The cars I've owned over the last 30 years, many and varied
Discussion
I've come back to the start of this to apologise for the length of the post. As it progressed I've remembered stuff and just written it down as it's surfaced, so it' s become a bit of a tome! I'll try and make future posts more pic orientated! If it's dull, just say, I won't be offended, I'll just stop. 
While looking for bike pics for a thread in Biker banter, I came across some forgotten pics of some of the cars I've owned. Not a complete inventory by any stretch, but I ended up realising how many I've had over the years. I didn't pass my car test until I was more or less done causing myself serious damage on the bikes, so I was working for Ford and aged maybe 25.
I learnt to drive in my girlfriends ( she became my first wife ) salmon coloured X plate Fiesta 1.1L. No pics of this, or the stolen / recovered Paris blue 1985 Escort 1.6 Ghia we bought together.
When I sold that, I part exed it against my better judgement for a horrible silver Fiesta 1.1S which I promptly palmed off.
Then this came in to the sales at the Ford dealer I was at, and I enquired after it. 1988, 3 years old, 27K miles, one owner, mint. I bought it.
It was lovely, but jinxed. I'd had it 4 days when a guy ran up the back of it in traffic. Tailgate, bumper, back panel all needed replacing and the ins.co took nearly 5 months to get their s
t together and repair it. I'd had it back one day, went to Tescos in it and as I was at the tills, looked out of the window to see a Metro pull into the space next to it, only to pull out again a few seconds later. Spidery senses on full alert by this time, and when I got back to the car there was a large dent in the passenger door. I spotted the Metro a few rows away, blocked it in and waited. The owner returened, was duly confronted, admitted it, and I followed them home to get compensated.
I doubled the mileage in the 6 months I owned it. It was reliable enough, but I never came to terms with having to have it repaired and was always on the lookout for the next thing anyway. I sold it to another Ford dealer because this had come up at Eaglescliffe Auto Salvage.
1987 XR3i, stolen recovered, 12k miles, 1.9 conversion by a very well known company who are still in business, Spax suspension, Janspeed exhaust. 150bhp.
There was next to nothing wrong with it. Apparently it had been recovered the day after it was stolen. The door lock was screwed, as was the ignition, the wheels were missing,as was the parcel shelf and there was a minor dent in the n/s door bottom. I managed to fix the dent at home, and obviously with working at the main dealer, the repairs were dealt with cheaply. I put it onto the RS wheels.
This car had to live in the street, in the same slot vacated by the XR2. I was paranoid about security. We used to fit Garrison multi-locks to everything back then, and I did so with this. 2 alarms. But you can't legislate for your car being stolen by those determined enough to arrive in the dead of night with a flatbed. Post office theft was a big thing then, and cars like mine were regularly stolen to order. I was awoken by my other half at 3.30 am ( I used to sleep properly back then ) to the sound of the alarms going off. I was outside in a heartbeat, and immediately confronted by one of two idiots. He set about me with a hammer, and we fought in the street. I got the hammer off him and beat the living st out of him, while his mate left him to it and took off in the truck.
I hospitalised the one left behind, then went up to the hospital and threatened him with the same again when he was released, after his cronies turned up at the house when I was out and threatened my girlfriend. I was subsequently arrested and charged over that, and was told I was lucky not to get jail time. A local nutter living nearby heard about all of this, took pity on me and dealt with those responsible on his own terms, and I never found out how, as I thought it impertinent to ask. I was never bothered again in the 3 years I continued to live in the street.
The car was quick, but by 18k miles, a headache. It started to get piston slap from cold. Then it started to emulsify the oil. I went in to work with a mate one weekend and pulled the head off, to find that the block had cracked between a water jacket and one of the liners in two places. You could catch your thumbnail in it. I wasn't very impressed with the quality of the conversion, it was clear boring it out that far had compromised the integrity of the block. I rang the company who had carried out the work. I had the invoice with the paperwork that came with the car. The conversation basically ended up as a blazing row with them. They weren't interested because I was the 2nd owner. I pointed out the mileage, and inquired as to why they felt a different owner was responsible for the work they had produced, with them going on to suggest that I should simply replace the head and torque it back down correctly!
We came to an uneasy agreement that they would supply the parts if I was prepared to do the labour. Fortune ( for them ) then took over. I temporarily put a standard engine in. One morning, on the way in to work, a guy turned right across me when I had right of way. I was doing about 50mph. It was damp, the car had no ABS, and I hit him hard enough to have to be cut out of the car. I was absolutely fine, declined the proffered ride to hos[ital in the attending ambulance, and in a bizarre sequence of events, went in to work, returned to the site of the shunt in the works breakdown truck and recovered both my own car and the other vehicle involved ( another Escort ) back to the dealers.
I obviously had no car now. This was an impossible situation to be in for us logistically, so I had to borrow some money and get transport. I bought a red 1988 1.1 Fiesta Firefly, a limited edition based on the Ghia model. On inspection it was obviously an ex driving instructors car, but seemed none the worse for that and was a faultless servant until the XR3i payout arrived. It ended up as a 2nd car when I got the XR3i replacement, and was eventually sold to a work colleague.
The XR3i was obviously a total loss. Hot hatches were worthless by this time, as theft had sent insurance through the roof. You can imagine my surprise when I was offered £4200, or roughly twice what I was expecting. I took their arm off, and set about looking for the replacement. In fact, I'd already decided on it. My best mate at the time had left Ford, and gone to Toyota. After arriving, he bought a 110k mile '85 Corolla GT Twincam, the FWD car. I drove it and was smitten. It made my 30k mile XR3i feel like an old bin, and I had to have one.
I subsequently found and purchased the first of what would become a long line of Corolla GTIs. I was still at Ford at the time, and there was some puzzled looks when I turned up in something other than the expected XR or RS, but what they didn't know was that I had already accepted a job at Toyota and was about to hand my notice in. I don't have a pic of my first GTI to hand, it was a red 1990 car with 43k on and supposedly FSH. It was from one of the many local independents in the city centre back then, 3 years old and immaculate. However, when I turned up to view it with my Toyota employed mate, the SH was missing.
I was ready to walk. Then my mate said to wait. He was convinced the car had recently been in to his work for a service, and rang in to confirm. Not only was he correct, but the SH book was in a drawer in service reception, stamped, but whoever was dealing with it had forgotten to have it put back in the car. I kept this to myself during the negotiations, and subsequently came out of the purchase significantly better placed than I might have done.
I had moved house during this time and now had a single garage. I kept the Toyota in that, and so began the purchase of many a cheap Fiesta to use as a second car, or during the winters. I had 6 in quick succession, a few hundred quid each and sold them for what I'd paid for them as trade ins at work. Then I went a bit potty and had 3 Fiats, a Panda, an Uno, and worryingly, a 126 after Helen expressed an interest.
I kept the red Corolla for 3 years, during which time I think I also had 9 other cars, albeit one at a time. Then, while at work in the Parts Dept. at Toyota, I sold a n/s front wing and an alloy to a customer for a GTI. We got talking, the car was outside with very minor damage and he mentioned it was to be sold as he was buying a Sunny GTI-R. I ended up buying his Corolla.
J reg, 18k miles. The best one out of the four I owned. They were all lovely, and quick at the time. I saw just shy of 140 on the clocks of 3 of mine.
They were easy to own also, mega reliable, and not a theft target.
It wasn't great straight away though. I knew how they should drive, and this one didn't handle properly. After a few false starts, I twigged that the front subframe had been pushed back on it's mountings slightly on the n/s. Hence the previous owner purchasing the wing and alloy. We slackened all of the subframe bolts off, levered the n/s side as far forward as it would go, and the o/s as far back as poss, which brought the alignment back into spec and got it driving as it should.
I only kept this one for a year. We had a customer at work who was constantly after it, and I sold it at 26k miles for what I paid, as I was misguidedly looking at Porsche 944s by now. I ended up going to a local Porsche Indy to have a look at a couple, only to end up coming away with the owners daughters 130k mile old '87 plate ( you guessed it ) white Corolla GTI for a bargain price. It came with 4 spare refurbished alloys in the boot, lots of overspray, and mismatched tyres. It was also doing the high mileage GTI thing of occasionally jumping out of 5th gear. I put 4 new Continentals on to the spare alloys, gave the thing a mega valet including getting rid of the overspray and a few months later was in the process of steeling myself to rectify the 5th gear problem, when a mate asked if he could borrow it. He took off in it, came back later that day and bought it!
Good timing. I was in the process of negotiating with another customer about another black H plate GTI that he was recommissioning for a friend. I had already supplied him with caliper rebuild kits and drop links etc, and he'd mentioned the car would be for sale when finished. Without mentioning that I might be interested, I asked just enough questions to ascertain that he was pretty diligent as a mechanic and was probably going the extra mile to get the car right, the car itself had about 50k miles with history and was rust free.
I finally expressed an interest and bought it for very sensible money. Not long after this event I split up with my first wife, upped sticks and relocated from Newcastle to Southampton, and went work on the spanners at a Jag Indy while living on a houseboat. This Corolla was one of the few things I took with me. Me outside of my scruffy new workplace with my last Corolla in 1999.
Loads more, but I'll spread the boredom out rather that traumatise you with any more in one post!
If you've stuck with it so far, congratulations and thank you for your patience!
While looking for bike pics for a thread in Biker banter, I came across some forgotten pics of some of the cars I've owned. Not a complete inventory by any stretch, but I ended up realising how many I've had over the years. I didn't pass my car test until I was more or less done causing myself serious damage on the bikes, so I was working for Ford and aged maybe 25.
I learnt to drive in my girlfriends ( she became my first wife ) salmon coloured X plate Fiesta 1.1L. No pics of this, or the stolen / recovered Paris blue 1985 Escort 1.6 Ghia we bought together.
When I sold that, I part exed it against my better judgement for a horrible silver Fiesta 1.1S which I promptly palmed off.
Then this came in to the sales at the Ford dealer I was at, and I enquired after it. 1988, 3 years old, 27K miles, one owner, mint. I bought it.
It was lovely, but jinxed. I'd had it 4 days when a guy ran up the back of it in traffic. Tailgate, bumper, back panel all needed replacing and the ins.co took nearly 5 months to get their s
t together and repair it. I'd had it back one day, went to Tescos in it and as I was at the tills, looked out of the window to see a Metro pull into the space next to it, only to pull out again a few seconds later. Spidery senses on full alert by this time, and when I got back to the car there was a large dent in the passenger door. I spotted the Metro a few rows away, blocked it in and waited. The owner returened, was duly confronted, admitted it, and I followed them home to get compensated.I doubled the mileage in the 6 months I owned it. It was reliable enough, but I never came to terms with having to have it repaired and was always on the lookout for the next thing anyway. I sold it to another Ford dealer because this had come up at Eaglescliffe Auto Salvage.
1987 XR3i, stolen recovered, 12k miles, 1.9 conversion by a very well known company who are still in business, Spax suspension, Janspeed exhaust. 150bhp.
There was next to nothing wrong with it. Apparently it had been recovered the day after it was stolen. The door lock was screwed, as was the ignition, the wheels were missing,as was the parcel shelf and there was a minor dent in the n/s door bottom. I managed to fix the dent at home, and obviously with working at the main dealer, the repairs were dealt with cheaply. I put it onto the RS wheels.
This car had to live in the street, in the same slot vacated by the XR2. I was paranoid about security. We used to fit Garrison multi-locks to everything back then, and I did so with this. 2 alarms. But you can't legislate for your car being stolen by those determined enough to arrive in the dead of night with a flatbed. Post office theft was a big thing then, and cars like mine were regularly stolen to order. I was awoken by my other half at 3.30 am ( I used to sleep properly back then ) to the sound of the alarms going off. I was outside in a heartbeat, and immediately confronted by one of two idiots. He set about me with a hammer, and we fought in the street. I got the hammer off him and beat the living s
t out of him, while his mate left him to it and took off in the truck. I hospitalised the one left behind, then went up to the hospital and threatened him with the same again when he was released, after his cronies turned up at the house when I was out and threatened my girlfriend. I was subsequently arrested and charged over that, and was told I was lucky not to get jail time. A local nutter living nearby heard about all of this, took pity on me and dealt with those responsible on his own terms, and I never found out how, as I thought it impertinent to ask. I was never bothered again in the 3 years I continued to live in the street.
The car was quick, but by 18k miles, a headache. It started to get piston slap from cold. Then it started to emulsify the oil. I went in to work with a mate one weekend and pulled the head off, to find that the block had cracked between a water jacket and one of the liners in two places. You could catch your thumbnail in it. I wasn't very impressed with the quality of the conversion, it was clear boring it out that far had compromised the integrity of the block. I rang the company who had carried out the work. I had the invoice with the paperwork that came with the car. The conversation basically ended up as a blazing row with them. They weren't interested because I was the 2nd owner. I pointed out the mileage, and inquired as to why they felt a different owner was responsible for the work they had produced, with them going on to suggest that I should simply replace the head and torque it back down correctly!
We came to an uneasy agreement that they would supply the parts if I was prepared to do the labour. Fortune ( for them ) then took over. I temporarily put a standard engine in. One morning, on the way in to work, a guy turned right across me when I had right of way. I was doing about 50mph. It was damp, the car had no ABS, and I hit him hard enough to have to be cut out of the car. I was absolutely fine, declined the proffered ride to hos[ital in the attending ambulance, and in a bizarre sequence of events, went in to work, returned to the site of the shunt in the works breakdown truck and recovered both my own car and the other vehicle involved ( another Escort ) back to the dealers.
I obviously had no car now. This was an impossible situation to be in for us logistically, so I had to borrow some money and get transport. I bought a red 1988 1.1 Fiesta Firefly, a limited edition based on the Ghia model. On inspection it was obviously an ex driving instructors car, but seemed none the worse for that and was a faultless servant until the XR3i payout arrived. It ended up as a 2nd car when I got the XR3i replacement, and was eventually sold to a work colleague.
The XR3i was obviously a total loss. Hot hatches were worthless by this time, as theft had sent insurance through the roof. You can imagine my surprise when I was offered £4200, or roughly twice what I was expecting. I took their arm off, and set about looking for the replacement. In fact, I'd already decided on it. My best mate at the time had left Ford, and gone to Toyota. After arriving, he bought a 110k mile '85 Corolla GT Twincam, the FWD car. I drove it and was smitten. It made my 30k mile XR3i feel like an old bin, and I had to have one.
I subsequently found and purchased the first of what would become a long line of Corolla GTIs. I was still at Ford at the time, and there was some puzzled looks when I turned up in something other than the expected XR or RS, but what they didn't know was that I had already accepted a job at Toyota and was about to hand my notice in. I don't have a pic of my first GTI to hand, it was a red 1990 car with 43k on and supposedly FSH. It was from one of the many local independents in the city centre back then, 3 years old and immaculate. However, when I turned up to view it with my Toyota employed mate, the SH was missing.
I was ready to walk. Then my mate said to wait. He was convinced the car had recently been in to his work for a service, and rang in to confirm. Not only was he correct, but the SH book was in a drawer in service reception, stamped, but whoever was dealing with it had forgotten to have it put back in the car. I kept this to myself during the negotiations, and subsequently came out of the purchase significantly better placed than I might have done.
I had moved house during this time and now had a single garage. I kept the Toyota in that, and so began the purchase of many a cheap Fiesta to use as a second car, or during the winters. I had 6 in quick succession, a few hundred quid each and sold them for what I'd paid for them as trade ins at work. Then I went a bit potty and had 3 Fiats, a Panda, an Uno, and worryingly, a 126 after Helen expressed an interest.
I kept the red Corolla for 3 years, during which time I think I also had 9 other cars, albeit one at a time. Then, while at work in the Parts Dept. at Toyota, I sold a n/s front wing and an alloy to a customer for a GTI. We got talking, the car was outside with very minor damage and he mentioned it was to be sold as he was buying a Sunny GTI-R. I ended up buying his Corolla.
J reg, 18k miles. The best one out of the four I owned. They were all lovely, and quick at the time. I saw just shy of 140 on the clocks of 3 of mine.
They were easy to own also, mega reliable, and not a theft target.
It wasn't great straight away though. I knew how they should drive, and this one didn't handle properly. After a few false starts, I twigged that the front subframe had been pushed back on it's mountings slightly on the n/s. Hence the previous owner purchasing the wing and alloy. We slackened all of the subframe bolts off, levered the n/s side as far forward as it would go, and the o/s as far back as poss, which brought the alignment back into spec and got it driving as it should.
I only kept this one for a year. We had a customer at work who was constantly after it, and I sold it at 26k miles for what I paid, as I was misguidedly looking at Porsche 944s by now. I ended up going to a local Porsche Indy to have a look at a couple, only to end up coming away with the owners daughters 130k mile old '87 plate ( you guessed it ) white Corolla GTI for a bargain price. It came with 4 spare refurbished alloys in the boot, lots of overspray, and mismatched tyres. It was also doing the high mileage GTI thing of occasionally jumping out of 5th gear. I put 4 new Continentals on to the spare alloys, gave the thing a mega valet including getting rid of the overspray and a few months later was in the process of steeling myself to rectify the 5th gear problem, when a mate asked if he could borrow it. He took off in it, came back later that day and bought it!
Good timing. I was in the process of negotiating with another customer about another black H plate GTI that he was recommissioning for a friend. I had already supplied him with caliper rebuild kits and drop links etc, and he'd mentioned the car would be for sale when finished. Without mentioning that I might be interested, I asked just enough questions to ascertain that he was pretty diligent as a mechanic and was probably going the extra mile to get the car right, the car itself had about 50k miles with history and was rust free.
I finally expressed an interest and bought it for very sensible money. Not long after this event I split up with my first wife, upped sticks and relocated from Newcastle to Southampton, and went work on the spanners at a Jag Indy while living on a houseboat. This Corolla was one of the few things I took with me. Me outside of my scruffy new workplace with my last Corolla in 1999.
Loads more, but I'll spread the boredom out rather that traumatise you with any more in one post!
If you've stuck with it so far, congratulations and thank you for your patience!Well what could be better than reading about some fast fords and some vigilante violence with my morning coffee...!
It did take me back to a (sad) time where theft and joy riding was rife, nightmare to own anything remotely quick especially with a ford badge. I know its still bad today, but its not so much the joy riding, more organised, more parts or off to uganda.
Keep it coming
It did take me back to a (sad) time where theft and joy riding was rife, nightmare to own anything remotely quick especially with a ford badge. I know its still bad today, but its not so much the joy riding, more organised, more parts or off to uganda.
Keep it coming
Exellent! It is as interesting reading about your travails as the cars - keep them coming.
Car theft of quick cars at that time was a real worry. I remember looking after my dad's Cavalier SRi 16v company car while my parents were away on hols. Went to a nice pub in leafy cheshire only to find an empty space on my return. After reporting the theft I had to call the company accountant to let them know it had been stolen whilst my dad was away... Thankfully I was a named driver! Car was discovered outside another Cheshire country pub about ten miles away thankfully with minimal damage as they had clearly used the tennis ball technique to get in and gone off on a pub crawl. I was much more wary where I left my car after that.
Car theft of quick cars at that time was a real worry. I remember looking after my dad's Cavalier SRi 16v company car while my parents were away on hols. Went to a nice pub in leafy cheshire only to find an empty space on my return. After reporting the theft I had to call the company accountant to let them know it had been stolen whilst my dad was away... Thankfully I was a named driver! Car was discovered outside another Cheshire country pub about ten miles away thankfully with minimal damage as they had clearly used the tennis ball technique to get in and gone off on a pub crawl. I was much more wary where I left my car after that.
Ok, thanks for the encouraging replies. I was worried I was being more than a bit self indulgent, but I'm in the middle of some hospital related nonsense preventing me from working and I'm bored rigid. I felt it was only fair to share the boredom!
While I still owned the Corolla, I decided to pursue something I'd been wanting to try for ages. I had already tried and failed to buy a mint red Nissan Sunny GTI while in Newcastle, and missed it by a few minutes. My theory with these was that it seemed like a bigger engined, quicker Corolla, with, in theory, all of the reliability.
They were already becoming quite hard to find when I bought this.......
I gave £3300 for it with 60k miles. I didn't like it, which was a bit of a downer. The handling wasn't anything to write home about. There was nothing mechanically wrong with the car, but it had a weird, diagonal pitching that I'd never experienced before, and I remember just preferring the Corolla. I'd quite like to try another, just to see if mine was peculiar, but try finding one now! I sold it after 3 months for what I'd paid.
Back then I was living and working with the girl who became my second wife. She co-owned the Jag Indy we were at, and owned a blue TWR Series 3 V12 Jag when I met her. Jags and me were never destined to hit it off, I thought they were gash, badly put together old stters after coming from a plate glass Toyota/Lexus dealer. She by contrast thought my Corolla was basically a glorified taxicab initially. Bloody Kensington upbringing! However, a succession of roadside hold ups, courtesy of various Jags, during which time my GTI simply fired up and delivered us without incident to any given destination turned her head, the reward versus cost ratio of the Jag was a drain on our pooled resources, and she suddenly expressed an interest in something previously unheard of in her world, Japanese reliabilty.
This was the result. It wouldn't have been my first choice, I'd have rather a V6 Camry as a first foray for her, but she drove this and was smitten.
1990 Nissan Maxima. Yeah, I know. Claire only drives autos, and only likes big engined and quick NA petrol cars. I didn't know enough about them, and within a week it had bitten us on the arse. These things are apparently well known for snapping the exhaust manifold studs. Which it immediately did, resulting in an exhaust tick, and a huge bill as a result. We ran it for another two years, and in all fairness, it didn't do much wrong, but when the brake master cylinder failed, forcing me to run a red light at a busy junction, it's time was up.
In the meantime, we had a project on the go. We only did this because of Claire's dad, who floated the idea, then left us to make it happen for him.
1991 Daimler Double six. This pic was taken at Beaulieu auto jumble, where our Jag Indy had a stand. We travelled by train to Darlington to collect this, one of the standout crap journeys I can remember public transport ever providing me with at the usual inflated cost. Also remembered for the massive row we had on the way home in the car to do with my ongoing divorce saga. Undoubtedly used as a trigger as a way of venting about the st day we were having.
We got this back to Southampton unscathed, although I remember the fuel bill being significant due to my extremely heavy footed approach to dispatching 300 miles in as little time as possible. At 8am the following morning, it was on the ramp having the original 5.3 removed and replaced with a 6.0, the first of a raft of mods, which also included Racelogic traction control, modified suspension and a manual box conversion. All at the request of the potential customer, and at his cost. That would be my future FIL, who subsequently bought the finished item. Then, as was his way, sold it soon after.
In the meantime, I was about to do something foolish.
1993 Corrado VR6, 90k miles FSH.
My black GTI was starting to rot around the arches, probably the worst thing about Toyotas of that era generally was the onset of corrosion. I sold it to a girl who proposed to take it to live in the unsympathetic climate of the IOW. I can only imagine how much more quickly it fell apart due to that decision. However, that consideration paled quickly into insignificance shortly after the purchase of this.
I fell into the trap of believing the hype surrounding the VW Audi marketing lie. It remains the single most unreliable car I've ever owned. I bought it while still living on a houseboat that found difficulty in keeping itself afloat, so to also unwittingly purchase a moneypit that I couldn't rely on was outstandingly bad timing, as we were about to move inland a mile onto terra firma. The house in the pic was where we ended up, the car standing on the base of the single garage I immediately demolished in preparation for a large double with pit further down into the back garden. It didn't take long for what was to become a litany of expensive issues to surface, the first being the glazing of No. 6 cylinder after maybe 6 weeks of ownership, this becoming apparent when the plug fouled with oil. I checked many things without success, culminating in an exploratory cylinder head removal, followed by a complete engine teardown. Which meant a multitude of new parts.
Then, once that was resolved, it thanked me in typically German fashion with failed door handles, cracked dash, seized calipers and handbrake cables, porous sump, failed sunroof motor and sliding rails and a dry joint in the fuel pump relay, and knackered rear subframe mounts, which at least had the benefit of introducing a fabulously entertaining amount of lift off oversteer before I fixed it.
Despite all of this, I absolutely loved driving it and it remains one of the best handling FWD cars I've ever driven. I would have another now the pain has subsided and I know what to expect, but it would have to be Blackberry metallic and I would transplant a Passat R36 engine into it. I had this for 3 years. Standout memories of being out and about in it were having my arse handed to me on the M3 by a 4 up Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo, which left me for dead, and being involved in a biblically massive accident on my favourite road near Winchester. I was overtaking 2 cars on a straight, well sighted A road. I was alongside the car that had been in front of me when, without warning, he pulled out to overtake the leading car. I ended up with the drivers side wheels on the verge on the other side of the road, too committed to bail out.
His drivers door mirror hit my passenger side one, at which point he realised I was there, swerved back in, hit the leading car heavily and put them both into the ditch on the nearside. I managed to get through this and stopped further down the road to ring various services. One car was on it's roof, there was obviously glass and fluids everywhere, the road completely blocked. Unbelievably, no injuries.
I was questioned as a witness, gave a statement, and sent on my way. Therefore somewhat surprised come renewal time to have the paperwork show up with " One claim notified " on it. Upon querying this, it turned out both other parties ins.companies had blamed me for causing the accident, and my company had paid £27 to the police for their report that exonerated me. Therefore they had paid out, and called it a claim! I was incandescent, the Ins.co was Tesco and I made Claire boycott them for shopping from then on!
I'd bought a house and finally extricated myself fully from the motor trade by this time, and was now working at the first of many building firms I was destined to be employed by while living in the south. This would be circa 2002. I would work perhaps as far away as 100 miles commute every week day. I was also somehow building a double garage and refurbing the house at the same time. Once I felt the house was getting somewhere and the garage was built, I started to refocus on the next car. Claire had kicked the Maxima into touch, professed a desire for a Saab, then come to her senses after sitting in one and listening to it start up. The same sales place had a Mitsubishi Galant V6 saloon, I persuaded her to try it and she came back all starry eyed. We needed an estate, the search was on, culminating in the purchase of a lovely metallic burgundy with biscuit leather 1999 V6 with 39k miles from a main dealer in London. It was a great car and we kept it for several years.
Meanwhile, I had set my sights on an Evo 6. To this end, I worked every weekend for 2 years, and hoarded the money from those jobs. Evos were expensive, and at 10k my savings weren't going to cut the mustard, but I was still religiously scouring the classifieds on the off chance.
Then this turned up. It's standing in front of the aforementioned double garage I so desperately wanted.
X plate Impreza Turbo 2000, Mica red, 40k miles, FSH. UK spec car imported from Holland. It was on for £10500. In Slough, possibly up there in my top 5 of places to avoid, but what the hell. I got Claire's business partner to take me up, drove it, and came back not very impressed with the performance to be honest. The seller was getting rid on behalf of his brother who was now living abroad, the car now not required. I wasn't in the mood to be especially generous. There was nothing wrong with the car, but the hype around Imprezas in the press had led me to expect more than it could give and I was ready to go unless the deal was incredible. In short, I bid 9k, and got it for £9300, £1200 off.
I was really disappointed with this car. I still had the Corrado, and as much aggro as it had been to own, I remember thinking every time I drove it that the Impreza would struggle to hang on to it on a twisty road. I found the Impreza to be a horribly nose led thing, and it just didn't seem to want to be provoked into any kind of rear bias. Nevertheless, I couldn't forgive the Corrado for the grief it had caused and parted with it after a year of owning both.
In desperation I fitted an STI intercooler and exhaust, panel filter, and got Bob Rawle to remap the Subaru, and that at least livened it up in a straight line, but as civilised as it was, it was never a great car on a great road. I have to say that I thought it was a great looking car in that particular colour, especially after I put the Speedlines on it and colour coded the bodykit. I really wanted to love it, it just never hit the spot. And I was still saving for an Evo. The Impreza blotted it's copybook at 50k miles when 5th gear became noisy. I put the bite on the dealer to fix it, but they were snotty about it because it was an import, and we eventually settled on them paying for the parts and me the labour. I got it back, it collapsed a rear wheel bearing at 130mph on the M3 the following day and it got trucked in to the same dealer for that to be repaired.
Finally.
2003 Evo 8 GSR, 8k miles, 8 months old at time of purchase. I must have had it for a little while when I took that pic, because it was totally standard when it came to me, and it's got the I8" Volks CE28 N LEs on there in that pic. Which I put on in preparation for an AP big brake kit. It was also upgraded to 330 brake with a Ralliart ECU and HKS Silentpower exhaust with de-cat in pretty short order. This car came through Intercar imports in London, after being the daily drive of a car collector who owned about 40 vehicles including a Miura amongst other expensive exotica.
I got this in early 2004 while I still owned the Impreza. The differences were startling, and it was clear from day one that the Impreza was on borrowed time. I kept it alongside the Evo for a couple of years, but by early 2006 we had plans to live in Crete for an unspecified amount of time and I sold the Impreza pretty cheaply as a more or less standard car after selling some parts like the alloys off separately. I took the Evo with me to Crete initially.
I didn't intend to have an Evo as new as this, and indeed couldn't have afforded it even had I thought about it. It came to me as a thank you from Claire's parents. I was extending our house by this time, and most of the roof was off. Right in the middle of this happening, Claire's parents bought a property within 2 miles of us, the place requiring significant remodelling at short notice before they were due to move in.
I stopped working on our house, threw a tarp over the hole in the roof and myself and a couple of other lads replaced the kitchen, and heating system among various other things. I footed the bill knowing they would pay us back when they were in. However, Claire's dad, as bad as me about cars, but significantly more able to fund his hobby than me, knew I was after an Evo. He turned up at our house one day in it saying it was on loan while his car was in for repair somewhere and did I fancy a go, as he knew I wanted one. Obviously I did, and was just blown away by how quick and sharp it felt.
At which point he thanked me for everything I'd done and said " If you like it, keep it, it's yours ". He owed me maybe 12k for the work. I knew the Evo must have been about 22k at that point. Hell of a present. 20 years later I still have it.
While I still owned the Corolla, I decided to pursue something I'd been wanting to try for ages. I had already tried and failed to buy a mint red Nissan Sunny GTI while in Newcastle, and missed it by a few minutes. My theory with these was that it seemed like a bigger engined, quicker Corolla, with, in theory, all of the reliability.
They were already becoming quite hard to find when I bought this.......
I gave £3300 for it with 60k miles. I didn't like it, which was a bit of a downer. The handling wasn't anything to write home about. There was nothing mechanically wrong with the car, but it had a weird, diagonal pitching that I'd never experienced before, and I remember just preferring the Corolla. I'd quite like to try another, just to see if mine was peculiar, but try finding one now! I sold it after 3 months for what I'd paid.
Back then I was living and working with the girl who became my second wife. She co-owned the Jag Indy we were at, and owned a blue TWR Series 3 V12 Jag when I met her. Jags and me were never destined to hit it off, I thought they were gash, badly put together old s
tters after coming from a plate glass Toyota/Lexus dealer. She by contrast thought my Corolla was basically a glorified taxicab initially. Bloody Kensington upbringing! However, a succession of roadside hold ups, courtesy of various Jags, during which time my GTI simply fired up and delivered us without incident to any given destination turned her head, the reward versus cost ratio of the Jag was a drain on our pooled resources, and she suddenly expressed an interest in something previously unheard of in her world, Japanese reliabilty.This was the result. It wouldn't have been my first choice, I'd have rather a V6 Camry as a first foray for her, but she drove this and was smitten.
1990 Nissan Maxima. Yeah, I know. Claire only drives autos, and only likes big engined and quick NA petrol cars. I didn't know enough about them, and within a week it had bitten us on the arse. These things are apparently well known for snapping the exhaust manifold studs. Which it immediately did, resulting in an exhaust tick, and a huge bill as a result. We ran it for another two years, and in all fairness, it didn't do much wrong, but when the brake master cylinder failed, forcing me to run a red light at a busy junction, it's time was up.
In the meantime, we had a project on the go. We only did this because of Claire's dad, who floated the idea, then left us to make it happen for him.
1991 Daimler Double six. This pic was taken at Beaulieu auto jumble, where our Jag Indy had a stand. We travelled by train to Darlington to collect this, one of the standout crap journeys I can remember public transport ever providing me with at the usual inflated cost. Also remembered for the massive row we had on the way home in the car to do with my ongoing divorce saga. Undoubtedly used as a trigger as a way of venting about the s
t day we were having.We got this back to Southampton unscathed, although I remember the fuel bill being significant due to my extremely heavy footed approach to dispatching 300 miles in as little time as possible. At 8am the following morning, it was on the ramp having the original 5.3 removed and replaced with a 6.0, the first of a raft of mods, which also included Racelogic traction control, modified suspension and a manual box conversion. All at the request of the potential customer, and at his cost. That would be my future FIL, who subsequently bought the finished item. Then, as was his way, sold it soon after.
In the meantime, I was about to do something foolish.
1993 Corrado VR6, 90k miles FSH.
My black GTI was starting to rot around the arches, probably the worst thing about Toyotas of that era generally was the onset of corrosion. I sold it to a girl who proposed to take it to live in the unsympathetic climate of the IOW. I can only imagine how much more quickly it fell apart due to that decision. However, that consideration paled quickly into insignificance shortly after the purchase of this.
I fell into the trap of believing the hype surrounding the VW Audi marketing lie. It remains the single most unreliable car I've ever owned. I bought it while still living on a houseboat that found difficulty in keeping itself afloat, so to also unwittingly purchase a moneypit that I couldn't rely on was outstandingly bad timing, as we were about to move inland a mile onto terra firma. The house in the pic was where we ended up, the car standing on the base of the single garage I immediately demolished in preparation for a large double with pit further down into the back garden. It didn't take long for what was to become a litany of expensive issues to surface, the first being the glazing of No. 6 cylinder after maybe 6 weeks of ownership, this becoming apparent when the plug fouled with oil. I checked many things without success, culminating in an exploratory cylinder head removal, followed by a complete engine teardown. Which meant a multitude of new parts.
Then, once that was resolved, it thanked me in typically German fashion with failed door handles, cracked dash, seized calipers and handbrake cables, porous sump, failed sunroof motor and sliding rails and a dry joint in the fuel pump relay, and knackered rear subframe mounts, which at least had the benefit of introducing a fabulously entertaining amount of lift off oversteer before I fixed it.
Despite all of this, I absolutely loved driving it and it remains one of the best handling FWD cars I've ever driven. I would have another now the pain has subsided and I know what to expect, but it would have to be Blackberry metallic and I would transplant a Passat R36 engine into it. I had this for 3 years. Standout memories of being out and about in it were having my arse handed to me on the M3 by a 4 up Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo, which left me for dead, and being involved in a biblically massive accident on my favourite road near Winchester. I was overtaking 2 cars on a straight, well sighted A road. I was alongside the car that had been in front of me when, without warning, he pulled out to overtake the leading car. I ended up with the drivers side wheels on the verge on the other side of the road, too committed to bail out.
His drivers door mirror hit my passenger side one, at which point he realised I was there, swerved back in, hit the leading car heavily and put them both into the ditch on the nearside. I managed to get through this and stopped further down the road to ring various services. One car was on it's roof, there was obviously glass and fluids everywhere, the road completely blocked. Unbelievably, no injuries.
I was questioned as a witness, gave a statement, and sent on my way. Therefore somewhat surprised come renewal time to have the paperwork show up with " One claim notified " on it. Upon querying this, it turned out both other parties ins.companies had blamed me for causing the accident, and my company had paid £27 to the police for their report that exonerated me. Therefore they had paid out, and called it a claim! I was incandescent, the Ins.co was Tesco and I made Claire boycott them for shopping from then on!
I'd bought a house and finally extricated myself fully from the motor trade by this time, and was now working at the first of many building firms I was destined to be employed by while living in the south. This would be circa 2002. I would work perhaps as far away as 100 miles commute every week day. I was also somehow building a double garage and refurbing the house at the same time. Once I felt the house was getting somewhere and the garage was built, I started to refocus on the next car. Claire had kicked the Maxima into touch, professed a desire for a Saab, then come to her senses after sitting in one and listening to it start up. The same sales place had a Mitsubishi Galant V6 saloon, I persuaded her to try it and she came back all starry eyed. We needed an estate, the search was on, culminating in the purchase of a lovely metallic burgundy with biscuit leather 1999 V6 with 39k miles from a main dealer in London. It was a great car and we kept it for several years.
Meanwhile, I had set my sights on an Evo 6. To this end, I worked every weekend for 2 years, and hoarded the money from those jobs. Evos were expensive, and at 10k my savings weren't going to cut the mustard, but I was still religiously scouring the classifieds on the off chance.
Then this turned up. It's standing in front of the aforementioned double garage I so desperately wanted.
X plate Impreza Turbo 2000, Mica red, 40k miles, FSH. UK spec car imported from Holland. It was on for £10500. In Slough, possibly up there in my top 5 of places to avoid, but what the hell. I got Claire's business partner to take me up, drove it, and came back not very impressed with the performance to be honest. The seller was getting rid on behalf of his brother who was now living abroad, the car now not required. I wasn't in the mood to be especially generous. There was nothing wrong with the car, but the hype around Imprezas in the press had led me to expect more than it could give and I was ready to go unless the deal was incredible. In short, I bid 9k, and got it for £9300, £1200 off.
I was really disappointed with this car. I still had the Corrado, and as much aggro as it had been to own, I remember thinking every time I drove it that the Impreza would struggle to hang on to it on a twisty road. I found the Impreza to be a horribly nose led thing, and it just didn't seem to want to be provoked into any kind of rear bias. Nevertheless, I couldn't forgive the Corrado for the grief it had caused and parted with it after a year of owning both.
In desperation I fitted an STI intercooler and exhaust, panel filter, and got Bob Rawle to remap the Subaru, and that at least livened it up in a straight line, but as civilised as it was, it was never a great car on a great road. I have to say that I thought it was a great looking car in that particular colour, especially after I put the Speedlines on it and colour coded the bodykit. I really wanted to love it, it just never hit the spot. And I was still saving for an Evo. The Impreza blotted it's copybook at 50k miles when 5th gear became noisy. I put the bite on the dealer to fix it, but they were snotty about it because it was an import, and we eventually settled on them paying for the parts and me the labour. I got it back, it collapsed a rear wheel bearing at 130mph on the M3 the following day and it got trucked in to the same dealer for that to be repaired.
Finally.
2003 Evo 8 GSR, 8k miles, 8 months old at time of purchase. I must have had it for a little while when I took that pic, because it was totally standard when it came to me, and it's got the I8" Volks CE28 N LEs on there in that pic. Which I put on in preparation for an AP big brake kit. It was also upgraded to 330 brake with a Ralliart ECU and HKS Silentpower exhaust with de-cat in pretty short order. This car came through Intercar imports in London, after being the daily drive of a car collector who owned about 40 vehicles including a Miura amongst other expensive exotica.
I got this in early 2004 while I still owned the Impreza. The differences were startling, and it was clear from day one that the Impreza was on borrowed time. I kept it alongside the Evo for a couple of years, but by early 2006 we had plans to live in Crete for an unspecified amount of time and I sold the Impreza pretty cheaply as a more or less standard car after selling some parts like the alloys off separately. I took the Evo with me to Crete initially.
I didn't intend to have an Evo as new as this, and indeed couldn't have afforded it even had I thought about it. It came to me as a thank you from Claire's parents. I was extending our house by this time, and most of the roof was off. Right in the middle of this happening, Claire's parents bought a property within 2 miles of us, the place requiring significant remodelling at short notice before they were due to move in.
I stopped working on our house, threw a tarp over the hole in the roof and myself and a couple of other lads replaced the kitchen, and heating system among various other things. I footed the bill knowing they would pay us back when they were in. However, Claire's dad, as bad as me about cars, but significantly more able to fund his hobby than me, knew I was after an Evo. He turned up at our house one day in it saying it was on loan while his car was in for repair somewhere and did I fancy a go, as he knew I wanted one. Obviously I did, and was just blown away by how quick and sharp it felt.
At which point he thanked me for everything I'd done and said " If you like it, keep it, it's yours ". He owed me maybe 12k for the work. I knew the Evo must have been about 22k at that point. Hell of a present. 20 years later I still have it.
Edited by Heaveho on Monday 8th July 13:08
Edited by Heaveho on Monday 8th July 13:24
Edited by Heaveho on Monday 8th July 13:26
Edited as I've just seen the previous replies after posting. Again, thanks for the positive feedback, I'm enjoying writing it, it's quite cathartic, and I'm remembering things that I'd half forgotten as I go, which keeps it fresh!
I practically lived in the Evo the first year I had it. I put 14k miles on it in 12 months, which, with service intervals every 4.5k, meant 3 visits to the dealer. The running costs during that time were eye opening, like nothing I'd owned before, and they were compounded by me driving it hard enough to see mid teens mpg and to require four new tyres at every service at that point. I was working all the hours just to run it, but at that age I was probably at the top of my game as a driver, pretty fearless, and my trust in it as a road car was total. I used to come in late at night when it was quiet and do a dozen laps or so of the large oval roundabout underneath junction 8 of the M27, and it would sit on slight opposite lock for lap after lap. Unfortunately, the car and I ended up gaining some notoriety with the local police college in Hamble, which I lived very close to back than, and on the couple of occasions I was stopped, was told in no uncertain terms that the car was known to them and that it was only a matter of time before they would catch me in the act at J8! Never happened, although I had to make good my escape twice at that venue when blue lights showed up!
So, we moved to Crete in August 2006. I'd already taken the Evo out there in the April on the first of many epic road trips in many cars over the next 6 years or so. I left it safe and secure in my in laws massive garage under the house they had built there a few years earlier, and in which they now lived most of their lives.
Putting the Evo to bed on the first leg of the trip on the ferry from Portsmouth....
I reckon the Evo had about 27k miles on it by this point, as I'd just paid the most inept Ralliart dealer ever, Southgate ( topical, maybe it's a name thing ) in Southampton, a small fortune to have a major service carried out in preparation for going abroad. They not only got the balancer shaft belt timing 180 degrees out at the first attempt, but also broke a mounting point off the upper cam gear cover, then lied to me about it being out on road test when I was in a hurry to get away and could clearly hear it ticking over in the workshop. All this compounded by the girl on reception breathlessly telling me how lucky I was to have such a fast car, it transpiring that she had passengered in it when it had been used to go and collect lunch by the idiot working on it.
I went into fking orbit, buttonholed the service manager, told them to keep the Evo until it was fixed. Then waited to see what they would do about getting me home. Nothing offered, so I had another massive sense of humour failure, culminating in me relieving him of his company car for the weekend and him agreeing to get someone in on the Saturday morning to fix the Evo. The bill was another matter, and I basically ended up telling them what the job was worth. If I could have had them closed down I would, but natural selection intervened and they disappeared without trace soon after anyway.
Coming from Lexus myself, I had got used to working for a brand that made sure the customer service was second to none, and I have to say that we were streets ahead of all of the main dealers I subsequently dealt with as a customer, from Peter Coopers VW to Sparshatts the Subaru dealer in Botley in Southampton back then and obviously including the idiots above. I lost all faith in main dealers after that, and generally either do it myself now or use a reputable specialist, even if it means travelling.
In Italy, checking the oil in deference to the absolute pasting it had on the Autostrada the previous day. I loved driving in Italy back then, it was madness of the highest order, and felt like a spiritual home to me!
Getting to Crete from Southampton by car was basically a 4 day commitment involving an overnight ferry from Portsmouth, an overnight stopover in Beune, a long next day down through the Mont Blanc tunnel, followed by a usually veryhigh speedt run through to Emilia Ramagna for our next overnight stop. The hotels were generally chosen based on car park security! Doing it like that left us within easy striking distance for the Ancona overnight ferry to Athens. This was on a line called Superfast, and it was pure luxury compared to most others. Getting off that was followed by a run across the mainland to Piraeus for another overnight ferry into Souda bay near Chania in Crete.
We had a fairly full load on the first trip out!
Bizarrely, the Evo was pretty practical for trips like this, albeit 17 mpg meant frequent stops and heavy bills. Claire professed herself to feeling safe in it, despite the general pace, and would sleep for long periods at a time, meaning I could really let loose if opportunity arose. I had it properly rung out in Italy a couple of times and it managed just over an indicated 160 a couple of times.
This was the view from our place in Crete.
We lived there for 2 years in the end. We were gifted the opportunity, and didn't have to give up anything to do it. We rented out the house in Southampton, and when I told the company I worked for my plans, they told me if it didn't work out, my job would still be there when I got back.
I thought I would work out there doing the same as I had in the UK, but you can roll a turd in glitter all you like, it's still a turd, and I couldn't enjoy the results of my efforts on that score.
We ended up working for an animal charity / sanctuary quite by accident after finding an injured dog and taking it to them. It was obvious that they were struggling, both financially and with manpower. We gave them a donation large enough to cover any costs of the dog we had found, but really we both wanted to get involved on a day to day basis, an offer gratefully and immediately accepted. We had taken our epileptic border collie out there with us, so on the occasions we committed to keeping abandoned litters of pups at home to bottle feed them, life got pretty full on. I reckon we either found or were given a dozen litters over the 22 months we were there to foster, and occasionally kept adult dogs at home when the shelter was full.
This is me behind our house with Alex, a young male who I found in a supermarket car park with a gunshot wound. I took him home and we kept him until he was well enough to be rehomed abroad. A lot of the dogs went to Germany. It was my job to drive them from Chania in the west of Crete to Heraklion airport a couple of hours to the east to meet their flight partners on the way to their new home. I used my FILs Greek registered Rav4 for that job.
I practically lived in the Evo the first year I had it. I put 14k miles on it in 12 months, which, with service intervals every 4.5k, meant 3 visits to the dealer. The running costs during that time were eye opening, like nothing I'd owned before, and they were compounded by me driving it hard enough to see mid teens mpg and to require four new tyres at every service at that point. I was working all the hours just to run it, but at that age I was probably at the top of my game as a driver, pretty fearless, and my trust in it as a road car was total. I used to come in late at night when it was quiet and do a dozen laps or so of the large oval roundabout underneath junction 8 of the M27, and it would sit on slight opposite lock for lap after lap. Unfortunately, the car and I ended up gaining some notoriety with the local police college in Hamble, which I lived very close to back than, and on the couple of occasions I was stopped, was told in no uncertain terms that the car was known to them and that it was only a matter of time before they would catch me in the act at J8! Never happened, although I had to make good my escape twice at that venue when blue lights showed up!
So, we moved to Crete in August 2006. I'd already taken the Evo out there in the April on the first of many epic road trips in many cars over the next 6 years or so. I left it safe and secure in my in laws massive garage under the house they had built there a few years earlier, and in which they now lived most of their lives.
Putting the Evo to bed on the first leg of the trip on the ferry from Portsmouth....
I reckon the Evo had about 27k miles on it by this point, as I'd just paid the most inept Ralliart dealer ever, Southgate ( topical, maybe it's a name thing ) in Southampton, a small fortune to have a major service carried out in preparation for going abroad. They not only got the balancer shaft belt timing 180 degrees out at the first attempt, but also broke a mounting point off the upper cam gear cover, then lied to me about it being out on road test when I was in a hurry to get away and could clearly hear it ticking over in the workshop. All this compounded by the girl on reception breathlessly telling me how lucky I was to have such a fast car, it transpiring that she had passengered in it when it had been used to go and collect lunch by the idiot working on it.
I went into f
king orbit, buttonholed the service manager, told them to keep the Evo until it was fixed. Then waited to see what they would do about getting me home. Nothing offered, so I had another massive sense of humour failure, culminating in me relieving him of his company car for the weekend and him agreeing to get someone in on the Saturday morning to fix the Evo. The bill was another matter, and I basically ended up telling them what the job was worth. If I could have had them closed down I would, but natural selection intervened and they disappeared without trace soon after anyway.Coming from Lexus myself, I had got used to working for a brand that made sure the customer service was second to none, and I have to say that we were streets ahead of all of the main dealers I subsequently dealt with as a customer, from Peter Coopers VW to Sparshatts the Subaru dealer in Botley in Southampton back then and obviously including the idiots above. I lost all faith in main dealers after that, and generally either do it myself now or use a reputable specialist, even if it means travelling.
In Italy, checking the oil in deference to the absolute pasting it had on the Autostrada the previous day. I loved driving in Italy back then, it was madness of the highest order, and felt like a spiritual home to me!
Getting to Crete from Southampton by car was basically a 4 day commitment involving an overnight ferry from Portsmouth, an overnight stopover in Beune, a long next day down through the Mont Blanc tunnel, followed by a usually veryhigh speedt run through to Emilia Ramagna for our next overnight stop. The hotels were generally chosen based on car park security! Doing it like that left us within easy striking distance for the Ancona overnight ferry to Athens. This was on a line called Superfast, and it was pure luxury compared to most others. Getting off that was followed by a run across the mainland to Piraeus for another overnight ferry into Souda bay near Chania in Crete.
We had a fairly full load on the first trip out!
Bizarrely, the Evo was pretty practical for trips like this, albeit 17 mpg meant frequent stops and heavy bills. Claire professed herself to feeling safe in it, despite the general pace, and would sleep for long periods at a time, meaning I could really let loose if opportunity arose. I had it properly rung out in Italy a couple of times and it managed just over an indicated 160 a couple of times.
This was the view from our place in Crete.
We lived there for 2 years in the end. We were gifted the opportunity, and didn't have to give up anything to do it. We rented out the house in Southampton, and when I told the company I worked for my plans, they told me if it didn't work out, my job would still be there when I got back.
I thought I would work out there doing the same as I had in the UK, but you can roll a turd in glitter all you like, it's still a turd, and I couldn't enjoy the results of my efforts on that score.
We ended up working for an animal charity / sanctuary quite by accident after finding an injured dog and taking it to them. It was obvious that they were struggling, both financially and with manpower. We gave them a donation large enough to cover any costs of the dog we had found, but really we both wanted to get involved on a day to day basis, an offer gratefully and immediately accepted. We had taken our epileptic border collie out there with us, so on the occasions we committed to keeping abandoned litters of pups at home to bottle feed them, life got pretty full on. I reckon we either found or were given a dozen litters over the 22 months we were there to foster, and occasionally kept adult dogs at home when the shelter was full.
This is me behind our house with Alex, a young male who I found in a supermarket car park with a gunshot wound. I took him home and we kept him until he was well enough to be rehomed abroad. A lot of the dogs went to Germany. It was my job to drive them from Chania in the west of Crete to Heraklion airport a couple of hours to the east to meet their flight partners on the way to their new home. I used my FILs Greek registered Rav4 for that job.
Edited by Heaveho on Monday 8th July 16:12
Thank you. I'm kind of running out of pics, which is frustrating, as there are some great cars coming up, and I'm concerned that it will seem really dull without anything visual to ginger the thread up! I'll try and seek out anything relevant, but I was getting to the stage where the really interesting stuff I was driving were cars that belonged to my FIL and I was just the lucky recipient for months at a time when he was living elsewhere.
I'll see how the next instalment goes, hopefully I can make it interesting enough to keep people onboard.
I'll see how the next instalment goes, hopefully I can make it interesting enough to keep people onboard.
Very interesting read. The Evo8 is the one car that got away. I had a Evo 6 and loved it and then a few other nice cars. Decided on a Evo 8MR340 in gunmetal grey and found one with low milage and arranged a viewing.
The night before I was due to go some scumbags stole the fuel tank off my work truck and as a result I had to delay the viewing to sort out insurance, the police and arrange recovery for the truck. I got a call later in the day to say that the Evo had sold.
Was gutted but circumstances changed, and I would've had to sell it not long after anyway, as I needed the money towards the new house.
The night before I was due to go some scumbags stole the fuel tank off my work truck and as a result I had to delay the viewing to sort out insurance, the police and arrange recovery for the truck. I got a call later in the day to say that the Evo had sold.
Was gutted but circumstances changed, and I would've had to sell it not long after anyway, as I needed the money towards the new house.
Ok, thanks lads, I really will be struggling with pics for a while until we get to my current stuff, so I'll condense the narrative as much as possible, and stop more often to give you all a breather! Please be patient, the pics will return!
Crete , in a nutshell, did my fking head in. The animal cruelty was everywhere, I'd had a couple of violent encounters with locals who I caught mistreating animals, and despite the fact that we were constantly rehoming them, it felt like we we were making a miniscule difference to the plight of them, and I didn't like what I was becoming as a person. Saturday nights would see me in the village with some friends I'd made, watching a band, then sitting with the bar owners getting slaughtered until 4 am before attempting the diagonal zigzag back up the hill to the villa. I always say I really learnt to drink while in Crete, it was the first time I'd downed 10 pints in one sitting, and I was doing that too often by the end.
I had taken the Evo back to Southampton after about a year in a fit of temper after it was damaged by some local knobhead driving a heap in a car park when we were out at dinner. I got held up in Italy on the way back and had the maddest 3 hours of my life averaging just under 125 mph including fuel stops every hour and a quarter to claw back the lost time.
I returned to Crete in Claire's Galant estate. Crete wasn't especially kind to it and we replaced it with a later model, an '02 with 40k that I found in Durham soon after we got back to Blighty. It was a Sport V6 estate, black on black, and the closest thing to resembling a private ambulance I'd seen. It wasn't as nice as the earlier car, but we ran it without a problem from 2008 until 2011.
Pretty much immediately after our return, our epileptic collie, who had survived the rigours of Crete admirably, had a fit while we were in Newcastle, and we were unable to do anything to get it to stop, resulting in a desperate rush to the vet. Sadly, after 3 days of treatment and observation, she passed away, leaving Claire especially broken hearted. She was 12, had been epileptic since the age of 7, and we had done our best. At my insistence, we had, for the first time in my life, a period with no pets. I felt we needed a break after the stress of Crete, and dealing with an unpredictable collie that was capable of biting you when you were asleep.
Two years later........
Beth. 8 months old. Asleep at my feet as I write this. Bluffed her way into a border collie sanctuary in Northampton with her false nose and glasses. She's essentially a Jack Russell on stilts. She's the apple of my eye and there's nothing I wouldn't sell or remortgage if I didn't have the money to pay a vet bill. She's 15 now, and the day I hope never comes can't be too far away, but she's healthier than she has any right to be given her years. I'm close to tears just typing this and thinking about life without her.
Can't remember what our mindset was when we decided to replace the Galant. We were struggling to think of anything that would tick all of the boxes. Auto, estate, big N/A engine, Jap, low mileage and reliable were all essential requirements.
Then I remembered these.
The car we bought, 2004 IS300 Sportcross. 22k miles, FSH, in stock at Lexus Guildford. We beamed up the A3 asap, viewed it, drove it, loved it. Didn't love the price though, which started with a 9. I offered something starting with a 7. No dice. I wasn't in a strong position. It was already a seven year old car, they were rare, the mileage was impossibly low, and the car was immaculate. Find another. I knew I couldn't, so I blinked first and bought it. That was in April 2011. We still have it. 130k on it now. Still goes to Lexus for service where in deference to the age it gets a reduced rate. It really could hardly have been more reliable. It's had a few none service related items, but I dread to think how a German of similar vintage would have fared.
In the same month as buying the Lexus, we bought a flat in Newcastle city centre, having remortgaged the house in Southampton to do so. A week later I lost my temper at work in the special way that I seem occasionally and destructively capable of doing, downed tools and drove the 50 odd miles back to the office. And handed my notice in. I was ushered into a quiet area and pretended to listen as they tried to persuade me to stay, but I was way beyond that and said I was off. Then stood in the car park with my head in my hands thinking about the fact that I had just committed to a 160k outlay and now had to also buy a van and set up as self employed.
I drove home in the company van, having agreed to work my notice period. Claire is pretty psychic, saw my enraged expression, and immediately guessed what had happened. I braced myself for a tirade of abuse, but all she said was. " I've been telling you to go self employed for ages ". Good wife!
Please be patient, the pics will return!Crete , in a nutshell, did my f
king head in. The animal cruelty was everywhere, I'd had a couple of violent encounters with locals who I caught mistreating animals, and despite the fact that we were constantly rehoming them, it felt like we we were making a miniscule difference to the plight of them, and I didn't like what I was becoming as a person. Saturday nights would see me in the village with some friends I'd made, watching a band, then sitting with the bar owners getting slaughtered until 4 am before attempting the diagonal zigzag back up the hill to the villa. I always say I really learnt to drink while in Crete, it was the first time I'd downed 10 pints in one sitting, and I was doing that too often by the end.I had taken the Evo back to Southampton after about a year in a fit of temper after it was damaged by some local knobhead driving a heap in a car park when we were out at dinner. I got held up in Italy on the way back and had the maddest 3 hours of my life averaging just under 125 mph including fuel stops every hour and a quarter to claw back the lost time.
I returned to Crete in Claire's Galant estate. Crete wasn't especially kind to it and we replaced it with a later model, an '02 with 40k that I found in Durham soon after we got back to Blighty. It was a Sport V6 estate, black on black, and the closest thing to resembling a private ambulance I'd seen. It wasn't as nice as the earlier car, but we ran it without a problem from 2008 until 2011.
Pretty much immediately after our return, our epileptic collie, who had survived the rigours of Crete admirably, had a fit while we were in Newcastle, and we were unable to do anything to get it to stop, resulting in a desperate rush to the vet. Sadly, after 3 days of treatment and observation, she passed away, leaving Claire especially broken hearted. She was 12, had been epileptic since the age of 7, and we had done our best. At my insistence, we had, for the first time in my life, a period with no pets. I felt we needed a break after the stress of Crete, and dealing with an unpredictable collie that was capable of biting you when you were asleep.
Two years later........
Beth. 8 months old. Asleep at my feet as I write this. Bluffed her way into a border collie sanctuary in Northampton with her false nose and glasses. She's essentially a Jack Russell on stilts. She's the apple of my eye and there's nothing I wouldn't sell or remortgage if I didn't have the money to pay a vet bill. She's 15 now, and the day I hope never comes can't be too far away, but she's healthier than she has any right to be given her years. I'm close to tears just typing this and thinking about life without her.
Can't remember what our mindset was when we decided to replace the Galant. We were struggling to think of anything that would tick all of the boxes. Auto, estate, big N/A engine, Jap, low mileage and reliable were all essential requirements.
Then I remembered these.
The car we bought, 2004 IS300 Sportcross. 22k miles, FSH, in stock at Lexus Guildford. We beamed up the A3 asap, viewed it, drove it, loved it. Didn't love the price though, which started with a 9. I offered something starting with a 7. No dice. I wasn't in a strong position. It was already a seven year old car, they were rare, the mileage was impossibly low, and the car was immaculate. Find another. I knew I couldn't, so I blinked first and bought it. That was in April 2011. We still have it. 130k on it now. Still goes to Lexus for service where in deference to the age it gets a reduced rate. It really could hardly have been more reliable. It's had a few none service related items, but I dread to think how a German of similar vintage would have fared.
In the same month as buying the Lexus, we bought a flat in Newcastle city centre, having remortgaged the house in Southampton to do so. A week later I lost my temper at work in the special way that I seem occasionally and destructively capable of doing, downed tools and drove the 50 odd miles back to the office. And handed my notice in. I was ushered into a quiet area and pretended to listen as they tried to persuade me to stay, but I was way beyond that and said I was off. Then stood in the car park with my head in my hands thinking about the fact that I had just committed to a 160k outlay and now had to also buy a van and set up as self employed.
I drove home in the company van, having agreed to work my notice period. Claire is pretty psychic, saw my enraged expression, and immediately guessed what had happened. I braced myself for a tirade of abuse, but all she said was. " I've been telling you to go self employed for ages ". Good wife!
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