Ordinary Cars That Have Disappeared Off The Radar

[jith]

Hugh Jarse said:

jith said:

Bloody fantastic motor car. Based on the SAAB 900 Turbo chassis but with so much power and a terrific sound.

It's a real pity Lancia stopped manufacturing for the UK because some of their cars had real quality. Watched a repeat of Angels and Demons last night and the Carabinieri were howling around Rome in gorgeous black Lancia saloons. Don't know what they were or what engine is in them but they sounded great.

J

Was it a Thesis? Never sold in the UK, not so much disappeared as...never appeared in the first place. (new thread perhaps)?). Im sure the diesel turbo would have been good for ploughing the autostradas.
I Cadded up the rear seat for this. They kept deciding they wanted more headroom according to the new regs, so the rear seat cushion kept getting thinner. I chuckled to myself when it later became the popemobile. Papal cushion needed.

That's the one! It certainly wasn't a diesel in the movie; it sounded fantastic.

The 2CV man has reminded us all that I made a mistake. It was the SAAB 9000, not the 900. Sorry, a typing error.

J

[Hugh Jarse]

Even with trim falling off in the pic it looks quite sleek and comfortable, but also dangerously similar to the not pretty Scorpio.
I miss the days when cars were designed to be pretty or elegant not mean, fake aerodynamic or steroidally angry looking like they will be good at the 'ring but shyte on an Autoroute.
More Thesis pics and "my" back seat (zero styling input was just a CAD donkey).
http://driventowrite.com/2014/05/12/2002-lancia-th...
I admit the two tone brown is a bit "special".
Doubt many could justify a 5 series over this, but now the novelty factors means quite special.
Apologies for the thread derail.

[Gunk]

cluckcluck said:

frontera

They all deserved to end up in the crusher, a truly terrible car

[M3333]

Gunk said:

Here are some photos from 2010, Thurleigh airfield, all waiting to be crushed.





they don't exactly look like old bangers.

This may be a repost, sorry if so, but I thought this was worth posting. What a crying shame

https://www.flickr.com/photos/131149436@N02/albums...

[TheTyreAbuser]

S11Steve said:

Thurleigh is a massive vehicle defleet and refurb site for end of lease vehicles, but also a lot of written off vehicles go there to be disposed via Copart auctions - http://www.copart.co.uk/ - look at the numbers on their front page to get an idea of the volumes they put through. The sites are also used for stolen/recovered vehicles, as well as police/DVLA/Local Authority seized vehicles.

Similar sites at the back of Bruntingthorpe, - https://goo.gl/maps/gKndxuhFoyR2
Corby - https://goo.gl/maps/DdU9EFBhuEP2
Sandtoft - https://goo.gl/maps/2w4SFwSejcN2


I believe most of the images above were debunked as "trade-in scrappage scheme" though.

Brunty never had much to do with it though, they already have a tonne of ex fleet cars on site (as seen by most people at the Sunday service there a couple of weekends ago). That's what the vast majority of the cars in those pictures are. If you move over to where the entrance is, you'll see a thing for "Cartwright rentals", that silver motor is my boss' old car.
Also, they have Manheim fleet auctions up there so there's a constant flow of cars in and out of there. Rare that anything sticks around for too long tbh. The amount of f**king Qashqais and Jukes in there is mind numbing/boggling.

They do also have a Police POCA lineup up there somewhere if memory serves, some very sorry looking cars in that mix. Mostly ex-drug dealer motors, subtle ones like H2 Hummers on spinners and sadly more nice things like Evo FQ430s and 911 turbos all sitting for years.
That said, once things have been processed Leics Police do sell the odd motor as part of the POCA regulations.

[LanceRS]

Just seen this parked outside the local Citroen dealer.

My mother had the Morris version when I was very young, one of the first cars that I remember.

[Huff]

My dad briefly had the Wolseley version when sis & I were small - 1275 & twin-SUs doncha know.

It was replaced by a Renault 16TS - which to this day we all recall fondly; and my Dad still regards as one of the nicest cars he ever had, the one that was 'just right' (despite comfort of his current XF...)

[LanceRS]

And today's offering, the Riley Elf, spotted while walking littleman to school this morning.

Also saw an e30 318 , perhaps this thread has inspired people to dig their old cars out?

[dudleybloke]

cluckcluck said:

frontera

Spotted a blue lwb and a goldish swb frontera the last couple of days.

[lowdrag]

We are getting very off topic, but here's a photo you'll rarely see. Three Mini variants together; Wolseley, Riley and Mini.

[LanceRS]

And today's gem, Found in the 6th formers car park at my teenager's school. I cannot remember the last time I saw one of these.

[Morningside]

There seems to be a lack of mind 90's Range Rovers.

[Gunk]

Morningside said:

There seems to be a lack of mind 90's Range Rovers.

The fugly police crushed most of them!

[lel]

B3 80's seem to have disappeared, the later B4 shape is still fairly common.

[StescoG66]

lel said:

B3 80's seem to have disappeared, the later B4 shape is still fairly common.

Loved these. Was a classy understated shape. Hate Audis with a passion now.....

[Martin 480 Turbo]

I thought I had a winner with the Rover 216 vitesse.
Only 4 left.

But the Montego GTi was even more successfully discarded. Not one left.

Both where pretty popular pre yuppie corporate car BMW impersonators back in the day when I visited the UK first time as a 14 year old exchange student.

A 100 times more 60ies classix have a sheltering garage around them. Id love to build a howmanyleft museum/shelter before it is to late.


[pic]https://www.flickr.com/photos/39302751@N06/3839300359/[pic/]

[Yardelli]

jith said:

Bloody fantastic motor car. Based on the SAAB 900 Turbo chassis but with so much power and a terrific sound.

It's a real pity Lancia stopped manufacturing for the UK because some of their cars had real quality. Watched a repeat of Angels and Demons last night and the Carabinieri were howling around Rome in gorgeous black Lancia saloons. Don't know what they were or what engine is in them but they sounded great.

J

Not the Thesis in 'Angels and Demons'.......... They are Series 3 Deltas'........... I've got one as my daily
They were tooled up for RHD by Lancia ready for a return to the UK in 2009 until they changed their minds.
Then when Fiat became FCA with the Chrysler acquistion they decided to try selling it here with a Chrysler badge on for about 20 months.
It failed miserably as no-one knew what it was and theres more derision against Chrysler here than for Lancia.
People don't know what they are missing. Its a rebodied Bravo. Mines a 1.4 Multiair so servicing/parts are not an issue.
I've rebadged it completely with bits from Italy. I think I was the first to do it here - about 8 cars here now ;o)
I get stopped by more people than ever over it asking questions. Rarer than a Lambo here for peanuts.
We love it!




BTW my entrant for disappeared cars is for one of these:



The Tagora - I was a trainee at Ryton in the '80's and all the bosses had them. Massively comfy with sofa-like seats.
We used to test them along with the final Solaras'/Alpines'.......

I love them but they've all gone. If anyone knows of one for sale let me know!

Edited by Yardelli on Monday 21st March 04:01

Edited by Yardelli on Monday 21st March 04:04

[lowdrag]

There's one around here I see from time to time. Paintwork looks sun-bleached but strangely the body seems fine.

[dinkel]

Yardelli said:

Lancia Delta > FIAT sold only a handfull Bravos: why? They are great cars.

http://left-lane.com/european-car-sales-data/fiat/...

[Cider Andy]

On 21 March 1996 I took delivery of a new company car, a Ford Mondeo 2.0i Ghia X 4x4 saloon in State Blue. The car had originally been ordered some months prior but there was a story in the press at the time that Ford had bought up most of the hides in Europe for the leather interior for the Mondeo Ghia X and that Ford had started delivering them with fabric interior à la Ghia and a 6-CD autochanger in the boot instead of the 10-cd changer it should have had.

Sure enough, when the car arrived it had fabric interior and a 6-disc changer! So I rejected it and waited for the proper spec.

Being four-wheel drive I always thought these would become quite collectable but it seems there are very few left. In fact it looks like there were only ever about 250 of them on the road.