1 hour ago, roottoot said:

AA / RAC badges or is it 2 X AA

2 x AA, cos they're both yellow and not blue.

George (copied & pasted for spelling) your change from image to photo in your profile info at the side of posts (no idea what those are called) caught me out first time I saw it back as my mind was on a younger face from dancing on that Fiat.  At the time of looking at that photo I wondered if it was just the angle of the photo or whether you were perhaps legless in more than one sense, I think I know now.

 

Very strange photo of the Cortina

 

 

. . . why the square plate on grille?

 

Edited 27 March, 20224 yr by nta16

@nta16  Square plates were cool then or so we thought,

and we made up square plates where i worked and as with everything else when you have no money you beg borrow or steal. 

 

Boys on tour @ the Linn on Dee, Mar Lodge back in the day when camping at the old Canadian Logging Camp was free for all and long before the NTS got it. 

 

I must off hopped off to take the picture. 

Edited 27 March, 20224 yr by roottoot

1 hour ago, roottoot said:

@nta16  Square plates were cool then or so we thought,

and we made up square plates where i worked and as with everything else when you have no money you beg borrow or steal. 

Can't remember that fashion being around down my way, perhaps it was and I can't remember.

 

You were lucky to find a spare plate with the right letters and numbers, just goes to show what's about if you look hard enough.

 

The lady doing your wages and taking off what you used from the garage was told they were ones that some idiot had stamped the holes in the wrong place.

44 minutes ago, roottoot said:

The lady doing your wages and taking off what you used from the garage was told they were ones that some idiot had stamped the holes in the wrong place.

I didn't notice they weren't the iron on type, should have noticed as my car has individual characters, recently I saw a 57 plate car with them (smoked finish too) so do I guess that's another fashion now (for off-road use of course).

 

There are smoked finish ones that make the plate letters / numbers invisible from an angle and maybe ANPR's.

The Focus RS near me that had them no longer has them, maybe nabbed for them.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 28 March, 20224 yr by roottoot

23 minutes ago, roottoot said:

There are smoked finish ones that make the plate letters / numbers invisible from an angle and maybe ANPR's.

I don't know if that'd actually work but I'd have thought it does draw attention to the vehicle from a Police perspective, sort of advertising - "please check me and my vehicle over to see if I'm above any other laws".

 

They certainly work, each time i turned the corner to the street the car was parked on i thought that car has blank reg plate, then the numbers appeared, just!

The other one a see is and Audi S3.

 

I wish they would pull the muppets with 2 laser like WHITE (sh1te) reg plate lights shining back at you. 

Edited 27 March, 20224 yr by roottoot

9 minutes ago, roottoot said:

I wish they would pull the muppets with 2 laser like WHITE (sh1te) reg plate lights shining back at you. 

 

Oh! Or the ones that have their lights pointing into the oncoming traffic. Grrrrrr.

14 hours ago, roottoot said:

They certainly work, each time i turned the corner to the street the car was parked on i thought that car has blank reg plate, then the numbers appeared, just!

Fair enough, I can't think were I saw this plate I think it was in a car park or something.

 

14 hours ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

Oh! Or the ones that have their lights pointing into the oncoming traffic.

That's most modern cars to me as I sit closer to the road than most.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A couple of pics of my first car...

 

My Dad's second and third cars both appear in this photograph.

 

 

Second was the red Nova - which is still on the road.

Third was the white Celica - a Carlos Sainz Limited Run model, can't find it anywhere.

The black Vectra (a CDX mind, because posh) was my Grampa's.

 

Funnily enough, here's my car sitting in the same place as the Nova about 20 years on.

 

A few pics of my second car (also a VW):

'Recaro' seats, uprated suspension and ARB, Induction kit and Super Sprint exhaust. It was a lot of fun to drive.

I bought the car for around £800, drove it everwhere, modded the hell out of it, and sold it 10 years later for £800.

 

Edited 2 April, 20224 yr by Noms

And another one of my Dad, this time with his first car... a copy of a copy of a copy... etc.

 

 

Must have been taken about 1994/1995. Better photos do exist. I'll report back once I've got more.

Edited 1 April, 20224 yr by AnnoyingPentium
Correcting idiocy.

A contender for one of the best cars I've owned.  I got it new in 1990 and drove it for 238,000 miles until I wrote it off in '98 in a low speed accident in traffic in Edinburgh.  

 

I thrashed it pretty much everywhere including extended periods at 100 mph on French Autoroutes and around Circuit de Charade at Clermont Ferrand with wife, kids and tyres squealing.  

 

I took it off road, towed half a dozen grass surfers around a large field perched on a big sheet of plywood, towed an overly large caravan up and down Lake District passes, taught my 8 year old son to drive in it.  I could go on...

 

In its lifetime it consumed three radiators, two sets of suspension spheres, a few sets of discs and pads and several tyres.  I fitted the Peugeot 205 GTi alloys largely to get more air to the brakes after setting fire to them coming down Puy de Dôme.

 

When it was written off it was still on its original turbo and had had no engine work other than oil and filter changes. 

 

 

Edited 1 April, 20224 yr by Schtum

2 hours ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

Must have been taken about 1994/1995.

Gawd, I feel even older than usual.

 

8 minutes ago, Schtum said:

A contender for one of the best cars I've owned.

Is it a CX diesel estate (combi/Touring)?

 

2 minutes ago, nta16 said:

Is it a CX diesel estate (combi/Touring)?

 

 

It's a Citroën BX TZD Turbo Estate. 1769cc XUD engine with 90 PS and 133 lbs-ft.  

27 minutes ago, Schtum said:

It's a Citroën BX TZD Turbo Estate. 1769cc XUD engine with 90 PS and 133 lbs-ft.

That's being used to modern cars being so big now, I thought to myself, the BX was the bigger car so must be a CX but looks different in that colour.

 

Can you imagine now only 90 PS and 133 lbs-ft, "you must get it mapped, bigger or second turbo it'll never go with that power".  🤣  People understand the pecking order of figures but not the real values.

 

Back in the day a mate had his boss's CX 16v (no GT(i?) badge) as his repmobile for a while, boy did that fly, and then he was selling well  he took me on a test drive of a BX at a show on grass as he thought he might persuade his boss to buy one (as you did then) for his permanent repmobile, 'he jacked' the suspension up to drive it at whatever top speed was possible like this over the rough ground.  Brand new and the (IIRC) single spoke steering wheel whistled or wheezed on lock.  He didn't get the car, not surprised at the price they were.

 

We had a dodgy Citreon Dealership in town for many years.  He had a very nice house and wife though, proper French bloke, he'd be (well) in his 90s now if still alive.

 

Edited 1 April, 20224 yr by nta16

14 minutes ago, nta16 said:

That's being used to modern cars being so big now, I thought to myself, the BX was the bigger car so must be a CX but looks different in that colour.

 

Can you imagine now only 90 PS and 133 lbs-ft, "you must get it mapped, bigger or second turbo it'll never go with that power".  🤣  People understand the pecking order of figures but not the real values.

 

Back in the day a mate had his boss's CX 16v (no GT(i?) badge) as his repmobile for a while, boy did that fly, and then he was selling well  he took me on a test drive of a BX at a show on grass as he thought he might persuade his boss to buy one (as you did then) for his permanent repmobile, 'he jacked' the suspension up to drive it at whatever top speed was possible like this over the rough ground.  Brand new and the (IIRC) single spoke steering wheel whistled or wheezed on lock.  He didn't get the car, not surprised at the price they were.

 

We had a dodgy Citreon Dealership in town for many years.  He had a very nice house and wife though, proper French bloke, he'd be (well) in his 90s now if still alive.

 

 

The CX was larger.  I had a friend who had the CX Familiale estate version and it was fairly huge.  

 

The BX only had a limited amount of power and torque but it weighed just over a ton so went quite well in its day.  However, don't think that I didn't look into the possibility of making it a bit quicker.

 

If I remember correctly, I paid £13k for it when it was new.  It was very nice to drive and had excellent sports seats that rivalled Recaros.  

3 hours ago, Schtum said:

The CX was larger.

Yes sorry I got the letters mixed up again.

 

My mate's boss's BX was all black hatch so looked looked smaller in my memory than your BX, I looked the model up this time to check and it was the 16v but it didn't have the GTi on the back just 16v.  As I remember it plastic dash and bonnet, when my mate had it near top speed (stereotypical rep driving of the time) the dash and bonnet shook and I asked what the brakes were like so he jumped on them and my nose was almost on the dash, when he lifted off the brakes it seemed like we were crawling and I noticed we we actually still at about 90 (kph of course).  I was lent the car to get home and when I returned at about 5 am I thought I'd warm it up on the then empty dual-carriageway (hard to imagine now) and I discovered this straight road I often travelled actually had a curve to it at high speed.  I had a Skoda Estelle 2 at the time.

 

He only had the BX for a few months IIRC but my mate did drive me down some quiet excellent twisty country roads I knew and boy was it quick on them too, no silly speeds just handled well and quick on those roads too.

 

I took him to Lanarkshire Sheriff's Court from Northampton in my Estelle with a very noisy wheel bearing so I wouldn't go above 60nph, the constant lower speed drove him mad not the noise but we'd left so early anyway we still arrived an hour before the court opened and had time for breakfast in a tea room with net curtains IIRC.  He had the AA represent him, he'd been clocked by IIRC a Scottish Police VASCAR at over 100mph, no surprise he lost his driving license, that was for the first time.  Later a very early adopted of the likes of Road Angel.

 

Edited 1 April, 20224 yr by nta16

45 minutes ago, nta16 said:

I took him to Lanarkshire Sheriff's Court from Northampton in my Estelle with a very noisy wheel bearing so I wouldn't go above 60nph, the constant lower speed drove him mad not the noise but we'd left so early anyway we still arrived an hour before the court opened and had time for breakfast in a tea room with net curtains IIRC.  He had the AA represent him, he'd been clocked by IIRC a Scottish Police VASCAR at over 100mph, no surprise he lost his driving license, that was for the first time.  Later a very early adopted of the likes of Road Angel.

 

My Granda worked with a guy whose son had bought a MkII Astra GTE (or GSI?) c.1991 brand new and took it to a local long uphill straight near Auchinleck and gave it gutty to see what it could do. Hidden Police radar gun clocked him at 110mph (I think it was) at the brow of the hill. Lost his license for 6 months and that Astra sat on the drive for ages.

Edited 1 April, 20224 yr by AnnoyingPentium

5 hours ago, Schtum said:

A contender for one of the best cars I've owned....

 In the mid 1990's I supplemented my income by buying cars at auction and selling them on.  I bought a BX19GTI mostly because I felt sorry for it, as although in good nick, it was running rough as ar$e oles. Other regular buyers thought I was nuts.  While scratching our heads as to what was up with it, a mates Dad, who was a lift engineer, found what we couldn't, and a kink in a small coil spring somewhere on the injection system.  Being an 'engineer' he wouldn't replace it, but spent a good while getting the kink out the spring.  Popped it back on and hey presto.  He bought it off us there and then, and had it for about six years before trading it in for a Moggie Minor project.  Superbly comfortable and unique car.

 

Gaz

The 2-door Nova saloon my Grampa had. Not something you see kicking about anymore.