The Best Car You Ever Owned !


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I've forgotten the number of cars that I have actually owned, the other day I saw an old Vauxall & suddenly remembered that I had owned three of that make & had forgotten, possibly because they were all rubbish.

My two all time favourites were both Ford, years ago as a seventeen year old I bought a Ford Consul 375, a beautiful car ! Three speed gearbox (column change) no synchromesh on bottom gear either but this car did feature servo assisted brakes, could stop on a tanner !  But it didn't the night a private hire cab pulled out of a side road in front of me, off to the scrapyard they both went to the next day !

 

So my all time favourite has to be this one. Owned for ten years, absolutely no trouble at all in all that time either, had 15k on the clock when I bought it (five years old at the time) when I sold this car it had clocked up 45k & still ran like a dream ! Some may laugh such a maligned car for a bloke but as one or two will know..................I didn't give a toss  !

 

Reggie Babe.

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So what's your favourite all time car you owned, & why ?

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When I was a child, my father had a Rover P4. Beautiful vehicle. It was my job to clean it every week, if I wanted my pocket money! It was a big car to clean!

 

We also, at one point, had a Standard Vanguard.

 

I drive a Ford. I've had several and never any trouble. Once had a Peugeot that was very temperamental.

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I've only had three to choose from. My C3 as many of you know was a death trap. Nothing to do with the car just the dodgy garage that sold it to me! I do love my current Yaris though and think I'll probably stick with Toyota for a good while. Not let me down yet, this one or my previous Yaris!

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1 hour ago, Jill Sparrow said:

When I was a child, my father had a Rover P4. Beautiful vehicle. It was my job to clean it every week, if I wanted my pocket money! It was a big car to clean!

 

I have got two Rover P4's.  Looking for someone to clean and polish them!  :-)

 

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Some kind words about Ford on this thread, fitting that on Friday this week the Ford production line in Melbourne will fall silent after more than 90 years in Australia. Later next year General Motors Holden (Vauxhall) in Adelaide will close forever, shortly followed by Toyota in Altona, Melbourne leaving Australia with no major automotive manufacturers. A sad state of affairs given that when I came down-under in 1975 we could design and manufacture a car from the ground up and the industry was at the forefront in developing skills that transferred to many other sectors. The really concerning part is that our politicians do not seem to care about manufacturing as it is now almost all offshore. The list of things we no longer make here is endless. I hope we are never involved in a major conflict as it will be a foregone conclusion as most of what we need is now supplied by nations that view or land, food and other resources with increasingly greedy eyes.

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#8  I prefer the one on the right. Yes they do drive differently. Mainly due to their history I think as the two are the same model (100) and made only a year apart. 900 HVO was my Fathers car and has had many owners (inc John Herbert, Jeweler of Trinity Square fame), and until my Father owned it had always been maintained by a garage. 5656DD has had only 2 previous owners and with the previous owner and myself has been owner maintained. I have had it 32 years and the previous owner 17 years so there is a big lump of its history taken care of!

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I used to get misty-eyed with nostalgia for my first car (OVO920F) a Morris 1000 Traveller until I drove a  friend's Minor about 3 years ago - noisy, wobbly steering, unsupportive seats, clunky gear change, not very powerful brakes....

 

I currently drive a 1998 VW Golf diesel that I have had from new and which currently has 296,000 on the clock - so I guess it is the best car I have ever owned. It has certainly been  the one I have kept the longest!

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Citroen ID19, Andalou blue. MDF170F.  Sleek, powerful, comfortable beyond belief, fast.... Very fast.

Expensive spares in the early 70's though, a prone to rust. 

I was a member of the Citroen Car Club and had several good meet ups which were interesting.

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The most snazzy looking was a Ford Cortina 2000E .Had it when it was only one year old from my dad in about 1974 . Great looking car , white with a black webasto? roof . Trouble is the Mapperley weather soon rusted it 

A '52 Mondeo Ghia TDCI was the most luxurious , heated seats , cruise control , heated front screen etc , trouble is , that TDCI engine,get a bad 'un and you have problems...it was forever going into limp mode . Though having said that we still see it being driven about locally .

As a temporary replacement swopped that  five years ago for a little basic Fiat Panda and it's done everything ever asked of it (tempting fate !) . Have done 50.000 miles in it including 3 trips from West Cornwall to Northern Holland and a French tour . This week managed to get a heavy 6 foot x 4 foot mirror in it (with the back door wedged up a bit !). plucky little car .

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52 Mondeo..... Was that the prototype then Dave ?  

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The one I would like to have again was the Morgan +8 which I had back in the 80's. This was the V8 Rover engined one. Metallic silver with red leather. I got a bit car broody recently and had a drive in a newer one but decided it was a bit primitive by modern standards. OK for nice days but not practical for year round motoring. There's my son's 1972 MG and a 1953 Ferguson tractor taking up garage space. Perhaps I should have a sort out!

 

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While we look back at cars being a plumber vans have been a big part of my life.

 

The first one I owned was a Bedford CA 10cwt with sliding doors, 50mph with a tail wind, heater was absolute junk, seats well they may as well have been bench's. The air con was superb though, through holes around the pedals and engine cover.

 

Now it's a Vauxhall Vivaro Sportif. Like driving a very good car with all mod cons.

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30 minutes ago, iandawson said:

Never drove a Sherpa van NBL..were they any good?

They were terrible vans, they were underpowered and seemed to rust away overnight. They were popular as they were a lot narrower than Bedford CFs and Ford Transits.

You see quite a lot of them in Turkey, so they are probably still made over there.

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Mk 2 Golf GTI, it was amazing, and courtesy of my ex wife's advertising company, all free as far as I was concerned. Red with every extra, possibly an unadmitted bit of Thatcherism, but that was life in Essex 30 years ago.

Went up to see my brother once, going on the Kimberley by pass some cluckheads in a Ford Escort decided to try and wind me up, no chance,  two fingers and 125 mph, but, they tried it on. Slammed the amazing brakes at the Eastwood Junction, hopefully the youths ended up in the canal.

 

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I got my Sportive new 3 years back. My son works for me and I always used to describe his way of loading the van was to create a 'HEAP' open back doors and chuck it in never mind it is completely racked out.

 

When I got the new van June 3 years back he had been running it for a week when I went out with him. Going over Redhill on the way to Sutton I asked "How do you like the new motor?" "Great" came the reply "Goes like a bomb, comfortable and the air con is magic." "That's good news" said I "The bad news is the next time you need one you'll be ..... buying it yourself!"thumbsdown

 

You wouldn't believe the change in attitude. Seat covers fitted the next day, rubber down in the back, no more hurtling along and definitely no bumping up kerbs with alloy wheels. In for a hand wash every week and the back sorted, once a month cab gets a valet. Three years old last June and looks like it has just come out the show room, the garage came to pick it up for MOT and service and the man turned to me and said "Sorry sir I thought it was a works van, went back to his car and got dust sheets out to cover the seats.:jumping:

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Can't really go on much about any of my old english cars, I did have a soft spot for my old mini cooper, a 1965 model I completely rebuilt from the ground up. And maybe a lotus cortina that I had for a short time.

 

But my best car by far is a Toyota Landcruiser, (think they are called Amazon in uk).  I had here a few years ago, 4.2 TD straight six, simply the most reliable and comfortable vehicle I have ever owned, actually had 3 of them now, but currently don't own one.

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