Those early cars!
26 Aug 2010 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
curiouswombatI was commenting, on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
just_sue's journal, that I really must recount the woes of my first car or three sometime. Sue said 'do' - it'll give her something to laugh at in the face of her own, current, car woes.
So - the tales of our first three cars...
For years I rode a motor bike but, eventually at the age of about 30, I decided to learn to drive a car.
I passed my test on the second attempt - but had no money to buy a car at the time. My sister, however, had owned a car for a couple of years - a very old Austin Allegro. Remember them? They looked like this - except the Allegro in question was blue.
Her husband said it was unlikely to last much more than 500 miles before the engine died totally - and they bought her something a touch less ancient and dilapidated and passed the Allegro to me, mainly just to carry a pile of stuff from the island back to the North East, where we then lived.
My brother-in-law wasn't far out in his calculations - I think it did me about three or four months before the engine began to sound very unhealthy. But... do you remember those little garages that operated in back lanes? There was one just around the corner from our flat. So I crawled the car around to the lads there, who said 'yes' engine beyond redemption. BUT - the gear box was good, the bodywork was not as bad as some... they could get me another engine from the scrap yeard and put it in for me.
'Go for it!' I said.
For a very reasonable amount they turned the dying 1300 Allegro into a working 1500 Allegro.
I drove it for the next two years, and every time my brother-in-law saw me he would ask, with some surprise, was it still going? 'Oh yes,' I would answer - and even took him for a run in it, whereupon he was amazed that the engine seemed better than it had ever been.
And I never told him!
It had weird hydraulic suspension - which used to collapse on occasions, and I had to crawl back to the lads around the corner with the bodywork more or less resting on the wheels. They'd go back to the scrap yard and get another couple of units for it... and it would do another 1,000 miles or so.
Finally, as we packed up to return to the island, I put the, then, baby and her belongings, along with all my clothes, into the old Allegro and set off. S2C was to follow me at a later date. The car got me to the boat, she even got me half way from the boat to my Mum's - and then the exhaust went. I drove the last ten miles or so with every window open, hoping not to poison D-d. And finally, I admitted that the Allegro was beyond redemption. I sold her for £20 to someone because it had a better engine than theirs did...!
Then I panicked - I needed a car for this new job! My sister came to the rescue again - and sold me an ancient Fiat 124 for £25! It was beyond scruffy - there were holes in the bodywork (thank goodness we don't have the MOT!) - I used to park it where no-one from work could see it, and around the corner from the patients' houses! But it did get me from appointment to appointment for the first 3 months.
S2C came over at Christmas. I met him at the Sea Terminal and we went out to the car. He pulled the passenger door handle and it came off in his hand!
This time my uncle came to the rescue. He was becoming too disabled to drive, and his car was sitting outside his house. 'Give me £10 a month for six months and take it - it's yours,'he said. So (see every car more expensive than the last!) I became the proud owner of an Opel Kadett - only ours was the four door model.
This really wasn't a bad car - even though it was about 10 years old when I got it. I took it over to the North East to collect S2C, the cat, and the rest of the household goods, used it for work, and went off-island on holiday with it.
The radiator went when we were on holiday in Filey - we must have put half a dozen packets of rad-weld into it over the fortnight, not to mention gallons of water; then got it back to the island before a replacement radiator was acquired... second hand, of course.
By this time I had actually been confirmed in post at work, and issued with a departmental car - a brand new Fiesta! Brand New! I'd never had any car under 10 years old before!
But for non-work use the Opel kept going for a bit longer, S2C drove it, and I used it at weekends. Until the wiring harness went and all the electrics became extremely dodgy. The final straw was driving home from my mother's 20 miles or so, with main beam or nothing! I got flashed an awful lot on that journey.
So - we were now both earning, we had a big mortgage, but S2C was working in the office of the local Vauxhall dealers - so, finally, we got an almost new car - a three year old Vauxhall Belmont - which I can't find any pictures of, oddly.
From then onwards we have had reliable cars - since 1998 these have been Skoda Octavias. Wonderfully solid, reliable cars, a pleasure to drive, never any fear that something major could fall off at any minute...
And I have to say that I don't miss the Allegro, the Fiat 124, or the Opel Kadett for a minute!!
just_sue's journal, that I really must recount the woes of my first car or three sometime. Sue said 'do' - it'll give her something to laugh at in the face of her own, current, car woes.So - the tales of our first three cars...
For years I rode a motor bike but, eventually at the age of about 30, I decided to learn to drive a car.
I passed my test on the second attempt - but had no money to buy a car at the time. My sister, however, had owned a car for a couple of years - a very old Austin Allegro. Remember them? They looked like this - except the Allegro in question was blue.
Her husband said it was unlikely to last much more than 500 miles before the engine died totally - and they bought her something a touch less ancient and dilapidated and passed the Allegro to me, mainly just to carry a pile of stuff from the island back to the North East, where we then lived.
My brother-in-law wasn't far out in his calculations - I think it did me about three or four months before the engine began to sound very unhealthy. But... do you remember those little garages that operated in back lanes? There was one just around the corner from our flat. So I crawled the car around to the lads there, who said 'yes' engine beyond redemption. BUT - the gear box was good, the bodywork was not as bad as some... they could get me another engine from the scrap yeard and put it in for me.
'Go for it!' I said.
For a very reasonable amount they turned the dying 1300 Allegro into a working 1500 Allegro.
I drove it for the next two years, and every time my brother-in-law saw me he would ask, with some surprise, was it still going? 'Oh yes,' I would answer - and even took him for a run in it, whereupon he was amazed that the engine seemed better than it had ever been.
And I never told him!
It had weird hydraulic suspension - which used to collapse on occasions, and I had to crawl back to the lads around the corner with the bodywork more or less resting on the wheels. They'd go back to the scrap yard and get another couple of units for it... and it would do another 1,000 miles or so.
Finally, as we packed up to return to the island, I put the, then, baby and her belongings, along with all my clothes, into the old Allegro and set off. S2C was to follow me at a later date. The car got me to the boat, she even got me half way from the boat to my Mum's - and then the exhaust went. I drove the last ten miles or so with every window open, hoping not to poison D-d. And finally, I admitted that the Allegro was beyond redemption. I sold her for £20 to someone because it had a better engine than theirs did...!
Then I panicked - I needed a car for this new job! My sister came to the rescue again - and sold me an ancient Fiat 124 for £25! It was beyond scruffy - there were holes in the bodywork (thank goodness we don't have the MOT!) - I used to park it where no-one from work could see it, and around the corner from the patients' houses! But it did get me from appointment to appointment for the first 3 months.
S2C came over at Christmas. I met him at the Sea Terminal and we went out to the car. He pulled the passenger door handle and it came off in his hand!
This time my uncle came to the rescue. He was becoming too disabled to drive, and his car was sitting outside his house. 'Give me £10 a month for six months and take it - it's yours,'he said. So (see every car more expensive than the last!) I became the proud owner of an Opel Kadett - only ours was the four door model.
This really wasn't a bad car - even though it was about 10 years old when I got it. I took it over to the North East to collect S2C, the cat, and the rest of the household goods, used it for work, and went off-island on holiday with it.
The radiator went when we were on holiday in Filey - we must have put half a dozen packets of rad-weld into it over the fortnight, not to mention gallons of water; then got it back to the island before a replacement radiator was acquired... second hand, of course.
By this time I had actually been confirmed in post at work, and issued with a departmental car - a brand new Fiesta! Brand New! I'd never had any car under 10 years old before!
But for non-work use the Opel kept going for a bit longer, S2C drove it, and I used it at weekends. Until the wiring harness went and all the electrics became extremely dodgy. The final straw was driving home from my mother's 20 miles or so, with main beam or nothing! I got flashed an awful lot on that journey.
So - we were now both earning, we had a big mortgage, but S2C was working in the office of the local Vauxhall dealers - so, finally, we got an almost new car - a three year old Vauxhall Belmont - which I can't find any pictures of, oddly.
From then onwards we have had reliable cars - since 1998 these have been Skoda Octavias. Wonderfully solid, reliable cars, a pleasure to drive, never any fear that something major could fall off at any minute...
And I have to say that I don't miss the Allegro, the Fiat 124, or the Opel Kadett for a minute!!
