfa Guilia that I pictured above shared this feature - no "nipping out in the Alfa", you had to sit with the engine running gently until you were sure it had warmed up. Very frustrating when it was such a fast and responsive car. But the growl from the engine was wonderful and you soon learnt routes that passed high walls or through underpasses.
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 27/01/2008 : 16:00
Nowt like listening to the exhaust barking back of a wall.... Best thing about the Fulvia exhaust was the way it went onto megaphone on the over-run.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Spitfire
Regular Member
114 Posts
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Posted - 28/01/2008 : 12:35
These probably look a bit "modern" compared to some of the other photos on this thread. The white rally TR7 belongs to my neighbour, and has recently been used as a basis for a Corgi model. The Spitfire and the blue TR7 are mine.
Edited by - Spitfire on 28/01/2008 12:44:45 PM
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Tizer
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Posted - 28/01/2008 : 12:46
Fossil fuel pumps!
You might need some fuel for all those cars! How about some of this at 2/3d or 2/1d a gallon from the old fuel pumps in St Mawes, Cornwall? I took this photo in about 2000 but I doubt they sell petrol at that price in St Mawes now.
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 28/01/2008 : 17:29
I can't remember where it was but I once saw a car filled from one of the old pumps where you pumped 1 gallon up into a glass container at the top and then dropped it by gravity into the tank. It might have been in an estate yard somewhere.....
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Tizer
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Posted - 29/01/2008 : 12:18
Remember Cleveland Discol petrol? It was petrol with added ethanol (5%?). I did a Goggle search and found the comment that in Britain after WWII: "National Distillers company continued to market an ethanol blend called “Cleveland Discol” until 1968, when the company’s fuels and chemicals division was bought out by British Petroleum." Brazil has probably never stopped using ethanol in petrol.
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softsuvner
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Posted - 29/01/2008 : 18:28
I remember about 1970, staying ona relative's farm near Nottingham, they had a Series 1 Landrover on an "exemption" just used to carry the milk to the gate and general jobs around the farm. One day we took it to the garage in the village (Young's Garage, which had once been Young's Forge). Old Harry Young came out and filled us up from a pump where you wound a handle which pumped on the down stroke, and then wound it back to the top. No glass jar, but a very nice dial like something from a wall clock, the gallons appeared in small windows, a bit like miles in early car speedos. As usual, Harry had a roll-up in the corner of his mouth as he pumped the juice!
Some years later, the pump ended up at the farm and delivered diesel until they gave up the farming about 5 years ago, nowadays it stands in their garden.
My cousin's husband has always regretted that he didn't get the original globe for the top, which he remembers as R.O.P. (Russian Oil Products).
Malcolm
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 30/01/2008 : 07:49
They sold Discol at Kelbrook garage in the days when Morphett had it and Jim Thompson (?) was fitter there. He was an aero engine fitter during the war and once told me that his biggest problem when he came back home was necking bolts and stripping threads. He's got so used to HT stuff in the war. They had a Guy eight legger as well on the tramp. Good old-fashioned garage in those days.....
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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Posted - 30/01/2008 : 17:34
Some old friends of mine.
Dordygail 
always the one to make the best of things. |
Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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Posted - 30/01/2008 : 17:37
Dordygail
always the one to make the best of things. |
Doreen
hippies understudy
429 Posts
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Posted - 30/01/2008 : 17:42
Dordygail
always the one to make the best of things. |
Motor vehicle pictures
