I must be getting old

[DrFfybes]

Yesterday I took the car for an MOT.

I use a place that specialises in 'exotica', and yesterday was no exception. Whilst cursing the DoT for "updating" their system so the whole country was back to pen and paper and uploading them later in the day, there were a Ferrari 355, a 458, a McLaren, BMW i8, Ford Mustang, a few Porsches of various ages, an Audi RS2, all what would once have been dream cars.

However I thought the coolest thing there was a well used but cared for H-plated bright yellow Maestro Van.

[bungeejumper]

Trigger's broom. The floorpan, wings, doors, electrics and cooling system will all be on their fifth incarnation, the engine will have been replaced four times, and the car will be on its twenty-third set of transfer gears. (Remember those?) Only the interior will be original.

The Maestro was a dog until they added a boot and it became the Montego, which was at least properly balanced. According to https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Maestro there are a couple of hundred Maestros still running. One can admire the masochistic persistence of their owners, but it seems fair to ask why on earth they do it?

BJ

[XFool]

According to https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Maestro there are a couple of hundred Maestros still running. One can admire the masochistic persistence of their owners, but it seems fair to ask why on earth they do it?

Fascinating.

But what I want to know is, what is that one person doing with his 2.5 litre Hillman Imp?

[XFool]

...this, presumably:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPxc1VnGt-4

Isn't the engine in the wrong place?

[bungeejumper]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPxc1VnGt-4

Isn't the engine in the wrong place?

Actually, what struck me was how he was having to make five point turns where the standard model would have done it in three. His wheels are too big (or rather too wide) for the arches, so presumably the tyres are fouling if he goes anywhere near full lock? Or is it just that, by the time you've put a transmission unit into that bonnet space, that's all the manoeuvring room you've got?

Aaah, how some people suffer for their street cred.

BJ

[XFool]

Actually, what struck me was how he was having to make five point turns where the standard model would have done it in three.

I usually found a one point turn pretty effective in an Imp! Mind you, roads were less crowded in those days.

[bungeejumper]

I usually found a one point turn pretty effective in an Imp! Mind you, roads were less crowded in those days.

Now, now, J-turns are cheating.

I had one of the original-sized Fiat 500s, which would turn on a lira, although it didn't run to handbrake or J-turns. (There were limits to what you could do with 17 bhp.)

Fiat had other ideas, though. Some time around 1973 they produced the first Abarth Topolino, which was reputed to be capable of 125 mph. Not something you'd really want to do in a glorified pram with a tiny wheelbase. The first ones had to be scrapped after an average of six weeks, because the torque had twisted their body shells.

BJ

[didds]

According to https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Maestro there are a couple of hundred Maestros still running. One can admire the masochistic persistence of their owners, but it seems fair to ask why on earth they do it?

BJ

A chum back in the early 80s was at Bristol Uni. His digs in Redland had a neighbour who kept three Wartburgs on his driveway - two being cannabalised to keep the third running

didds

[bungeejumper]

A chum back in the early 80s was at Bristol Uni. His digs in Redland had a neighbour who kept three Wartburgs on his driveway - two being cannabalised to keep the third running

Ye gods, that takes me back. Cold War East Berlin, full of Trabbies and Wartburgs. Their owners had queued for ten years to be allowed to buy one. And IIRC it was an offence to be caught in possession of a dirty car, which had the added advantage that they lasted a bit longer.

The unforgettable thing about Wartburgs was that most of them had two stroke engines, which was why the Berliners called them Farty Hans. OTOH, they could get up to 57 bhp out of a tiny 1 litre engine, which was quite a lot by 1960s standards. Just don't ask about the exhaust emissions.

While idly googling, I discovered that a Wartburg Knight had just sold for 50,000 euros. Where's a Top Gear piano when you need one?

But what does Honest John say? Prepare to disbelieve: https://classics.honestjohn.co.uk/revie ... 353knight/

BJ

[Clitheroekid]

I had one of the original-sized Fiat 500s, which would turn on a lira, although it didn't run to handbrake or J-turns. (There were limits to what you could do with 17 bhp.)

I learnt to drive at the tender age of 13 in one that my mum owned. In the summer we used to go down to Porthmadog in North Wales, and there was (and presumably still is!) a huge beach called Black Rock Sands.

It was the ideal place to learn, as there was nothing to run into, and the performance wasn't going to get you into any trouble.

It was, of course, slow as a snail - in fact I remember seeing a road test which stated the 0-60 time as ∞ ! But it was a brilliant little car, especially round town, and my mum loved it. The only drawback (no pun intended) was that it had a full length sun roof, and she complained that at traffic lights neighbouring truck drivers used it as an ashtray

There's something increasingly attractive to me about very simple - even primitive - cars. Although I like my Merc and enjoy driving it I can't say I've ever felt anything like affection for either this one or its predecessors. Yet I was really fond of my old Fiat Punto, as I am of my current Fiat Panda.

Perhaps it's because the Merc is just so efficient and does everything almost too well, so that it lacks any `personality', whereas the Fiat lets you know that it's working hard and has very few driver aids compared to the Merc. Even the fact that it's a manual change seems to add to its attractiveness.

I suppose what it comes down to is that I'm a lot more involved in actually driving it, whereas with the Merc I'm often just steering it. And although the Merc is obviously a lot faster it's actually sometimes more relaxing to drive the Fiat, as the option of overtaking doesn't really exist for most of the time so I just sit back and enjoy the view.

One of my friends has recently bought an ancient Renault 4 in really good nick, and I'm positively envious! Though I suspect the novelty might wear off on a long journey, and that I'd very quickly begin to appreciate the merits of a soulless modern car ...

[scotia]

It was the ideal place to learn, as there was nothing to run into

In my wife's home town, the locals used the runway at the aerodrome for driving instruction. But the spoilsports have now closed the road which crossed the end of the runway.

[didds]

Trabbies...

IN 1989 I was living in West Germany. After Hungary opened its border in the eklad up to the fall-of-the-wall, the autobahns would be seen with convoys of trabants full of East German families . The car would be crammed with plastic bags full of their possessions , dad hunched over the wheel, mum in the passenger seat similarly hunched and an arm or ear evidence that there were kids buried on the back seat under the mass of "stuff". You'd see convoys of these things, moving along in a huge cloud of blue 2-stroke smoke like some sort of mobile ecological disaster zone

didds

[bungeejumper]

IN 1989 I was living in West Germany. After Hungary opened its border in the eklad up to the fall-of-the-wall, the autobahns would be seen with convoys of trabants full of East German families .

Ah yes, what a time that was. If you were an East Berliner, you couldn't drive straight to West Germany (or West Berlin) because the Wall was still in the way. But you did have a right to travel anywhere within the Eastern bloc, so there was nothing for it but to load up the car and drive down into Hungary, from where you could roll through the dismantled border defences into Austria. And then you'd head straight up again into West Germany to meet all the cousins who you hadn't seen since the Wall went up in 1961.

I was in West Berlin again, about 12 days after the Wall finally came down, and the Trabbies and the Wartburgs were still coming through in smoky convoys. Most of the drivers would stop off at once for a proper beer and a proper cigarette, and then they would go shopping for the ultimate must-have symbol of liberation - bananas! Most East Germans had heard of them but had never seen one.

BJ

[tea42]

I had two Montego Estates out of choice when I ran my own business, brilliant cars, great load carriers and pretty lively too.
Just sold my Stag, it never overheated and was probably the most comfortable vehicles I ever owned, lot of fun in the ten years I had it. A simply great Grand Tourer.
Last year I invested the proceedings in a 1980 VWT25 'Brick' Devon Moonraker Camper, 2 litre air cooled. The badge of honour in the T25 Facebook community is a photo of your van on a recovery truck! On its first long journey to a music festival 'Rusty' broke down in the middle of that massive jam on the A303 on the single carriageway right opposite Stonehenge. It turned out a spade terminal had fallen off the petrol pump! The lorry drivers negotiating past, turn by turn, werent amused. But, the T25 is the roomiest proper Camper out there, great fun to drive with no power steering, and there are endless tinkering possibilities. We'll be exploring all those places in Britain that we missed out in him with frequent stops for a roadside brew up. . Rusty is two tone, Samos Beige top and Aswan Brown with a candy striped side lifting roof, he draws endless admiring comments. He was born in an era of loon pants kipper ties and sideboards with interior decor to match. What happened in this day of boring car colours. Little kids were always excited by the bright yellow Stag. "Dad Dad, look at that car Dad! "
What happened?
I just love old vehicles!
tea42

[bungeejumper]

It [the Fiat 500] was, of course, slow as a snail - in fact I remember seeing a road test which stated the 0-60 time as ∞ ! But it was a brilliant little car, especially round town, and my mum loved it. The only drawback (no pun intended) was that it had a full length sun roof, and she complained that at traffic lights neighbouring truck drivers used it as an ashtray .

Yeah, truck drivers were like that in those days. If you were riding a motorbike, they'd drop their lighted cigarette stubs into your lap at the traffic lights. Had it done to me a couple of times.

The canvas sunroof on the 500 was a brilliant invention - James May says it was done to save on expensive steel, but I incline toward the view that it was a little taste of sunny southern Italy which cheered up the mean streets of south Birmingham by quite a lot. The main drawback of the Cinquecento was that it had no synchromesh, which meant that you had to double de-clutch every time when you were changing down. (Going up was silent. Although, TBH, if you crashed it through a down-change it would forgive you because the gearbox was very strongly built. It still made you look a right prannock, though.)

This one's just for you, CK. The memory of how you started the Topolino - not by turning the ignition key (although you did that as well), but by lifting a little tab down beside the gear lever. Nobody but a 500 owner would have known how to get the starter motor turning. When we eventually traded the car in, at a Renault garage, we got an urgent call from the dealer asking how you started the damn thing, because it was blocking up the forecourt and nobody could make it go?

The quick answer, of course, would have been to get six average blokes to lift up the car and move it a few feet sideways. Cinquecentos were often found mysteriously appearing on the top floors of student halls of residence after a night on the beer. But that's another story.

BJ