Cars...

[Who2]

Idling my time away as one does, stockcars came to mind.

As the autobiography slowly rambles on and on and on, one item, being motorised vehicles I have owned.
Loved, wrecked, stolen, raced, explored, fixed, bought and sold...

The list is most extensive the first being a £5 pound New Hudson 50cc bike, we all clubbed together
we were 13 years old ish..

'obviously not the one above, it's an example..

Anyhow later on at 16 or 17 I bought us a standard vanguard £220 quid, 2 months later we had ourselves our very own
'banger racing car, totally stripped, tuned and fortified.

It lasted only two races...


Anyhow it took me a lot of thinking to remember that standard vanguard, all because Michel Roux jnr was swanning
around in a 70's renault 5, I had one of those as well...

Ps: "a break from war"

Pss: My first car was a M2 Jag, somebody owned me £60 quid 90mph down Detling Hill....
'obviously no tax,mot, or licence.......but 4 up doing nearly a ton! downhill..

[Who2]

I forgot to say my temporary guest Rury the actor, put his head in the lounge and said "Heah that's ma voice"
in his Sean Connery sound alike voice.

It was this....


Rury does voice-overs...

Ps: He leaves tomorrow for home Edinburgh, yesterday at BAFTA's new roof bar 'Lennie Henry was giving him tips.
One of Nick's' exs comes to stay from spain tomorrow Page, should be fun she's a stripper..tbc I'm sure...

Pss: I reminded Rury when he once got paid £50 quid to dress up as Mr Ben at a private Tardis party.
He was found in our sauna with a 'young lady...naughty mr ben

[John Landon]

I too brought back a motorbike that I paid a fiver for when I was about 12. My mum made me take it back

I owned a lovely limited edition Renault 5, number 797 of 1000 Le Car's made in 1979. It was a great car. I tweaked it and put a Gordini dashboard into it, and sold it for a small profit after using it for a year or 2. Sadly, Renault's back then rusted faster than they drove.

My mother had a Renault 12 from new, and in that time I must have replaced about 3 sets of front wings, despite it being Zeibart treated when it was new.

I love cars, I did a restoration job last year on a mercedes CLK AMG that needed rescuing, and to rid myself of crippling covid boredom.
We were out in that car today on a trip to one of our favourite places Lake Vynwy.

I have owned some great cars, most memorable being a few SAAB's, 99, and 9000 turbos. My wife loved the 9000 anniversary edition I bought her many years ago. Hers was black, and mine was silver.
The 99 was in great condition, but it had the 1700 cc engine and what was a bloody dangerous freewheel gearbox.
My mate wrecked his 2 litre EMS SAAB 99, so I bought it from him and transplanted the engine, gearbox, interior and dashboard into my car.
It looked really good with the orange high back seats and green paintwork, and the horsepower was doubled with the engine transplant..
I did all that in a day.

Looking back, perhaps if I had hung onto and preserved some of my older cars, they could be worth a fortune now..
But back then, they were just Old Cars..

Imagine trying to do those things with the cars we have today with just a box full of spanners ? Virtually impossible.

I have loved growing up in the 60's and 70's and all we have enjoyed.

[Major Thom]

I had a Saab around 40 years ago, I was intrigued by this car having my name written down the side, although spelt wrongly CARLSON. I looked around it, if I remember it was 18 month old, purchased it and took it home 4 days later. In them days did not know too much about cars, but this one w.as a real flyer, scared myself a couple of times in it! Ha! The trouble was the expense once out of guarantee... But a lovely car. Kept it 3 years, and would you believe sold it for what I paid for it.....h

[John Landon]

The Carlsson range of any SAB model was named after the legendary Swedish rally driver and also SAAB's test driver. There's some YouTube footage out there of him putting SAAB's through their paces.

The only difference on those models regarding the engine was the ECU, which was housed in a red casing. These were much sought after control units, as you could just plug one into your regular SAAB turbo and get a load of extra power.
That was before the days of laptop ownership and software availability for tweaking your own engine management unit.

During the stage when SAAB was closing down, magically the software and ECU maps appeared on a website and that gave us the opportunity to reprogram our own ECUs.

My Saab 93 SE was upgraded from 150 bhp to 265 bhp, with the help of a laptop, an old ECU wiring loom and this software.
I did the same on my Wife's 9000 anniversary addition.

Problem was with my 93, the torque steer was horrendous, due to the crappy General Motors vauxhall Vectra chassis..

[Who2]

Pat Moss Carlsson was one of the two other people besides myself who had an Alpine Renault..
"Not a lot of people know that....

[John Landon]

Love the Renault Alpine A110.
It's up there with the Fiat Dino Coupe from the same era, and costs about the same these days. Well into 6 figure sums.

If only you had a crystal ball back then and a place to mothball the old girl.
You won't see much change from 150k.

[crewmeal]

My first motor was a £50 Mini van. I went everywhere in it, slept in it had holidays with it. I cried my eyes out when a lorry wrote it off. Petrol was about five bob a gallon, serviced it myself twiking the carbs as you do. Go faster stripes down the side. It was a real fanny magnet!!!

[Major Thom]

John did you ever hear of a Saab model called the Sonett, I saw a few in the 60's 70's when visiting relatives, but never saw one in the UK, so they were probably not sold in UK! They were a small sports car, in the days they looked lovely, but I was told they only had a small engine. They reminded me a bit of a small version of the Datsun 240Z

[John Landon]

Yes, very small car but drove really well with its small 2 stroke engine.
I was a memeber of the SAAB owners club for many years, so got to see one or 2 Sonnets up close during our track days and meetings.
Very few left now sadly.

[Major Thom]

Funny as when you get older your priorities change, I have a Toyota Rav and my wife a Toyota Fit, not crowd drawers but both reliable and economical.