Best smoker barges 1-5 large [vol11]

[r129sl]

My brother and I used to climb from the backseat into the boot of my mother's rusty Fiat Panda and then drop small objects and screwed up bits of paper into the road through the rust holes in the rear door. NTY 310X, if memory serves. Must have been 1986 ish. I certainly remember for my 9th birthday, my parents took about 8 of us to the baths in a Volvo 240 estate, many bodies in the boot.

[SpeckledJim]

I lived in a puddle! And didn't know whether to wish it was bigger or not!

[BigBen]

r129sl said:

My brother and I used to climb from the backseat into the boot of my mother's rusty Fiat Panda and then drop small objects and screwed up bits of paper into the road through the rust holes in the rear door. NTY 310X, if memory serves. Must have been 1986 ish. I certainly remember for my 9th birthday, my parents took about 8 of us to the baths in a Volvo 240 estate, many bodies in the boot.

Ditto not the Fiat Panda bit but certainly recall taking friends to a party, also 1986 ish, in a Mercedes Van that my mum had borrowed which had sort of a bench seat round the edge in the back making it more like a mobile sports changing room than any safe place to travel, no other restraints or various family days out 8 up in an Austin Maxi.

It was the norm back then and I don't recall anyone dying, although I am sure they did.

Ben

[golfer19]

How about this 190. Have we had it? I think it is a threadist's.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/122310395907?ssPageName=...








[/quote]
Nice looking car but the placement of the 190 badge on the boot lid would irritate.j

Edited by golfer19 on Tuesday 17th January 23:17

[phil_cardiff]

SpeckledJim said:

Jodyone said:

carinaman said:

Not for me as it's a post 2006 pricey road tax barge, but it's been reduced and it's 4WD, almost 300bhp and it's nighthawk black pearl:

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2016...

I've never felt the extra 300 or so on the VED for cars like this to be much of an obstacle, presenting as a drop in the ocean of the annual car-spend for most people (myself very much included). If I was preparing to confront it again on a recent car, I'd definitely be considering one of these Hondas: the last Accord I had (90's) was a splendidly made thing that endured general disinterested abuse with good grace.

That seems like very optimistic pricing though, unless this is some kind of craved special edition. Surely the market for decade-old legends is contained within this thread, and then only a subset.

Small subset. It's a boring no-mark that doesn't have the good grace to be either handsome or excellent.

Probably explains why that particular car has been on the market for months (at least). I quite like them and there are some very favourable reviews of them from when they were launched.

[BlueHave]

One for all the 'Hustlas' in da House

£3.5k of your finest English readies laundered or unlaundered

http://www.usedcarsni.com/1982-Rolls-Royce-Silver-...

[defblade]

derin100 said:

I agree that Lowtimer's assessment is bang on correct too.

But Krikkit...you had it easy being an '80s child! Being ferried around INSIDE those cars?!?

Being a '60s child, "after licking t'mud off pavement with us tongues" we as kids...after a day out treat walking in the 'countryside' (Farthing Downs, Coulsdon i.e now South London)...if there were too many of us kids, 3 of us would be transported home inside the boot of my parents friend's car...a Vauxhall Victor. I'm not kidding!

I was a 70's child, I just about remember watching the road go by through rust holes in the floor of Dad's Mini van as my brother and I lay on the mattress he'd thoughtfully chucked in there to make us more comfortable

[tobinen]

SpeckledJim said:

It doesn't bother me personally at all.

But at the back of my mind I know that if I ever have a prang that injures one of my children, I'll be beating myself up forever for putting them in an XJS and an XJ40 instead of a 4 year old V70.

The only reason for that decision is my own shallow entertainment. Excusable?

Completely*

*I am not a parent

[mccrackenj]

There were 150 of us living in's shoe box, etc, etc, etc

By contrast to you lot my sisters & I were always completely safe; my father couldn't afford any car at all.

I had to make do with cycling (actually on the ROAD, anyone remember that?) with no lights or any though of safety at all.

[harrykul]

Don't play it down John, don't forget that you were cycling whilst dodging petrol bombs and snipers going between barricades!

(So many times folks on the mainland have spoken to me expecting NI to be a scene from Rambo)

Can anyone advise on the date for the next meet please? Looking to make travel arrangements....

[bob-lad]

http://doodle.com/poll/qan67cgemn7ukrkm

York.

Date as yet undecided

If Rambo had eaten that mountain of champ for breakfast every day, he'd be a bit calmer too

Edited by bob-lad on Wednesday 18th January 10:20

Edited by bob-lad on Wednesday 18th January 10:20

[mccrackenj]

harrykul said:

Don't play it down John, don't forget that you were cycling whilst dodging petrol bombs and snipers going between barricades!

(So many times folks on the mainland have spoken to me expecting NI to be a scene from Rambo)

Can anyone advise on the date for the next meet please? Looking to make travel arrangements....

he he! "It was just like 'Nam, man".

One event I do still remember though, is me & my mates (we must have been 6 or 7) being driven up & down the streets at presumably illegal speeds by soldiers in the rear of a completely open Land Rover (presumably a series 2, this is PH after all). Imagine the trouble the daft squaddies would have been in if one of us had fallen out? I bet no-one would have sued though. We didn't know what 'compensashun' meant then.


Seconded on the date of the next 'Losers' gig'. I need to make plans soon and would really like to coordinate our long weekend away with the meet if possible. 2 birds with a stone in 1 bush, or what-not. But if the date doesn't match I'll probably go anyway.


ETA: "losers'", not "loser's" aagh!

Edited by mccrackenj on Wednesday 18th January 12:42

[SpeckledJim]

BlueHave said:

One for all the 'Hustlas' in da House

£3.5k of your finest English readies laundered or unlaundered

http://www.usedcarsni.com/1982-Rolls-Royce-Silver-...

Crying out for a plastidip in Primrose Yellow or Antique Gold or Bilious Green or something.

I'm dying to have a go at plastidip. Looks great fun and very forgiving.

[pitchfork]

Project, anyone?
https://www.gumtree.com/p/jaguar/classic-jaguar-xj...

Bit of a sleeper:
https://www.gumtree.com/p/audi/audi-a8-4.2-v8-petr...

Cheap GS430 on LPG:
https://www.gumtree.com/p/lexus/lexus-gs-430-v8-pe...

LS400 for not a lot:
https://www.gumtree.com/p/lexus/1997-lexus-ls400-l...

Edited by pitchfork on Wednesday 18th January 13:23

[Croutons]

SpeckledJim said:

BlueHave said:

One for all the 'Hustlas' in da House

£3.5k of your finest English readies laundered or unlaundered

http://www.usedcarsni.com/1982-Rolls-Royce-Silver-...

Crying out for a plastidip in Primrose Yellow or Antique Gold or Bilious Green or something.

I'm dying to have a go at plastidip. Looks great fun and very forgiving.

"Car has been parked up for several years"

Required: Balls. Steel-based.

[Krikkit]

pitchfork said:

Project, anyone?
https://www.gumtree.com/p/jaguar/classic-jaguar-xj...

Sounds like it might be alright, given that it still starts and moves OK...

[QuantumTokoloshi]

pitchfork said:

bit of a sleeper:
https://www.gumtree.com/p/audi/audi-a8-4.2-v8-petr...

Edited by pitchfork on Wednesday 18th January 13:23

A8 look good. MOT history seems reasonable, if the cambelt has been done around the 80K mark, some history of gearbox oil changes and it changes gear okay, looks decent.

[dbdb]

Lowtimer said:

It's a matter of context. As a kid my family drove around in cars which didn't even have seat belts or laminated windscreens, same went for Mrs LT. Then as drivers we were happy enough driving around in Mark II Escorts and Chevettes and Capris in the late '70s and early '80s, and cardboard-box-like Pug 205s and Fiat Unos in the late '80s and early '90s. So from our point of view anything with obviously superior active and passive safety to those is therefore all upside, and 'good enough', especially if it's got weight and evidence of good safety design on its side.

In practice car design took big safety steps forward from about 1990 with the use of finite-element analysis, widespred availability of ABS and airbags, and further big steps once Euro-NCAP made it more of a marketing issue after 1997.

Outside those criteria into more make-specific thoughts, Volvos and Saabs were always good in collisions by the standards of their design eras, and Mercedes have generally done well too, from the W124 onwards, as have BMWs from the E34 onwards. My R129 SL is a 1980s design but very safe for a convertible of that era, and crash safety was one of Mercedes' biggest concerns in its design. Front-engined Porsches are some of the most solid things dating back from platforms designed in the '70s, although of course have no electronics apart from fairly slow-witted ABS.

These are probably contributory reasons why I have the fleet that I have. I would not particularly want to do 20,000, miles a year on wet and icy motorways in a Mark II Escort any more, but a W126 S-class would not cause me to be concerned at all. And I must admit that while I often hanker after a Lotus Elan +2, the knowledge of its flimsiness is one of the factors that's put me off buying one. An Elan makes a Mark II Escort look like a Challenger tank.

I agree with this. The safety question asked is a very sensible one: the answer I guess is, how safe is safe enough? - which is very much a personal judgement.

There is a substantial difference in crash worthiness between older cars. Some really do qualify for the label 'death trap' - and some are pretty safe, though not as safe as a fully modern car. I too would be happy to use a W126 Mercedes whose safety record was for its time exemplary - but would feel nervous of the crashworthiness in the Lotus. It would not stop me riding in one, but it would stop me buying one - and I would be reluctant to take children in it. I would have no qualms taking a child in a W126 - or my XJ40.

The question is, where do you draw the line. I remember as a child kneeling on the rear seat and looking out of the back window of an XJ12L at the cars whizzing past as we hurtled down the new M56 at an indicated 150. People did that sort of thing in the mid 1970s. I loved it at the time, but I wouldn't do it now...

The British Government used to compile and publish accident statistics - one of them was Risk of driver injury in Great Britain 1996-2000, which was published in 2003 and detailed the likelihood of injury or death to car drivers in a two car accident in Great Britain between January 1996 and December 2000.

I posted this in the previous volume.



It is interesting to see just how well the Mercedes W126 performs in these stats. IIRC the W126 was the first car in the world to be designed to cope with an offset collision - something very few other cars (the Jaguar XJ40 from 1986 being a notable exception) could boast for many years. It really was outstanding for its age.

Strangely, the W126 is rated better than the W124 in these statistics - perhaps this may be a consequence of lower mileages being covered thorugh greater age of the W126, whereas the w124 is still very much in 'daily driver' use at that time, the W126 being driven more carefully - or maybe it actually is more crash worthy. Either way, R129SL's accident with the Stag convinced me that the W124 is safe enough from my perspective.

The Jaguar XJ40 and X300 also perform very well. The late XJ40 and X300 have a similar frame - Jaguar made over 170 metal changes to the XJ40 in 1993 including an entirely new front crash structure, which it shares with the X300. It could be there should be a separation there - with the late XJ40 more similar in accident performance to the X300. (IIRC, the previous Government publication did make this distinction, but I can't find it and may have imagined it!!) Or there may be another reason for the X300's improved crash performance.

It is interesting to see the X300 outperforming the much newer E38 and E39 BMW - and how poor the e32 was. Strange that it should fare so much worse than the E34.

The Volvo 850 was pretty good too - and the Peugeot 505 is outstanding for its age, but that era of Peugeot was very safety focussed.

I thought it would be interesting to repost it since we are discussing safety of big Mercs and old Jags in the thread after bob-lad's question, though I'm sure not everyone will agree with the study's findings/my grasp of statistics is scant to say the least!

[RenesisEvo]

SpeckledJim said:

That wont make me feel any better when a drunk driver concertinas an inadequately strong old car.

A valid point, and one I can't disagree with. But I get frustrated when many automatically assume that to be safer, they should just buy a 'safer' car (and there's a whole load of caveats to that), without ever looking inwards and asking if their driving is safe in the first place - a bad driver in a big hefty vehicle is IMO arguably worse, certainly they might be ok, but what about what they hit?

There's also an argument that says if you drive with hard edges and no seat belts as mentioned, you may be a bit more careful than if you have 20 airbags. Some will drive the same regardless (and are the ones who fall off in the rain and snow). Yes, you can't stop the drunk/drugged driver and other idiots - defensive driving can reduce the risk and consequences a bit but not completely. There will always be the dreamt-up 'what-if' scenario, the eventual conclusion of which is to remain at home in a padded room.

[SpeckledJim]

dbdb said:

Interesting, and this measures how the cars did in the crashes they actually had, not the standardised crash designed by the powers that be.

So can we assume that there were lots of high-speed rear-enders by Senators and V70s, caused by wallies pretending to be dibble.

Slow-speed traffic nudges in the XM, caused by slipped berets and overwhelming desire to be different.

Does a diabetic, alcoholic Jaguar driver enveloped in cigar smoke have a different typical accident to a frowining 7 Series driver, who can't see where he's going in the dark with his sunglasses on?