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For those interested in old cars.


DDolfelin
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Why in the fifties was there a penchant for visors?  I had a Velox and a Vanguard and I had to have them fitted also.  Was it just the 'cool' factor along with others, headlamp visors and w/w tyres which were also common in those days.  Perhaps still are!

 

Brian.

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Back when I had my MZ250, I had one of my best dices ever with a Lomax early one summer morning. Overall we were evenly matched but the different characteristics of the two vehicles made things interesting. Up hills and into headwinds the better aerodynamics and the awesome torque of the flat twin saw him pulling away. On downhill slopes or with the wind behind us the ability of my little 2-stroke to rev well beyond any sensible limit allowed me to take full advantage while the 2CV ran into what sounded like valve bounce. Huge fun and mostly conducted at sorta legal speeds. That's the nice thing about tiddlers whether car or bike; with careful choice of time and place you can feel like a hero by thrashing their little potatoes off without much risk to life or license.

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I love sun visors and want to make one for my 20 year old Rav4 which we've been making into a day van/camper over the last 12 months.

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The Wifes new toy Sooty van is a lot more work than she first thought, i think Horsetan that i can just about beat you for the amount of rust and rot we have to repair!   The whole cab will need to be rebuilt and a new modern upgrade/design is on the cards.  Thankfully the back end and chassis is solid, and is cleaning up nicely.

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I love sun visors

The Citroen is plastered with them internally: two at the front, plus one above each of the four doors.

 

There's also the Ford Capri-style plastic louvres/slats covering the rear windscreen: 

 

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Very Mad Max-tacky and spoils the purity of the car's shape (as well as completely defeating the object of having a concave windscreen), but I can't see a way to remove it without damaging the frame. I'm told it was a standard fitting on the GTis and GTi Turbos (mostly Series 2), and something of a sought-after part for some CX owners who don't have it.

 

.....i think Horsetan that i can just about beat you for the amount of rust and rot we have to repair!....

For a relatively recent vehicle, that is a serious degree of corrosion!

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It was restored by the same chap who rescued the Radford Mini Cooper S 'AA1000' used by Gerald Harper in 'Adam Adamant Lives!' back in 1966, and is still around today.

 

Ha, ha! John "cany, canny,canny" Kelly.

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I love sun visors and want to make one for my 20 year old Rav4 which we've been making into a day van/camper over the last 12 months.

 

attachicon.gif2009-08-31 20.03.41.jpg

 

With all that framing there is an opportunity for a shunting puzzle/minimalist layout installation here for those wet stay-a-bed mornings during Welsh/Scottish camping trips.

:senile:

   dh

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I want some of those louvres for mi Rav Horsetan!  :jester: There's a lot of rot alright! but it is 30 years old, i remember having Escorts, Mini's and Heralds that were all scrapped long before they were even fifteen years old. The plan is to build a complete roll cage or frame to go inside the existing cab then when its all built and fixed in, remove the complete rotten original cab and the front half of the floor back to the suspension strut tops which are thankfully very solid, then we'll have a long think about the styling of its replacement  :jester:

 

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I want some of those louvres for mi Rav Horsetan!  :jester: There's a lot of rot alright! but it is 30 years old,....

 

My CX will be 30 years old next year and has a mere fraction of the rust that yours is showing. I actually thought it wasn't possible for a modern Japanese vehicle to develop more holes than Emmentaler cheese!

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My CX will be 30 years old next year and has a mere fraction of the rust that yours is showing. I actually thought it wasn't possible for a modern Japanese vehicle to develop more holes than Emmentaler cheese!

 

Any car will be corroding at that age, not all of them showing it. A colleague bought an MR2 for his son which threw its cam belt on the way home. Unlike most cars, that bit was easy, no damage at all, but when the recovery man tried to winch it on to the truck the whole front end disintegrated.

 

To look at the car before the tow man got to work, it looked entirely solid with virtually no rust to any critical area but it was quietly rusting from inside as well as any BL product ever did, just took a bit longer.

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More random old car stuff ahoy... with the nights starting to draw in I've been indulging in a bit of car spotting while watching some old films and TV series from the '60s, a common theme throughout is the appearance of several Bentley S series and Rolls Royce Silver Clouds which usually signal the arrival of someone very posh, a villain or sometimes both(!). I thought I'd post a few examples while I'm waiting to go to work... these old Dowagers really are lovely things to behold and the environment they're seen in has changed so much too, they were all very large cars in their day but are dwarfed by family saloons and faux 4x4s now...

 

From 'Deadlier Than The Male', I wonder if the underground car park is still in use today...

 

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From 'The Prisoner'...

 

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From 'Man In A Suitcase'...

 

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From that long forgotten Roger Moore epic 'Crossplot'...

 

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From 'The Avengers'...

 

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From 'Séance On A Wet Afternoon'...

 

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From 'The Saint'...

 

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Bonus Series 1 E-Type Fixed Head next to Cubbie Brocoli's Silver Cloud on the set of 'Thunderball'...

 

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Beautiful Silver Cloud III Sports Saloon in 'The Avengers'...

 

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Silver Cloud III used in 'The Avengers', 'Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)' and 'Minder' amongst others...

 

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Bentley S2 in 'Randall & Hopkirk', this was actor Peter Wyngarde's own car which he used in 'Department S' and loaned to other productions when he wasn't using it...

 

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I wonder - if I flog off both of the Minis and have a shuftie down the back of the sofa, will I have enough to bag one these old wafters...? No!

Edited by Rugd1022
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Sad but true i watch the old shows for the classic cars etc :mosking: i noticed an old London bus in a lot of '60's stuff lately Reg; number OLD 666, It was in an ep' of the Avengers, i think the Saint and another i can't remember the name of, it finally went up in smoke and totally gutted out by fire in an ep' of 'On The Buses'  i always wondered if it was also the same bus that was used in the Double Deckers?  :pardon:

Edited by Owd Bob
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Sad but true i watch the old shows for the classic cars etc :mosking: i noticed an old London bus in a lot of '60's stuff lately Reg; number OLD 666, It was in an ep' of the Avengers, i think the Saint and another i can't remember the name of, it finally went up in smoke and totally gutted out by fire in an ep' of 'On The Buses'  i always wondered if it was also the same bus that was used in the Double Deckers?  :pardon:

I too like to look out for the old motors on old TV programmes, and Mrs Unicorn is quite used to my complaining about the wrong vehicles in 'period' dramas and the like.

OLD666 by the way belonged to ex LT RTL1557, which also appeared in a couple of Mont Python sketches. IIRC it was owned by famous bus dealer Ted Braklel (sic) of Cheam.

In those days you couldn't use a real London Transport bus for filming, so the few, then, privately owned ones were in demand for just such work. 

Les

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Any car will be corroding at that age, not all of them showing it. A colleague bought an MR2 for his son which threw its cam belt on the way home. Unlike most cars, that bit was easy, no damage at all, but when the recovery man tried to winch it on to the truck the whole front end disintegrated.

 

To look at the car before the tow man got to work, it looked entirely solid with virtually no rust to any critical area but it was quietly rusting from inside as well as any BL product ever did, just took a bit longer.

Similar thing happened with a friend of mines 04 plate Astra recently:

08:00 - Car refused to start

09:00 - AA man diagnosed broken starter motor, bump started so it could go to Garage

10:00 - Garage go to look at starter, drop the undertray to find chassis legs rotted out and whole front end at risk of collapse

11:00 - Car was taken into scrapyard

 

The day before he had driven it to Poole and back.

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Similar thing happened with a friend of mines 04 plate Astra recently:

08:00 - Car refused to start

09:00 - AA man diagnosed broken starter motor, bump started so it could go to Garage

10:00 - Garage go to look at starter, drop the undertray to find chassis legs rotted out and whole front end at risk of collapse

11:00 - Car was taken into scrapyard

 

The day before he had driven it to Poole and back.

 

 

That is newer than my Land Rover!

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Similar thing happened with a friend of mines 04 plate Astra recently:

08:00 - Car refused to start

09:00 - AA man diagnosed broken starter motor, bump started so it could go to Garage

10:00 - Garage go to look at starter, drop the undertray to find chassis legs rotted out and whole front end at risk of collapse

11:00 - Car was taken into scrapyard

 

The day before he had driven it to Poole and back.

The other half runs an 02 plate Astra automatic and I havent noticed any rust on it whatsoever, we only replaced the original exhaust 2 years ago, maybe that 04 plate was built on a Friday afternoon?

 

Edit-

That Astra would have been 13 years old so maybe it had been accident repaired earlier in its life?

Edited by royaloak
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...or just neglected.

Neglect would probably manifest itself as many other things than chassis corrosion but it could be one thing or several things, the end result is the car had to be scrapped.

 

I have heard of quite a few Vauxhall Zafiras rusting their front chassis legs out and they are built on the same floorplan.

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The other half runs an 02 plate Astra automatic and I havent noticed any rust on it whatsoever, we only replaced the original exhaust 2 years ago, maybe that 04 plate was built on a Friday afternoon?

 

Edit-

That Astra would have been 13 years old so maybe it had been accident repaired earlier in its life?

 

The rust was hidden behind the undertray. My friend queried with the garage how it hadn't been picked up at MOT to which they pointed out the MOT only check visible bits and you don't dismantle the car or remove covers.

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The rust was hidden behind the undertray. My friend queried with the garage how it hadn't been picked up at MOT to which they pointed out the MOT only check visible bits and you don't dismantle the car or remove covers.

Guess what I will be doing next weekend!

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Can't remember the last time I saw one of these:

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92,000 on the clock:

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.... and only just starting to get frilly on the wheelarches:

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Now that's a nice car.

 

My first Saab was a 900SE 5 door. I loved it and it made me confirmed fan of the marque. Had I the money spare I would have a 900 Turbo Coupe tomorrow...

 

steve

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