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Have we had a thread like this befour?

What is you best story of a car you have ever owned. Good or bad!

Like with me. I once bought a 1984 Toyota Corolla station wagon that had been abandoned in a leaky barn for 4 years. I got it for $50.00 and found a family of mice in the back, two new rain ponchos and $5.00 (American). I spent a grand total of $500.00 on it to make it road worthy. This was including a tow to get it home, and all the transfer fee and taxes. We drove that car for 120,00km with regular maintenance........and later sold it for $800.00

I also once bought a 1975 Mercedes 240D for $300.00 and drove it for 5 years and sold it for $1250.00 I spent about $500.00 on repair and maintenance during that whole time.

How about your best (or worst) story.

I had some pretty awful ones when I started driving. My first car in 1977 was a Riley Elf bought for £60. ( Remember? Like a Mini with a boot that stuck out). 1966 and I loved it - at first. Led Zep and Floyd were cranked up to 11 in it continuously. I got 9 people in it once going to a party. Should not have driven home but it was oh so different then..you wouldn't even dream of it today!

It always stopped when you went through a big puddle and the carpet in the passenger footwell was constantly wet. After a while I wondered why and lifted it. There were massive rusty holes in the floor with the road visible beneath! My mate was in the passenger seat one day and we came up to a level crossing just outside the village where we lived. As we bounced across the crossing my mate disappeared! The rusty floor gave way, his seat fell through the floor with the metal seat runners rubbing along the road with sparks flying everywhere! He was screaming with his head at my elbow level but he wasn't hurt at all, luckily. I managed to sell it for £20 the next day and I am told that the engine from it is still running today in a Mini Moke.

My second car was not much better. A Ford Cortina Mk2. I bought it from my friend Rory Byrne. He was a racing car designer working for a small time racing team back in '77, he went on to design all of Michael Schumacher's F1 cars for Benetton & Ferrari! A very wealthy chap now but obviously he saw me coming!

The steering was always vague. I used to drive to college in it on a Monday morning and home again on a Friday. It got worse and worse, eventually I had to spin the steering wheel a couple of times before it 'bit' and went the direction you wanted! One Friday night I did this, turned, but it gave up turning half way around a corner and I was facing a steep bank into the river Cam! A quick call to my brother and a replacement steering colum was in after a couple of hours. The splines had worn out at the bottom.

Crazy student days, no money, stupid risks. If my kids did it I'd kill 'em!

We all used to travel around in cars best described as Death Traps when we were teenagers in the mid seventies! Risk didn't matter then as long as we were having fun with our pals.I was once in a mini 850 with eight people on board on our way to a party. The driver took a turning at a junction too fast and we lost a rear wheel. Oh such a laugh.......bloody idiotic.
            More recently, about 20 years ago my wife had a new Vauxhall Astra Expression 1400. It looked very smart with (for then)high spec interior and a quite nippy engine. After 48000 miles the whole of the suspension needed replacement and by the time the cam belt had broken for the third time we had had enough of the bloody thing. In a fit of rage we took it back to the dealership we purchased it from and abandoned it on his forecourt. It was three years old.
    As for the best car we've owned. The one my wife drives now. A 2ltr Ford Mondeo ghia estate. Just two years old and not a hint of a problem with it.

I have a Mondeo too, superb. Plus lots of space in the back with the seats flat to put paintings in.
Not the fastest car I've driven but maybe this is:
www.andrewkitson.com/pages/akhoy.htm

Oh yes, I had a Mini 850 too for a while in the 70s. Cars never lasted long, they were always budget bangers! My Mini though was an 850 automatic! I think it cost me a tenner. The automatic gear shift lever sheared off, so it had a pair of mole grips as the gear lever for a while.. and the handbrake was a block of wood.

With the over emphasis on speed cameras to police our roads these days and having police road patrols drastically reduced in number, we have lost a major deterant. Are the unroad worthy heaps of junk going to increase in numbers now that there is less chance of being stopped ?

You have to remember cars are far better made these days Steve. You rarely see old rust buckets and most are so reliable. Remember the first VW Golfs in the 70s? Terrible for rust. This was because they used cheap Polish low quality steel at the time. Now most VW's are built using French steel and a lot of car bodies from all manufacturers are galvanised now.