It's a big'un...
Anyway, I found this on Ebay back in November 2004. I was in Edinburgh on business at the time when I spotted the old girl, and managed to do a deal with the seller outside of the auction site after he had fallen victim to an attempted Western Union scam the first time it was listed.
As it turned out, the car was located about ten minutes from where I live so that weekend I was off to pick it up.
And what a beauty:
 | 2 Litre Injection with a 4 speed overdriven automatic gearbox (hmm, we'll come back to that...) |
| Electric everything: Windows all round, Mirrors, Sunroof, Aerial |
| Cruise Control |
| Air Conditioning |
| Really easy to clean (?) lattice alloys |
| Spoiler on the boot. Oh, yes, must be a proper racer then... |
| A few months MOT |
Team Rusty Wing, anyone?
| Oh and a bit of in extra wing ventilation. |
Once it was picked up, it was passed onto team member Tony as his 1987 BMW 316 had recently given up the ghost and he was driving his mum's Nova. As well as getting Tony mobile again, we thought that this would be a good idea to give the car a bit of a shakedown. Well I say a bit of a shakedown, more like a 10 month extended road test.
At MOT time, i managed to pick up a brand new pattern wing for next to nothing and bolted that on - took an absolute age but it fitted well in the end. Good gaps all round - marvelous. Another problem reared it's head at around this time too - the brake light on the dash. After reading the manual this looked serious - the options where: failed ABS circuit, failed dual braking circuit, inoperative brake servo, low fluid levels. We checked them all - nothing. We convinced ourselves the pedal had gone soft - it hadn't. We were perplexed. We had visions of sailing over the side of Stelvio. We looked for a new car.
Then my dad piped up: "How long's that brake light been busted, Rob?"... I'll say no more, too busy hanging head in shame!
To date (June 05), Tony has used the car on a daily basis to commute, and has also been 3-up to Ipswich and back, 4-up to Cardiff and back twice, all over the country on golfing expeditions and most recently to Nottingham. Not mammoth journey's, granted, but enough to convince me that all is good...
Hmm, gold velour and brown plastic "leather". Nice...
...except for one word. Automatic. That's right, an automatic. Generally the reserve of obese Americans who consider changing gear to be exercise (so i've heard). I'd never driven one before, and had never really wanted to. But, to be fair, I quite enjoyed the experience so I'll leave it there...
NO I WON'T!!! What am I thinking! What happened to the automatic cars in 2004? They broke, they were slow, they were completely unsuitable for the passes, they were driven by nutters in devils hats.
Oh well, it's all for charity...