Classic cars for everyday use
- Thread starter Griff
- Start date
Pie 1 said:That's the first and only car I've ever crashed.
Lost it on gravel strewn corner on an Essex country lane & ended up on its side in a ditch.
I nearly did as much with Mum's old Mk1 Fiesta a few times.
I used to set off for work at 5 in the morning, going to a place 7 miles away down some windy Sussex B-roads. You can imagine how I used to drive...
Griff
Hardly posting anymore
Roadkill said:
Yep, a lot of nice Italian things have just dissapeared completely. Even the Alfa GTV is a rare sight these days.
Though flicking through the classic car mags, Fiat 130 Coupes seem to come up pretty regually which is surprising for an early to mid '70s Fiat.
They are lovely, but don't think they could reliably used as an everyday car. The bodywork and engine problems would end up a nightmare.
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
Roadkill said:When I was a kid, you used to see quite a few Fiat 127s about.
Apparently they were nice little cars, and the 1300GT version was great fun.
I suppose they've all gone the way of most older Italian cars: I haven't seen one for years.
they went the way of a lto of italian cars in so far as they were bought up by another company who rebadged them and called them .... samba's....
which when talbot were then bought buy peoguot they became the 104 ...
which was then sold to seat and became the seat 127 (back to it's orginial number)
......
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
....
which was then boguth up by fiat again and became the panda...
more like this one...
hows that for recycling!!!
which was then boguth up by fiat again and became the panda...
more like this one...
hows that for recycling!!!
GarfieldLeChat said:they went the way of a lto of italian cars in so far as they were bought up by another company who rebadged them and called them .... samba's....
Nah, the Pug 104/Talbot Samba/Citroen LNA were a different car altogether. IIRC the Pug 104 was made from the late 70s til about 1982, and just as it was coming to the end of its life Talbot (by then owned by the PSA Combine) were given it to facelift and market as the Samba ... which then faded away when Peugeot brought out the 205.
I had a Samba for 9 months. A little rotbox that felt almost terrifyingly flimsy, but it was actually quite a nice little car to drive.
The Fiat 127 was flogged off to Yugoslavia after Fiat stopped making it and was turned into the Yugo, probably one of the nastiest cars ever. Fiat replaced it with the Uno, using some of the same engines and other gubbins.
dirtysanta
Original Casual
@ Griff. thats a lovely GTV. Wallop !
Hows about one of these.... Fast, noisy and stroppy. Proper original italian hot hatch.
Strada 130TC Abarth
Hows about one of these.... Fast, noisy and stroppy. Proper original italian hot hatch.
Strada 130TC Abarth
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
yup the samba and the yugo were breathern tho underneith (seriously the shared jig assemblies and everything...) i got this lecture every day for about 5 years from the old man about the recycled shite design ....Roadkill said:
dammit forgot about the strada.... i knew there was one i missed...
again same floor pan same running gear same everythig but uprated suspension look at them chap the are identical... bar the panda which was a revised design...
GarfieldLeChat said:
I'm sure it wasn't the Samba, garf. It was the 127, and there was no connection between them. Why would Fiat go sharing designs with PSA anyway?
The 127 got recycled into the Yugo and a SEAT, as well as one or two South American subsidiaries. Loads of Fiat's cars went the same way. Lest we forget, the old Fiat 124 or 125 (can't remember which) was recycled into a Polski-Fiat/FSO and the renowned Lada Riva.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_127
got a vw camper and a beetle. the bus only really does a couple of thousand miles a year really, and to be fair has never missed a beat, despite my best efforts to kill her by setting off fire extinguishers in her etc...
Dunno about the beetle yet. It comes back from the VW makey livey man this week, and theoretically at least becomes my new daily car...which I'm feeling less happy about the closer that the day comes...
I've also had a Fiat 500, which I loved, and was cooler than a cool thing on cool day, but was rubbish
Dunno about the beetle yet. It comes back from the VW makey livey man this week, and theoretically at least becomes my new daily car...which I'm feeling less happy about the closer that the day comes...
I've also had a Fiat 500, which I loved, and was cooler than a cool thing on cool day, but was rubbish
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
it bimmin well was read up on Simca the aronde models and who supplied the designs all though out the 1000 series... which looked like ...Roadkill said:
later used for the lada, yugo, unicar and others ... and also the later 100 series ...
also might want to look at where the arbath series of fiats came from and who did them up for them
Not had time to read the thread right now, but I had to respond to this from Mrs M on page 1. Sorry if this has already been commented on ...
He's not living in Camberwell any more, and I'm pretty sure he's got rid of that car, I've never seen it parked near his present home
He still dresses the full on Victorian dandy though, every day!
Mrs Magpie said:Well, I can't drive but I've always loved the Morris Minor. There was a bloke in Camberwell with the most fantastic waxed moustache who had/has an Austin Princess...I think he is/was a curator at the V&A
edited to add: I think his name (the curator) is Stephen Calloway.
He's not living in Camberwell any more, and I'm pretty sure he's got rid of that car, I've never seen it parked near his present home
He still dresses the full on Victorian dandy though, every day!
djbombscare
Plays with knives
Griff said:A Moskovitch.
And I thought it would be Garf or Roadkill how wrong could I be
Spot on tho mate
Recently seen a few of these about (weel, maybe two or three, more than once) :
The Hindustan Ambassador, once ubiquitous in India ...
Are they still being made?
Bet they're bastards for fuel consumption though, and pricey to import.
The Hindustan Ambassador, once ubiquitous in India ...
Are they still being made?
Bet they're bastards for fuel consumption though, and pricey to import.
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
the morris oxford???William of Walworth said:Recently seen a few of these about (weel, maybe two or three, more than once) :
The Hindustan Ambassador, once ubiquitous in India ...
Are they still being made?
Bet they're bastards for fuel consumption though, and pricey to import.
they still make em and indeed have restyled them with a new variant they can run on lpg/cng and have izuz trooper engines in them and decent brakes, can also run on bio deseil and the like and cost about as much as it would be to buy a cheap eurobox...
http://www.hmambassador.com/
shame their website doens't work in anything other than explorer...
Lisarocket
In bed with me dinner
GarfieldLeChat said:
That's a good idea Garf! Seeing as Pimp My Ride haven't steamed in to save my life...and they've had enough time by now...it could be a good option. I'll check it out, but I've only got 3 months till the MOT runs out
Thanks for the suggestion
P.S I used to love Moggies too, but eventually i realised i wanted something a bit faster. I nearly bought one before the MG, but it was a surfers car, so the salt water/air hadn't helped the bodywork at all. It was really rusty. I nearly bought it anyway, but it stalled loads on the test drive...
Cheers Garf, they're lovely vehicles those Ambassadors. Rode in them (as taxis) quite a few times when I ws in India. I just about remember seeing the original (UK) Morris Oxfords on the road, the splitscreen ones are VERY rare now, and you rarely see the successor models either, nowadays.
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
they used to love my old moggie when i'd take it down there i'd get it regularlly serviced and ting and all sorted pre mot and such and had the best bit of welding i ever had done to the front box joint by the comm collage they loved it cos it was easy to work on and the instructors loved it cos it was easy to teach people the basics ...Lisarocket said:That's a good idea Garf! Seeing as Pimp My Ride haven't steamed in to save my life...and they've had enough time by now...it could be a good option. I'll check it out, but I've only got 3 months till the MOT runs out
Thanks for the suggestion
P.S I used to love Moggies too, but eventually i realised i wanted something a bit faster. I nearly bought one before the MG, but it was a surfers car, so the salt water/air hadn't helped the bodywork at all. It was really rusty. I nearly bought it anyway, but it stalled loads on the test drive...
so chances are on the b series engine (it's just bigger a series really!!) it's much the same, again theres shed loads of space inside the engine bay to move around...
as for moggies beign slow well sortah my old one had b gt engine in it (slight of centre rad to fit it in!! healy gear box marina disks and suspension at the from spax all round and a spirt diff meaning it went like a bomb... (that and a heady yound 17 year old behind the wheel of it too!!) often got stopped for speeding in my youth and every time they looked at it and nah can't have ... it's a bloody morris minor there must have been other cars in the speed gun at the time
when i get my new one it'll be fiddled with in the same manner...
thnking abotu one of these actually...
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
might i suggest the goodwood revival to you it's prolly not really the kind of festival you are used to however it's full of 1950's and 1960's charm with loads of supreme examples of the oxford and everythign else from the era and there abouts... it's infanatly better than the festival of speed but you have to dress in period costume in order to get it... oh and wear a hat!!William of Walworth said:
FruitandNut
New Member
The Ford Consul 375 was a lovely motor for it's day.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
or
Was a mint Morris Minor Traveller ("woody" to JC2) parked outside our house yesterday. Bit twee for my tastes to be fair.
Not a classic but practical classics have a mint S12 for £1,500
You could see 250bhp thorugh the rear wheels for well under £2,500 and judging by the condition you'd get many years of fun.
Not a classic but practical classics have a mint S12 for £1,500
You could see 250bhp thorugh the rear wheels for well under £2,500 and judging by the condition you'd get many years of fun.
cybertect
It's grim up north (London)
GarfieldLeChat said:
My very first car was a blue 1969 Minor van - though it had an Austin badge on the front instead of a Morris one. Paid £400 for it in 1989.
The stock suspension is unsurprisingly agricultural and bone-shaking compared with the saloon and Traveller versions. Never a speed king - it topped out at around 50 mph with the van-oriented gearbox IIRC (although there are ways to remedy this if you have the right equipment under the bonnet
)My dad used to have a Traveller into which he'd dropped a 1.6 Marina engine and a 5-speed Sierra (?) gearbox with uprated suspension and brakes - that cruised quite happily at 80 and surprised BMWs and Porsches on the motorway
cybertect
It's grim up north (London)
Oh, and this 1.8i Traveller is awesome
