The Cars

This is a collection, not exhaustive, of some of the cars that have passed expensively through my hands.  I have tried to list them in chronological order, but I fear that my memory is not very accurate.  This list will be updated as I get sudden, alcohol induced flashbacks.   I will also try to write about each one in the Mutterings blog as and when my powers of recall will allow.

My first car was definitely a VW Beetle 1200.

This was my very first car. Many happy memories of driving this. It was FNW 745K, a vision in white with black plastic seats. When it was first mine it ran Crossply tyres, these were renowned for being poor grip and not very long lasting, when I span across a busy dual carriageway in the wet I determined to get Radials fitted as soon as I could afford them.

Moved onto one of these, Mini 1275GT. Great fun to drive, and by the standards of the day, a good all round car. Had some real fun in this car and I drove everywhere at 110%.

Ford Escort 1300L, real power! This car was a bit sensible for me and I didn’t keep it long, especially after I crashed it!

Quite possibly my worst buy, although there are many contenders. It had a 1300 badge but was really an 1100. It also did not appear like the image here, it was totally ‘chavved’ up and looked s**t.

Now this was a beauty although mine was white with a light blue flashing. I had a brace of Cibies on the front, a hefty roll bar and a baffled lorry fuel tank bolted to the centre of the boot for extra stability.

I had two of these, masochism on a grand scale. Hillman Imp engined little tearaways with dodgy handling.

This little beauty was a pleasure to drive. It was the first one in the UK and the importing garage had converted it to right hand drive. Sadly they also replaced the wiring loom badly and when electrical faults appeared……

Now we’re talking! This machine was staggeringly quick. I originally bought it to impress a new girlfriend; she became the current wife!

Jaguar XJS. This car knew how to drink. A wonderful machine for wafting about, but I felt a little old.

Mercedes 500SL. I had 4 of these in total, the first was actually a 350SL and then I bought a new one and also picked one up from the factory at Sindelfingen.

2 Door Range Rover. My car was not this colour, it was a rather lovely deep red, the personal colour of Lord Vestey, whose car it was.

I bought this black one with the number plate NAS7Y. There’s a story about that….

The TVR 420 SEAC was ludicrous, in every way; fast, expensive, poorly built and depreciated faster than soft fruit. The acronym SEAC stands for Special Equipment Aramid Composite, Kevlar basically.