For those interested in old cars.

[Enterprisingwestern]

5 hours ago, MrWolf said:

I'm not 100% British and also classed as disabled.

 

Then you have no right being on here, this is a local forum for local people!

 

Mike.

(In Spain)

[Oldddudders]

14 hours ago, Rugd1022 said:

Anyone remember the John Cooper specials....?

 

 

 

 

Autocar, or maybe Motor - they were the weekly rivals then - had a headline "Cooper knocked out", when the MG Metro was announced, and indeed John Cooper must have sighed. I don't know how many were made, but I never saw one.  

[Hobby]

I learned in a Maxi on Southport Sands and passed in Dad's Allegro!

[alastairq]

8 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

.for crying out loud, we are adults...

 Speak for yourself!

 

As a retarded pensioner, I'm glad adulthood has faded into the background, its so over -rated. In fact, my life has been spent trying to avoid adulthood at all costs........apparently.

[MrWolf]

9 minutes ago, alastairq said:

 Speak for yourself!

 

As a retarded pensioner, I'm glad adulthood has faded into the background, its so over -rated. In fact, my life has been spent trying to avoid adulthood at all costs........apparently.

 

Growing old is unavoidable.

Growing up is optional.

[Nick C]

Getting back to the subject of 80s hatchbacks...

 

My first car was a Mk2 Fiesta 'S', so some sporty trim and tuning, but less than the XR2. It was 14 years old at the time, and utterly knackered, loads of rust, fan didn't work and it overheated and blew the headgasket. Still, I learnt a lot from it!

[Northmoor]

Over a week ago but I hadn't seen this sad news until today:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/motorsport/56221414

 

One of the greats from a golden era of rallying.

[Oldddudders]

Talking of the way things were, Sherry stumbled upon this

 

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motorsport/day-jack-sears-hit-185mph-m1-motorway

[Kickstart]

10 hours ago, MrWolf said:

I then went onto a disused airbase in a driving school Peugeot 205GRD. It was almost impossible to stall. 

My driving instructor had one, and indeed it was almost impossible to stall. Think I managed to stall once in all my driving lessons.

First car I did many miles in after my test was a 1L Metro. Best part of a decade old at the time but no major rust. Not massively quick but did the job. No objections to it really.

 

One plus point of the Metro was front 4 piston brake calipers!

 

All the best

 

Katy

[PhilJ W]

8 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Talking of the way things were, Sherry stumbled upon this

 

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motorsport/day-jack-sears-hit-185mph-m1-motorway

Interesting point about the 70 mph limit. As stated it was nothing to do with Jack Sears drive. IIRC it was to conserve fuel due to one of the many Middle East crisis's.

[jcredfer]

20 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Interesting point about the 70 mph limit. As stated it was nothing to do with Jack Sears drive. IIRC it was to conserve fuel due to one of the many Middle East crisis's.

 

There was a 50MPH limit on motorways, imposed in 1973/4, because of some argument with the Middle Eastern producers.  Travelling from York to Exeter, to take some leave, took for ever, but the MGB managed over 50 MPG, which would never have happened in normal circumstances.  {Quite a surprise given the normal rate of travel!}  I remember that we were stopped from flying training because of it, too, hence the leave.  The only ones kept flying from there were the foreign nationals, whose governments had paid for the RAF to train them, all of whom were from rich oil producing countries!!

 

 

[Phil Traxson]

4 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

Growing old is unavoidable.

Growing up is optional.

Agree totally, I really have got two "t" shirts with that on.

 At 71 I went out and bought the 'bike I'd always lusted after since it was introduced, a Yamaha XV535 (30 years after being ordered to give up 'bikes by family). Two years on I've done 10,000 miles on it, despite obeying all the Covid stay at home rules. As soon as we're let out again I'm going to scratch another old itch and buy a bike based trike, have my eye on Harley, Honda Goldwing or a rather neat trad' flat twin 1100 BMW conversion I've seen (hope it's not sold before I can get to it). Trouble is they are too far away to test drive at the moment under current restrictions.   

[MJI]

Life is too short to own a boring car

[boxbrownie]

3 minutes ago, MJI said:

Life is too short to own a boring car

But luckily life is long enough to own many interesting cars........

Edited March 6, 2021 by boxbrownie

[Fat Controller]

4 hours ago, jcredfer said:

 

There was a 50MPH limit on motorways, imposed in 1973/4, because of some argument with the Middle Eastern producers.  Travelling from York to Exeter, to take some leave, took for ever, but the MGB managed over 50 MPG, which would never have happened in normal circumstances.  {Quite a surprise given the normal rate of travel!}  I remember that we were stopped from flying training because of it, too, hence the leave.  The only ones kept flying from there were the foreign nationals, whose governments had paid for the RAF to train them, all of whom were from rich oil producing countries!!

 

 

It was due to the Yom Kippur war, between Israel and various Arab countries. The Western nations instituted measures to reduce consumption to avoid rationing. I thought the speed limit was 56 mph?

[Hobby]

No, it was 50 and applied to all roads, not just motorways. 

[alastairq]

1 hour ago, Fat Controller said:

I thought the speed limit was 56 mph?

 The US of A used to have a 55 mph speed limit, somewhere.....

I recall seeing articles on motorcycles in the US with speedos that were blank after 60 mph.....since exceeding 55mph was unlawful, there was no point in the rider knowing how fast they were travelling once over that limit....

 

Somewhere I still have my fuel ration book form the 1970's. [I also have my ration book from the early 1950's...]

The imposition of the blanket max 50 mph limit had a curious after effect too.....many drivers didn't know they could achieve such good fuel consumptions, and I noted general 'traffic' speeds didn't increase much, if at all, once the limit was lifted. [Noted because I was a bus driver driving for EYMS in those days, which operated many inter urban routes, rather than round the city of Hull.]

 

[Dagworth]

2 minutes ago, alastairq said:

The US of A used to have a 55 mph speed limit, somewhere.....

Some states still do, each state has its own speed limits. The cops love to sit just over the line and catch you as you come from a fast state into a slower one. 

[Northmoor]

3 minutes ago, alastairq said:

 The US of A used to have a 55 mph speed limit, somewhere.....

I recall seeing articles on motorcycles in the US with speedos that were blank after 60 mph.....since exceeding 55mph was unlawful, there was no point in the rider knowing how fast they were travelling once over that limit....

 

Somewhere I still have my fuel ration book form the 1970's. [I also have my ration book from the early 1950's...]

The imposition of the blanket max 50 mph limit had a curious after effect too.....many drivers didn't know they could achieve such good fuel consumptions, and I noted general 'traffic' speeds didn't increase much, if at all, once the limit was lifted. [Noted because I was a bus driver driving for EYMS in those days, which operated many inter urban routes, rather than round the city of Hull.]

 

I think the whole USA had a freeway speed limit of 55mph for a long time, eventually individual states increased it and now almost all are 70/75mph.  Ironically Texas, the largest state which thus took the longest to transit, was one of the last to raise the 55mph limit.

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

It was due to the Yom Kippur war, between Israel and various Arab countries. The Western nations instituted measures to reduce consumption to avoid rationing. I thought the speed limit was 56 mph?

That is the speed to which heavy goods vehicles are limited, 90 kph in metric.

[RANGERS]

20 hours ago, MrWolf said:

My C registered City X didn't have a speck of rust on it. My sister was persuaded to buy a sensible car for commuting (Instead of 1965 Ford Zodiac ) so bought an L registered Metro in white ( a 100 ?) It would have been three or four years old and within a year it looked like an old trawler with rust streaks everywhere.

So being sensible, she replaced it with a South African VW Karmann Ghia.

I had an F reg Polo Fox "Bread van", the body was mint, but if you drive it hard, the oil light came on when you decelerated. My then girlfriend had a MK3 Fox, smashed it up several times (we "jigged" it in my garage the second time using bits of railway sleeper and the screw jack from my Bedford CA.) It had but one annoying bit of rust around the exhaust pipe hanger on the boot floor, which fell off, leaving the exhaust dangling.

Even she couldn't kill it though, despite volunteering to fetch several car engines and dismantled motorbikes in it from all over the country.

I had an A reg MG Metro from new and whilst it went well and was a great drive, the rust on it after just 10 months ownership persuaded me to get out of it whilst prospective buyers had to look closely to see the rust, the seams between outer and inner wings, lower edges of the doors and tailgate, under the back screen rubber and front of the sills were all showing signs of bubbling at less than a year old. The tailgate problem appeared to be a result of indifferent paint finish to the edges of the apertures, water then seeping under the rubbers, rotting the edges, letting water into the tailgate void which then rusted the tailgate from the inside.

 

It attracted a generous part exchange allowance against an overpriced year old Astra GTE, which set me on the path of hot Astras, a real blast until the kids put paid to that.

[Kickstart]

2 hours ago, Dagworth said:

Some states still do, each state has its own speed limits. The cops love to sit just over the line and catch you as you come from a fast state into a slower one. 

Montana had “reasonable and prudent” as the limit at one time. Until someone took them to court for not actually having a specified limit 

 

All the best

 

Katy

[MrWolf]

2 hours ago, RANGERS said:

I had an A reg MG Metro from new and whilst it went well and was a great drive, the rust on it after just 10 months ownership persuaded me to get out of it whilst prospective buyers had to look closely to see the rust, the seams between outer and inner wings, lower edges of the doors and tailgate, under the back screen rubber and front of the sills were all showing signs of bubbling at less than a year old. The tailgate problem appeared to be a result of indifferent paint finish to the edges of the apertures, water then seeping under the rubbers, rotting the edges, letting water into the tailgate void which then rusted the tailgate from the inside.

 

It attracted a generous part exchange allowance against an overpriced year old Astra GTE, which set me on the path of hot Astras, a real blast until the kids put paid to that.

 

Oddly enough, I part exchanged my Metro for an early MK2 Astra GTE, on a B plate, B155 HRB, it was lots of fun to drive, got exchanged for one of the last on an H registration. Ex wife got that, neglected it, something electronic went pop and that was the end of it.

[russ p]

13 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

 

Oddly enough, I part exchanged my Metro for an early MK2 Astra GTE, on a B plate, B155 HRB, it was lots of fun to drive, got exchanged for one of the last on an H registration. Ex wife got that, neglected it, something electronic went pop and that was the end of it.

 

Very rare car today.  I remember the first mk2s Vauxhall opel reckoned because of the supposedly aerodynamic shape they would do about 10mph more than all the other hatches that were around  115bhp but sadly they didn't.  Not many early digi dash cars around now 

[MrWolf]

I had driven both the Golf GTI and the Escort XR3i and although the Astra was a little tinny in comparison with the Golf, it handled much better, the rear end of the Golf would break away and hop off line when pushed hard. The Ford just felt like a rowing boat. It was definitely slower than the Astra. The only thing that really came close was the 1.9GTi version of the Peugeot 205. That was a surprisingly good hot hatch. 

 

I suppose that a Renault 5 Gordini Turbo is cheating?