My history. 80's/90's hatches, RSs, 911s and a few bikes

[marky911]

In a bid to bid stay out of the pub a bit more this year and having just finished all of the Breaking Bad series, I figured I’d post some pics of the cars I’ve owned over the years. I passed my test in Jan 1995 not long after I’d turned 17. I’m now 37. Wow, that went quick.
Due to the pics spanning 20 years the early part of the thread will be pics of polaroid pics, which in some cases aren’t great quality and also make the cars look a little strange.

I’ll probably do things in instalments, mainly due to photo bucket being slower than some of the XR3i Convertibles I’ve owned. I’ll write any little tales I can remember about the cars as I go. Feel free to just look at the pics though.

I’ll just say a quick few words about me (in my defence) as some of my cars and mods could be deemed as chavvy. I wasn’t a chav, I was a good kid, but looking back I did seem to have an infatuation with dodgy aftermarket wheels.

Car obsessed from the minute I knew what cars were, I couldn’t wait to grow up and drive some.
I started working after school at night, as soon as I turned 16. I used to pack Crispy Pancakes at Findus.
I would pass the time of my bus ride to work by reading Fast Car, Max Power (I know, I know) and Performance Ford, etc.
As soon as I turned 17 I began learning to drive.
My dad had been a mechanic all his life usually with his own garage and he was a massive petrol head, so that’s where my love of cars came from. We weren’t well off though and I bought everything I owned by myself just about. I wasn’t spoilt, well not in the monetary way, but as you read on it becomes apparent I maybe was a bit spoilt in a garage services kind of way. Of which I'm very grateful to my old man.

Right to the cars…

This first car was actually my 3rd. It’s a Nova 1.3SR I purchased about 6 months after passing my test. I owned 2 Novas before that. Both silver hatches with ginger interiors. The first was a 1 litre I used to learn to drive in, the second a 1.2 as it was a bit nippier than the 1.0 and had less holes in the doors. The first one had a checked ginger interior, the second had a striped ginger velour interior. Nobody could say I didn’t like to mix things up a bit.




I loved that little Nova. It had a dash with way more gauges than I’d seen before, including an oil pressure gauge. Cool. I used to love polishing its little flarey wheel arches before slapping half a gallon of back to black on its many acres of plastic trim. I had great fun bombing about in this little car using countless gallons of 70p per litre 4 star. Remember that!?

After many brake pads, tyres and a head gasket later, a few months had passed and I had my all important 1 years No claims bonus. Yippee. What could I buy?

Well, this. Cavalier SRi130
I have no pictures of it in one piece. It lasted 2 weeks before I did this to it.





I blame Max Power for this. No I don’t, I blame only myself obviously and I’m not proud. Let’s just say jumping out of a 70bhp Nova into a 130BHP Cavalier was a bit of a learning curve. I was still a kid basically.

The story for anyone who’s interested was this…
Max Power used to do a feature called Cruise Patrol, where they’d visit a cruise somewhere, in a different town each month, usually late at night.

This one month they announced they’d be coming to Sunderland Docks. Now for anyone that doesn’t know, Sunderland Docks in the 90’s was synonymous with car theft, boy racing and general toe-rags. I’d never been there, as I’d heard all about it and it didn’t appeal, plus I lived 25 miles north. But, Max Power were coming, there was going to be a big turn out and everyone I knew was going to be heading down. Who in their right mind could miss such a moments occasion.

So a couple of days before I casually mentioned to my parents that I was off to a cruise in Sunderland on Friday night. “Oh no you’re not, It’s full of toe-rags, boy racers and there’ll be an accident”. “Yeah, yeah It’ll be fine says I”, but they said no. Now I was 18 and my own person, but I did live under their roof, so had to respect their wishes right?
So imagine their surprise when I rang them from South Tyneside Hospital at 2am on the night of the cruise to say I’d crashed the car. I had told them I was just stopping at a mates house that night. Uh-oh, much grovelling required after that.

Basically I was following a line of cars but had dropped back a bit. Un be-known to me there was a small roundabout ahead. I couldn’t see it due to roadworks which for some reason meant all the street lights were out. So I put my foot down to catch the taillights of the car up the road. Of course he’d been over the roundabout hadn’t he. I barely had time to brake when it came into view and we smashed onto it, hitting the lamppost in the middle and turning onto our side. We (me and 3 mates) had to climb out of the sunroof.
We were mostly ok just bashed and cut etc. Just then all the cars came back and people were saying “Torch it mate, torch it”. I think it was hard for them to grasp the idea that I was in fact the owner, not a car thief. Ah, Sunderland.

The council billed me £1525 (I’ll never forget that figure) for a new lamp, etc. Me and my dad went to a solicitor but she said “Well even if you were only doing the speed limit, that is still to fast on an un-lit road you don’t know”. Great. So my good old dad sent a letter to the council saying “If your lampposts were lit up, my son wouldn’t have crashed” and we enclosed a bill for for my written off car, of about the same value. We received a response saying it was in the hands of their legal department, but we never heard from them again. I thought about pushing for a claim for my car but my dad said “Don’t push your luck son”. He was probably right.
I never did sneak off again, or go to Sunderland for a drive.

So I kept my NCD but had no car, hence I had to start again. Armed with £400 borrowed from my parents, I bought a Mk4 Escort off a mate. It was Burgundy with RS kit, wheels and Ford Motorsport written in white. No pics thankfully. It wasn’t even the CVH motor, it had the old OHV engine. I was promptly named “Pushrod puff” or “Motor-smoke” by my mates as it was a bit smokey and wheezy.

A month or two passed and I was able to buy something half decent again. What did I buy?
Well given my massive success with the last Cav, I bought another.




This one lasted a couple of months before I ran a cow over.




The farmers fence had collapsed so he was liable. I took the car to a local high end bodyshop. They quoted £1000 to repair it. Amazingly, as the car wasn’t worth much more, they agreed to repair it. Even more amazingly they sent a cheque directly to me. My dads mate then fixed the car for £100. Result.
So what did I buy with the £900 change? Well, what any 90’s 18 year old petrol head would, of course. A big amp and the biggest sub that would fit in my boot. I also bought my girlfriend an Amethyst ring. Real Amethyst! None of this diamond malarkey. Oh I knew how to roll back then!

One last thing, I obviously had to complete a claims form for the farmers insurance company. this involved before and after sketches of the incident. The first was a view from above of the cow about to clatter into the side of my wing with a comment from me saying “Cow runs out of trees into my car”. The 2nd was the view from above of the damaged car and the cow running off. The caption said “Cow runs off unhurt apart from slight limp”. This amused a few people even though I was just giving an accurate description of the event. I kept a copy for a few years though.

A couple of months passed and I was missing the fun factor of a hatchback. I decided I needed another and only one type would do. A 205GTi 1.9.
As it happens when I was buying the 2nd Cav, the sellers mate turned up in a 1.9GTi. We got chatting and he worked at the body shop mentioned above. He’d stripped the car and repainted it in it’s original gloss black. it was like glass. Stunning. It even had the optional rear wing and reflective rear strip on tailgate. So after a few weeks of pestering him he agreed to sell it to me.




Now before I bought the car the lad brought it round to my dads garage for inspection. My dad said “The clutch is worn son and they’re a pig to do”. “Yeah yeah, it’ll be fine” says I. “Well I’m not touching it when it goes.” says dad.
I bought it anyway and a few weeks later a clutch spring fell out of the clutch and wedged between the pressure plate and the flywheel. Que an argument with my dad after he said “I told you so”, which ended in me saying “Fine I’ll ring Mr Clutch”. I rang them to be told “Nah we don’t touch those mate, they’re a pig to do, try the main dealer”. So once I’d rang the main dealer and come around after fainting, much grovelling was in order and my old man took pity on me and did the clutch. Phew!
Apart from the clutch going though it was flippin’ awesome. I gave it hell every time I drive it too. I don’t know how it survived.

So by now I was still 18 and had left the heady heights of crispy pancake packing behind. I was now working as a glamorous assistant at my local Ford dealer parts counter.
Now one day, me and some mates were sitting down at our usual haunt, at the seafront near Whitley Bay, when a lad we knew from the next town drove past, but he wasn’t in his dodgy Nova with Cav Sri engine in. He was now in a dodgy Escort convertible, but this thing looked cool in the summer sun and to top it off his rear passengers weren’t sitting on the rear seats, oh no, they were sitting on the rear shelf with their feet on the rear seats. Cooool! Who wouldn’t be convinced that this was the best way to travel ever. It was like Miami Vice but in real life and I thought “Wait a minute! That could be me!”

So I bought this.
XR3I Convertible. My dad had said before I bought it “They are flat as a pancake, as they weigh a ton and the roof always leaks, avoid them”. “Yeah yeah, it’ll be fine” says I.




Now this thing was flat with a capital F. It couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding but I enjoyed the roof down cruising. It wasn’t so fun when it rained and both front corners of the roof leaked, resulting in the driver getting a wet right leg and the passenger a wet left leg.
I must admit too that it probably looked better when I got it than after I’d fitted the black hood and clear indicators. You live and learn. Well, I do further on anyway.




So after a month or two I was really missing the speed of the 205. Round about then a workmate at the Ford dealers took me for a spin in his tuned S2 RS Turbo. It was a real mint thing. Immaculate, pampered and bloody quick. I was converted and needed Boost in my life!

Now I didn’t have “mint” money, so what did I buy to emulate this stunning car I had been taken out in?
This of course-




A rather rough S2 RS Turbo with only 13 former keepers, yes only 13. This was 1997 and the car was 1988 so thats a mere one and a half owners a year. What could possibly go wrong?
My dad went to view it with me and said “Son it’s a dog. You can still smell the paint it’s so fresh. There is something not right about that car”. “Yeah yeah, it’ll be fine”, says I. Besides I didn’t have the money for a minter.


Well by this time I’d been made redundant from Ford as they were quiet. The place was like a revolving door for staff. My dad had warned me before I went. I was now van driving for a living.
Anyway, this one day I’m driving along in the van and my boss rings me. “Mark there's a guy here who wants a word with you about your car”. “Ok stick him on” I said.
The guy comes on and says “Hi there, I used to own a black RS Turbo with that reg on it. It was stolen from me and put through a shop window in North Shields during a ram-raid. It burst into flames and there was nothing left. The last time I seen it it was a burnt out shell on it’s way to the scrapyard on a low-loader. That car outside can not be the car it says it is”.

Ouch! Not good.
After me explaining that I had bought it in good faith after saving up and also HPI’ing it (of which it was clear!) he agreed not to say anything to anyone, despite casually mentioning that some of his mates were in the Police force.
So anyway, I can’t say I was surprised then, when a few weeks later I pulled up outside the pub to have a game of pool and a pint, only to see a police van pull up behind me.
Policeman says “Do you know the history of this car?” I say “Erm, no”. He says “Well it’s on our list to be seized”.
Oh dear. After a chat he said “You seem like a decent lad and it’s registered to you so I’ll let you drive it home if you present it at your local station next week to inspected”. “Ok” says I.

The day came and my dad, reluctant to get involved, took it round as I was working. He received a phone call from the inspector after a few hours. He said “Well we don’t think this car is what it says it is, but at the same time we can’t say what it is or was, so you can have it back”. Wow! How lucky.

I promptly put it up for sale but being honest I was telling any prospective buyers what had happened. Needless to say it didn’t sell. So I ended up swapping it for the car below.

Rover 216GTI




The least GTi-like GTi I’ve ever been in. My mate worked at a garage and convinced the salesman to do a swap. On the day I got the call from my mate to say “bring it down” I was meant to be going on my first foreign holiday to Tenerife with my girlfriend and her parents. You know, the posh one with the amethyst ring.
I dashed down to the dealers though, to strike while the iron was hot and did the swap. Now at this point I could have headed home and made it to my girlfriends with time to spare, but wait! I have bigger problems. This Rover of mine has no stereo. That just won’t do. So me and my mate set about fitting the stereo from the RS. All went well until I tried to start the car. It span over but wouldn’t fire up. I ended up ringing my old man and he said “There’s a fuel cut-off switch behind the stereo”. He was right. Flicked the switch and it started. What a strange place for a cut off switch.
So I got home, ditched the new sports mobile and arrived at my lasses half an hour late. No harm done and an endearing way to start the holiday with the in-laws.

Well after the sun, sea and not much sex, due to sharing the same apartment as her parents I returned home and enjoyed the Rover. Well I say enjoyed, it was more a case of tolerating it and being grateful to see the back of the RS.
The Rover had the Honda motor which wasn’t bad but it lacked anything particularly special. It also had some strange badly carpeted door cards. Now I don’t mean acoustic cloth carpeted door cards. I mean Homes Under The Hammer rental flat style, brown carpeted door cards. What on earth had happened to those was anyones guess.
So I needed a change, but where could I go from this lull. What would make me feel like the hip-happening young man I really was?

Another XR3i convertible of course.




This was a nice thing I bought locally. A bit livelier than the first one but still no ball of fire. I lowered it a bit more and removed the silly number plates.
It leaked just like the other one but hey it was a convertible. That’s all that mattered. Actually it wasn’t. Speed mattered, so I quickly got bored again.
I decided to get rid after a couple of months, mainly as we’d had a lot of rain and the interior was starting to smell a tad foisty.
The final thing came when I dropped my girlfriends parents (yes the same ones) off at a local pub for a night out.
As her dad got out of the passenger seat he said “Hey! That seat’s wet!”. Me “Hmm, yes. It does that sometimes”. He had a big dark patch on the arse of his jeans. He told me the next day, him and my girlfriends mum had to go round in tandem all night with her following him to hide his wet patch.

So what could I get after the convertible? Something totally different that I hadn’t had? Of course not.
Another RS Turbo.




This time I did it properly. The car was mint having been fully restored. I px’d the cab. It was a private sale. A guy who worked with my mate Ralf.




All was well with this one for a while. Until one day I decided to get it on the rollers, you know, just to check the thing was making proper power. The tuners rang me to say it’s making 150-odd BHP, which is fine.
I took the car home and thought “I have some spare cash left why don’t I have it chipped?”.
My dad, that knowledgeable guy that I had kept ignoring up til now said “Leave it alone. You fiddle with them and they blow up.” “Yeah yeah, it’ll be fine” says I.

Oh how I laughed as those words circled around in my head a few weeks later as I was propping up the smouldering bonnet at the side of the road, while my mate Craig (the mate who’d got me the Rover, but I’d forgiven him by now) put out the flames with an extinguisher.

I’d just got it back from the tuners and basically they’d trapped the little air pipe that goes to the ecu to tell it when the car is on boost. Because no air was getting through, the ecu wasn’t adding more fuel so it just went bang.
After a pricey rebuild, it still never ran great, with a massive flat spot just before the boost came in so I decided to get rid.

By now I’d have been 21 and the Jap import thing was getting big. It would have been 1998/9. A local garage specialised in them so I traded the RS in for a rip-off price, as is the way with dealers, and bought this.

Toyota MR2 Turbo.




This car was great. Low slung seats, high transmission tunnel (that isn’t actually the transmission tunnel) and most of all pop-up-headlights. I turned the boost up a bit (nope, I still hadn’t learnt!), fitted some over the top Jap exhaust called a HKS Hyper medallion or something bonkers like that and new Momo wheels.




All was good for a few months but then my mate Ralf said one day “We are 21 and can do our direct access. Do that you can jump on anything”.
Now I’d had field bikes from the age of 7 thanks to my dad who used to race bikes with my uncle, but I’d given up on road bikes at 17 after looking into it and my parents not being keen.
Me and Ralf did our direct access together which was fun. Especially the time he joined onto the A1 with his lefthand indicator on instead of right. I thought the instructor was going to have a seizure. “We all just heard “INDICATOR! INDICATOR!” through our headsets.

We both passed anyway but I stuck with the MR2 for a little while. Ralf already had his bike before he passed. A VFR400 NC30. Like a mini super bike with the single sided swing arm etc. After a couple of months he said he was buying a brand new GSXR750 so I said ok I’ll have the VFR.
So the MR2 went in favour of the VFR and a MK1 Golf convertible. Yep, living the dream again!




Anyway, I’ll have to leave it there for tonight I think. I’ll continue another day if anyone is reading. We are almost up to digital photos too.

I'd just like to add that some of the above purchases were silly, but I was a young lad with a hunger for cars, so despite all the best advice I sometimes made some bad choices. Read on though to see that I actually do eventually realise my dad does in fact know what he's on about and that I should have listened to him a lot sooner.

Edited by marky911 on Wednesday 15th March 00:16

[marky911]

Thanks very much lads. I’ve enjoyed all the memories flooding back after digging through my old pics. I can remember songs I used to play, people etc. What’s scary is it doesn’t feel like 15 years ago.
I usually try and answer people individually but time is against me this week so just take this post a big group hug.
In answer to a couple of points that were mentioned, yep I did have some bad luck. Although some would say you make your own luck to an extent, so I did only have myself to blame…. and Max Power. Seriously though I am jinxed with cars and if a certain model has a common fault it will happen on me.

Insurance was a major hassle. For my first couple of years as much went on insurance as the cars almost, but the yoof of today have it just as bad. Some years I’d take out insurance on one car only to find the company wouldn’t insure me on the next so I’d have to cancel, lose the few months NCD and start again with a different company.
If I’d been sensible I could have got into nicer cars a lot sooner, but who wants to look back and say “Oh yeah! I was sensible back then alright”.

10 points for spotting the TSW Venoms or Scorpions as one policeman called them once.
We used to park up in a carpark in the next town where my mates lived. There was a road from the town carpark that ran along the back of the town to a petrol station. We knew the lad who worked in the kiosk and he used to let us in late at night so we could drink the coffee and blow random objects up in the microwave.
So this one night my mate Maccy in his Nova GTE said “Race you to the garage!” I was in the cab. He won. As we pulled in though, after red-lining it in every gear along the road in tandem, there was a police riot van parked up with 3 policemen in it. They came over and said “Good race lads?”. Obviously we went all coy and said “Not us”. They said “We heard you for ages before we could see you”. We said “Yeah fair enough, sorry, it was a bit daft”. They just said “Nice cars, just calm it down around the doors”. Then one of them says “Cor! thats those new scorpions isn’t it?”. Gave us a chuckle. I said “yeah, well venoms” not really wanting to correct him. “Yeah nice those. See you later lads”. We put some fuel in and headed back to the carpark at a more sedate pace. Ten minutes later the police came past, seen us parked up and gave us a couple of seconds on the blues n twos and a cheery wave. Proof that not all police were bad.

In fact I had a lot of run ins with the police (I had a shoebox full of producers), just due to being a young lad tooling about in cars and the majority were really good about things. I can’t actually ever remember coming away from a ticking off thinking “I didn’t deserve that”. Even the time I nearly took the front off a jam sandwich by missing a mini roundabout out. It was midnight, I didn’t do that during the day.

Hi Craig LOH - Yep thought I’d make time to post. Need to update my house thread actually. Yep we have said before we had a lot of the same cars. We both preferred some but not others. We don’t really agree on the next car yet it’s one of the ones that got away when I look back now.

Re the Rover rossub, I couldn’t have hated it that much as you’ll see. Twice, no thrice.

Anyway, thanks for the kind words lads, I’ll try and get a bit more up to date.

By the time I had the 2nd RS Turbo I was lucky enough to start running an everyday banger too.These were mainly sheds that my dad came across in the trade not worth photographing, but I’d already subscribed to the “Nice car for nice days” thing and this helped with that. I also had the works van so rarely used either car day to day.

So the next few years were spent enjoying both cars and bikes, which meant a lot of washing. I used to love it when I was younger but I’d rather be riding/driving by this point rather than washing stuff. I couldn’t stop though, once it’s in you, it’s in you.

Anyway, the VFR400 stayed for a few months. I loved it and would have kept it longer but at 6ft I was just too tall for it, so every long ride would result in cramp in the wrists. It taught me the basics though, including falling off when I didn’t scrub my back tyre in properly before giving it a handfull of throttle. £1000 of plastics later and all was well. I sold it to a mate who then went on to properly smash it to bits. he even snapped the fork legs!

So a bigger bike was needed but I didn’t want to have too much money in a one for fear of coming off. One of the guys we went out with was selling this quite cheap so I bought it.

Yamaha Thundercat YZF600.
More of a sports tourer than a sports bike it was quite heavy with a steel frame, but I learnt to ride it and due to the fact it was cheap I rode the wheels off it without worrying about anything. It moved my riding on a lot and I was a happy as a pig in poop, mincing down the twisties with my tinted yellow headlight cover.




The Golf cab didn’t stay long. It was slow and didn’t handle that great. It also didn’t sound very nice so there was nothing to keep me interested. A mate of a mate was selling his RS Turbo Fiesta. I’d seen him years earlier when he paid mega bucks for it. We all used to do pizza delivery at nights after our day jobs. It was a fun way of earning a few quid while cruising about with our mates and we had some right laughs.
The price he wanted sounded very fair so I went and had a look. It was still mint and had no filler cap rust. This is probably my favourite Ford out of the ones I’ve owned. Yes you sit too high up compared to the Escorts and yes a Cosworth has more kudos but I just really enjoyed that little car, especially its burbly exhaust and the chirps back through the K+N that sounded like waste gate chatter. The escorts didn’t do this due to the different turbo setup/type.
I attended loads of RS shows with my mates (more on that soon) and got the car as clean as a whistle.






By now I was a bit more confident on the bikes so I bought myself this.

Ducati 748.




After a bit of fettling




With Ralfs GSXR. You'll see our mate Paddy's RS2000 in the back ground. He lived next door to Mark.




I bought the 748 from an older guy, Jon, who went out with us on Sundays. He was a fanny with it and was really quick but never looked stressed, just really smooth. Well I’d spent the last few years watching Foggy, then Hodgson, then Toseland battling out in WSB on 996/8s so I knew I had to have this bike.
Jon had just had it serviced and said ”It sounds more rattly since I got it back”.

Sure enough on my first 300 mile trip, first weekend out, the bike gets rattlier and rattlier. My mates were like “You shouldn’t have bought a Ducati, if you don’t like rattles!” But I have an ear for these things and I was right. It had spun a crankshaft bearing and the swarf had travelled all over wrecking most parts of the engine.
£1000 rebuild later it was ok, but I never really trusted it after that and the thought of it seizing whilst riding fast just hampered my learning, so I sold it.

So next my mate Alan who I’d bought the Thundercat from was now selling his ‘Blade that he’d bought when he sold me the ‘Cat. I’d already had a go and it was awesome. Standard can so no noise, you just twisted the throttle and took off, with only the wind noise increasing a bit. It was 4 years old and had had 6 former keepers! But I knew every one of them. 6K miles, as new.




Now next my memory is a little hazy about the order of these but basically I stupidly sold the Fiesta to buy something a bit more useable instead of having the RS sitting around and being seen in my 2 door Astra estate all the time, yep, MK2 2 door Astra estate. It had a little door on the rear wheel arch panel in the boot for the first aid kit, but when you opened mine you just saw the rear tyre, it was that rotten. So anyway, I bought this off my mate Craig. -

Rover 220 Coupe. Pic kinda gives away the next stuff.




This was a nice car. My mate Craig had started with a Renault 19 16V phase one, then moved onto this when I bought the MR2. It was lowered and had 17” alloys.
I do deserve a slap for selling the Fiesta for it though.

Now the RS and the blade were the last things I bought in my old job as van driver. I had a lucky break in about 2002. My mate Ralf, you know, the banzai indicating dude, was into CNC machining.
On holiday one year I said to Ralf “I think I’ll struggle to climb the car ladder any further. I’ll need to be moving out soon and van driving isn’t great”. He told me the company he worked for didn’t pay very well so they couldn’t get people. they’d had bakers and butchers applying! If I showed some willing, he reckoned he just might be able to get me in.
So I began a college course one afternoon a week, around my van driving job and got myself a city in guilds in CNC Machining. Ralfs boss gave me a chance and the rest as they say is history.

So back to the cars and bikes. From my first night in the new job I worked 19 12 hour night-shifts in a row. I had quadrupled my van driving wage. First thing I did was save for a flat deposit then rented it out. Then I bought this. -

1999 Yamaha R1. First model (4XV) but 2nd colour scheme.



I loved this bike and only sold it a couple of years ago after 10 years. The longest I’ve kept anything. Massive regret although I never dwell on regrets. I actually asked the buyer to sell me it back a month after I sold it but he wouldn’t. It was Immaculate. I took it from 7k miles to 20k. Which were mainly in the first 3 or 4 years. Other bikes came and went but the R1 always stayed.

I was still enjoying the Rover coupe for work (I obviously had no van anymore) but missed the Fords. Wasn’t too bothered but then this came up locally so I bought it -

XR3i Cabriolet SE500
One of the last 500 made. They were all Pacifica Blue with full grey leather.




I hadn’t had this long when the next car came up. Elderly retired, company director owner, shame P’heads wasn't about then. He’d bought it from Formula 1 in Newcastle so I knew it would be good. He’d had it for 7 years too.

Sapphire Cosworth 2wd. Magenta. (Seen above). 80k miles.





That isn't me in the above pics.

Now it was a totally original panel car but already had the 4wd vented bonnet. I preferred this anyway and also preferred the 4x4 rear lights. So I bought a set off Ebay. I took them to work on nightshift and washed them out. I was struggling to get all of the water back out of the reflectors so thought “I know, I’ll drill a small hole behind it and put my air line in.” Boom! There goes my rear light. Pieces literally flew all over. One went over Ralf’s machine. He came round creased up, holding a bit of light lens. “Does this belong to you?”
I just went to Ford and bought some new ones the next week and did it properly.

Anyway, you'll notice less funny stories now. I think things got a bit more serious the more expensive the cars got. Or maybe I was just finally maturing. I'd realised that my dad actually did know what he was on about and that if something looks to good to be true, it usually is.
I have so many great stories but most of the daft ones were in the first 5 or 6 cars I owned. Things like my mate Scott crashing his 205GTi off the edge of Ingram valley into the river. My other mate Chris racing my mate Paul into Halfords car park one night when we were already parked up. They flew in and Chris turned in too soon clipping the kerb and launching his Mini Metro into the air on 2 wheels. It looked like a Russ Swift Demonstration for a second. He landed it, squiggled about a bit and kept going, sneaking off into McDonalds. The best bit though when his wheel trim, which had been dislodged in the take off came rolling across the car park and fell over right next to us, in a comedy fashion, like when a coin stops spinning. Good times, if a little daft.

Anyway, More pics less talking next.......

Edited by marky911 on Sunday 26th March 12:33

[marky911]

We will be up to 2005 ish now. I'd worked hard for a couple of years, had split with Amethyst girl and went clubbing a lot. 18 months is a blur really. I now had 2 flats rented out and a 3rd for me. My mates were all doing property and said offload now, so I did, apart from my own flat that I lived in. I'd learnt as much as I could at the company I was at and my foreman had moved on, back to a cutting edge engineering company. He offered me a job so I went. Much more money, steep learning curve but rewarding..

The Rover and Xr3I cab had gone and I bought my first BMW. An E36 320 coupe with M bits on it. No photo.
I liked it so thought I’d buy a 328 Sport that a dealer mate got me.
Nice car. It had come with the proper RC rims but they were knackered and I wasn’t interested in fragile split rims on a daily workhorse, so I changed them for the M3 replicas off the 320. I know I need another slap. Whats worse is they were the same width all round.




I still had the Cosworth but the RS owners club for the most part was full of strange people, so I didn’t really enjoy it as much as some. I liked the cars and travelling to events but that was it. My mate Paddy had restored his S1 RS Turbo and we were at Donnington for the RS day. We were giving the car a wipe down when some guy came past with his mate and said “OOH, Bosch headlamps. It should have Carrello’s on that year.” That’s when I decided it was a good time to leave the RS club.

I kept the car for a little while but one day I seen an advert for a 911 in the Autotrader, which was still limping on as a paper publication, just. Now I’d loved 911s since I was knee high, then No Mans Land further cemented that when I was about 13.
I didn’t know 911s though and didn’t have time to research them. Bad move!
I went to see this and it was all black and shiny. We went out in it and it drove ok but made a bit of a ticking noise. Probably blown exhaust I thought.
So I bought it.




Now this car was a 1975! impact bumper car that had been wide-bodied at a later date and changed frm a kermit the frog green narrow car, to a white 930 Turbo rep. Then at a later date again it had been turned into a Black 964 Turbo rep!

Now I knew all that but it was cheap at £7k so my RS plus £2000. What I didn’t know was that those engines only made 150BHP. Uh-oh, I had a proper sheep in wolf’s clothing. Worse still the ticking wasn’t blown manifold, it was snapped head studs.

I had it rebuilt but it was too slow, so I fitted a 3.2 carrera motor which livened it up a bit but apart from the looks and noise it wasn’t that good. Infact my 328 for work was a nice car to drive quickly. I had it for a year and had spent another £7k on it. i sold it for £10k which was lucky.

Next was a lovely car. Again, aftermarket rims but I loved it. A proper car.

964 Carrera2 manual coupe.




I bought this from a local Porsche specialist.
4 owners full history and just great.

I only had it for a year though when my mate said he was selling his 964 Turbo. I could just about stretch to it if i beg stole and borrowed.
He gave me the Turbo and said “Pay me once you’ve sold the white one”. So for a while I had 2 964s on the drive.





Now the Turbo was good. 4 owners, 90k and owned by my mate Andy for 4 years. He was getting into motor racing now and changed cars a lot anyway, hence the sale. It wasn’t great though. Dodgy aftermarket rims, even by my standards, faded paint and generally need a good bit of bringing back to life.
I changed the wheels for some period tech art items, fitted a 3.8RS rear wing, clear indicators (I know, I know), and enjoyed it.



I fitted a 1bar boost spring instead of the standard .7 bar item and all was well for a while. One day though I was driving along and it started making that familiar ticking sound. Uh-oh, engine rebuild time. £6k later(and that was at mates rates from Jamie Nelson, more on him later) and it was back, sporting full top end rebuild, SC cams, new tin ware, etc etc. i kept this for 5 years and enjoyed every minute. If I could choose one car to have back it would be this.

Next I was still enjoying the bikes so I decided I wanted something to go alongside the R1. Now in 2005 Suzuki brought out a GSXR750 Anniversary edition sporting the 1985 paintjob, 2 cans, loud and quiet, a numbered plaque on the headstock etc.
I almost traded my R1 in back then for the £8199 GSXR, but couldn't bear to part with it.
Fast forward 2 years and I have a look at used ones. They were selling for about £5200-£5500. Then a one pops up. Never been sold, unregistered, so will go onto a 57 reg. £5999!
I was straight on the phone and bought it unseen from Kent. Delivered for £200 so £6200.
I was over the moon.



Now I was going to put this in my living room if it had 0 miles on the clock and just have it as an ornament. Totally stupid idea though and when it turned up t had 2 miles on the clock anyway.

At the same time my work mate was getting divorced. He had an old Fireblade that he needed shot of. He said “Mark just give me a grand and it’s yours”. I don’t care if you just want to sell it on, I need rid.




I kept the R1 and GSXR at my mate Craig's and my 964 and blade at mine, as I was using the blade for commuting on as I working on the other side of the Tyne, hence using the Tyne Tunnel twice a day.
After a few weeks though I realised that by the time I got all my gear on and unlocked the bike at both ends, it was no quicker than sitting in the traffic in the car with the heaters and stereo on.
So I sold the blade.

More to come.....

Edited by marky911 on Wednesday 15th March 00:39

[marky911]

Cheers Craig. Like I say not as many daft stories spring to mind (even though 2004-2008 were some of the best years of my life for car laughs and banter) and I have my grumpy night shift head on today which may be apparent in my writing style.

The fiesta was a torque steery little thing but it got under my skin. Some things do eh.

[marky911]

Thanks lads, glad it's striking a chord with a few people. I knew there must be a few on here like myself, who had progressed through some right st-heaps but come out the other side with some taste in tact and gone on to lead a normal life. Not that I regret a minute mind.
Go on Clark rub it in! I hope your beauty is still doing well. That will be one of the best in the country now.

Back to the cars.....
So now it was now about 2008 and I met my girlfriend, now wife. I’ve now got a Citroen Picasso and life is dull. The End.

Just kidding, The cars didn’t end and my wife is fantastic. She also knows how much I love my cars and rarely whinges about anything, unless I really take the pee.
I’d had about 3 years of going away motor racing with my mates Andy and Clough (Paul) every weekend. We’d done Le mans every year since 2004, mainly in the RV, but also once by flying there and once in the cars.
We’d done countless morning blasts out to Hartside cafe etc, so I felt it was a good time to settle down. Plus the fun didn’t end there anyway.

Hartside run with the lads from home.



My mate Andy who sold me the 964T bought the grey 550. My mate Craig had progressed to the Cerb 4.5.
I later had the chance of the GT3 in the middle for £35k or the silver 360 Spider for £38k. Guess what I chose.

Hon Fleur, en route to Lemans 2008



Le mans camping 2008




So like I say I met my wife and carried on with the car fun. Since I'd sold the old Blade i got off my mate, I decided to change the daily runaround 328 Sport. I asked my mate Andy who's a car dealer to find me a cheap M3.
Voila!



£3000! Bargain. Well sort of. The power hood didn't work and guess what! The front corners of the roof leaked exactly the same as the Escort cabriolets. I was instantly taken back to 1997.

Right, not a lot a changes as far as my good car goes for a while, but I carry on swapping the daily a bit, get into track days and then my lass gets the car changing bug. Oh no, what have I done.

I'm off for a nightshift now. To be continued...

[marky911]

Morning. Again, massive thanks for the comments. Much appreciated. I will update things when I can. Still plenty of cars left.

Quickie update today as I’m off to bed. Just tying up some forgotten loose ends for my own OCD.
I had one more car I forgot about, straight after the silver Rover coupe. It was exactly the same car but in dark blue with less miles and in better condition. I swapped the wheels with the silver car then lowered it with the same suspension.
I was spurred on to sell the silver one as it almost let me down one day. I’d been up all day since 8am Monday morning, then done a 12 hour nightshift 8pm-8am Tuesday morning, then went to college for 9am on the Tuesday morning til noon. I was heading home for 6 hours sleep before Tuesdays nightshift at 8pm again when the Rover began overheating. I was so tired but I pulled in to let it cool for a while, as it was in the red.
I let it cool a bit but it didn't drop much so I figured head gasket, it’s buggered. I just thought “Well it’s knackered now and I need my bed so I’m driving it till it dies!”.

I headed for home and stopped once more 5 miles from home. It wasn’t cooling down though so I went to set off again. The engine was so hot it had almost seized. It would hardly turn over. It just fired up and I made it home. My dad had a look as I just went straight to bed and it turned out it was just a sticky thermostat. Took it out, filled the system, right as rain.
I used it for a while longer, whilst looking out for another to switch the wheels onto, then sold it. I was amazed I hadn't killed it! No pics but the blue one looked nice.

Just one pic for this morning of a I car I very nearly owned but didn’t. My mate Ralf’s 3 door Cosworth.
Once he’d bought the GSXR he never used the car, so decided to sell. He’d have given me it for £6k!
It was mint. I was just about to get rid of the Thundercat for the Ducati though so it was one or the other. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, I went for the Ducati.
Anyway, like I say, nearly mine but not mine, but everyone likes a picture of a Cosworth don’t they?
The nose of Paddy’s S1 turbo can just be seen in the background too, during it’s strip down.

So apologies for a bit of a pointless post. I'll do a better update next time with some interesting stuff again.

[marky911]

Hey Smelly Sox it's not just the price of the Cosworth that's gutting, the 964s will reallly upset me when I look at the classifieds in ten years time.

Thanks for the comments DG and Sinbaddio.

Hi Rustic, I'm a Cramlington lad, then I moved to South Beach, Blyth for a year or so when I met my wife. We now live 5 miles out of the back of Morpeth.
I sort of missed the flour mill cruises. I was either into bikes more by then or just a bit older. When we were young, up to the time I had the MR2, there was only Sunderland and the police sort of killed it off. Sods law, as I grew out of driving around at night, cruises kicked off properly up here, at Silverlink, Team Valley, the Mill and also out the back of Durham.

We used to go clubbing at Shindig every Saturday. It was in Foundation for years along towards Byker, then it moved to the centre of Life didn't it. Good times!
I just seen your M3 in the show us your front end thread. Very nice. I haven't owned an E46 M3 yet. I've driven a few that my mates have had in. Plenty quick enough. Enjoy!

Hi Jaacck, my dad doesn't know everything there is to know, just everything there is to know about cars. Nah just kidding! He's old skool so he's not big on say ECU programming, etc. Having said that he''s bloody good with car electronics. He started his apprenticeship when he was 15 and retired a few years ago at 65. In those 50 years he worked at a few dealerships so was factory trained, Peugeot, Rover, Daihatsu, etc. He also had his own places for a decade at a time, doing normal stuff, then later on doing classic British sports cars. I suppose you have to be good when you work on your own as there's no one to ask.
There's never been a problem that's beat him, and that's gods honest truth. He'll just stick at it until he understands it and sorts it. I wish I had a tenth of his knowledge.

Righto, I'll try and get a bit added soon before I go to bed...

[marky911]

Ok so as I’ve said it was now 2008. I met my girlfriend in May and I still had the 328 Sport, so the M3 must have been very soon after. I ran that until the autumn as I was never (and still aren’t) too bothered about what I drive for work as if it’s good it’s just another thing you have to pamper, to an extent. It was quick and smooth, but the roof leaked, the soft top didn’t work and I hadn’t even had time to look into that as I’d had a good summer with my girlfriend, enjoying weekends away in the 964 or just lazing around.

My dad had got this Rover 75 in with the obligatory head gasket failure. He fixed it and it stood him £500, which is what he gave it to me for. That was a great price back then.



So as much as I say I’m not keen on Rovers this was Rover number 4. It served its purpose very well. Big, comfy and smooth although I got some grief at work. Even the director came down to see me one day, he’d had a B7 Audi S4 then a V10 M5. he just said “What the hell is that you’re driving around in!? I usually have a bit of respect for the stuff you drive. Sort it out man.”. Gave me a laugh anyway.

So 2009 saw the return of my 964T after its winter rebuild. Any big jobs I need doing on 911s I'd just drop it off at Jamie’s (Nelson Porsche, Stockton) in the autumn and leave it with him until spring. He can then do it at his leisure and that's reflected in the price.

Another couple of gratuitous pics. Why not. (The daft sticker wasn’t on for long.)





That brings us nicely onto Jamie and my next couple of cars. Me and my mate Craig had started out at Jamies as customers with my horrible black Frankenstein car, but we became mates. Jamie said in 2009 he was going to start doing track days. I hadn’t done any yet, despite my mates all doing them and progressing to racing. I had the big bill from the rebuild to get over first though.

Jamie stripped out a 306 GTi6, fitted sparco buckets, solid gearbox/engine mounts, Avo shocks, DS2500 pads, etc. Winter 2009 came and I decided to buy myself a 306 GTi6 to make a copy of Jamies, as it went well.

306GTi6.



I bought it on Ebay from Shorpe and me and Craig went to get it on Boxing day 2009. One of the few times my lass has complained about my car habit. I didn't see the problem though, Boxing day is just a lazy day.

Anyway, I looked at gathering bits in january and was sort of thinking “Can I be bothered?”. I was speaking to Jamie one day and he said “You know what, I actually wanted to do a 205 “GTi6” and still do so if you want you can have my car for £1500". Result. The gold car went on Ebay and I got my money back and I bought Jamies blue car.





I done 1 or 2 days early in 2010 and the car was great fun. It still had the essence of the old 205s but better balanced at the limit. It steered from the rear just the right amount, particularly at places like the Gooseneck at Cadwell when you switch direction and drop down the hill. Really good fun but It was easy and I could have spent another few years just getting a couple of seconds quicker, although I know out and out times aren't what track days are about.
My mate Andy would go out with me in the mornings as a passenger, then he’d drive and show me just how quick the car could actually get round the bends. It’s mind boggling at first. Once I’d seen that, I could then do the same. Is that cheating?

So, maybe prematurely, I decided to sell the pug. A guy flew over from Ireland and drove it away to catch the ferry.

I then bought this. Global GT Light.











Now this was designed and built by Graham Hathaway of BTCC fame for a one make race series. They started out using mid-mounted 600cc bike engines but mine had a 180bhp R1 engine in. With only 390KG, slicks and a big wing it was ballistic……. when it worked!

Even getting this thing home proved hard work. I bought it from Canterbury which is a long old trek from Newcastle. I set off with my dad at 5am in his old Volvo tow car aka “The white horse”. We arrived at 11am ish. Now a condition of buying the car was that we took the trailer. “Great I thought. Who wouldn’t want a free race car trailer?”. When we seen it though, it was more “Farmer Giles” than “Brian James”.
It was like an old German farm trailer with huge wheels on. The bed was almost as high as the Volvos roof. It had no lights so you couldn’t see how far past the car it stuck out and we also had to wait for the seller to go and buy a number board for us.
Anyway, we were there and wanted to get it home so off we went by about 2.30pm. Well that’s when the weather turned. Torrential rain meant speeds down to 30mph on the A1, although that didn’t stop the 30 ton artics flying past. Traffic everywhere. I think we were barely past Dartford by teatime. Now I’ve worked nightshifts and mega hours but that trip was a proper endurance test. Me and my dad were wrecked. We got back home at 1am and just went to bed. The car wasn’t really secure having an open cabin and no alarm or locks but I thought “If they can get it off that trailer they deserve the bloody thing. "


So for my first track day I headed down to Cadwell Park with it on my own. My mates were now into racing season so didn’t need track days for setup. I wasn’t bothered. I was far too excited for that.
So we do the warm up laps then get let out, I do about 5 laps then suddenly see loads of steam and get showered with red hot water.
The temp gauge had suddenly shot up and I’d lost the coolant. Now the header tank is conveniently mounted on the rear bulkhead behind the drivers right shoulder. You can see it in one of the pics if you look. It’s also just below the cut out in the rear clam for the roll hoop, so the coolant could spray straight out and land on me. Great.
Back in the pits I rang the seller, a so called motorsport company and he said “It’ll just be the cap on the tank”. So off I went driving around Lincolnshire to find a cap. It was a Ford part. No joy, so back to the track for the afternoon session. PTFE taped the cap, got another 5 laps then it blew again. I’d used a pop bottle to make a shroud for the header tank so at least I didn’t get burned. You can see in the first pic though that I'm leaning to the left just incase. The coolant would also blow all over the rear tyres and cause me to spin. Nightmare day!

I rang the seller again once I'd got home and he said “Honestly it’ll just be the header tank cap”. I bought 2, 1 for spare obviously and booked another track day. Now I can’t remember where but I think it was just at Teesside Autodrome, 60 miles away. Just an old karting track really. Surprise surprise it just did the same again, so I knew it was head gasket. So I’d learnt the hard way that you can’t really safely buy a race car unless you get it to a track. If it’s not road legal you just can't test it.
When we viewed it we’d run the engine but if there’s no airflow through the rad it just heats up. It was a poor cooling system with a tiny almost horizontal rad. maybe ok for the 600 but not for the R1 motor.

Anyway, we swapped the engine for one we’d been given with the car which had apparently come from a low mileage crashed bike. Yet when we fitted it it already had the same mods needed to work in the car and a sump baffle. Hmm. So we didn’t know if we were just fitting the last engine it had killed. Luckily it worked though and the temps could be kept sort of ok.

My first track day at Teesside and the car was flying but I mustn’t have secured the engine harness up to the bulkhead properly. I felt a hick every couple of seconds for a few bends then it just cut out. I suddenly seen a melting wire track its way along the harness from the rear of the car to the dashboard. Basically the harness had dangled down and melted on the exhaust manifold. Bugger, mucho rewiring needed.

My dad helped me strip the harness back and replace any melted wires. it was mainly the single ignition wire throughout the car to be honest, apart from the bunch that had hit the manifold . I got it out again once before winter, did 2 laps and snapped a driveshaft. Home time. AAARRRGGGHHH!

Undeterred me and dad decided to do things properly over the winter. We rewired the whole car adding in proper cutoffs, newer style dash and switchgear, repainted the body in the garage at home as every bodyshop I asked didn’t want to touch it. I only wanted it red and all one colour, not a show car finish, but they were all scared little girls.

I found a supplier of excellent hardly used Michelin slicks, instead of the hard, ancient Avons it was. No wonder it was like driving on a knife edge.
The car was transformed. It was a flying machine. Still unreliable though. I had the front brakes seize on solid, gear shifter issues, etc, etc. I ran it until August 2011 by which time I was fed up with spending more time crawling around underneath it, than driving it. My last track day was Croft to make sure it was reliable and working properly to sell. It went well and I hardly got passed all day apart from my mate Andy in his 700+bhp Ford Falcon ex-Austrailian touring car.

I sold it and pretty much broke even, obviously not including all my man hours but that’s what hobbies are about aren’t they.

Moral of the story - Bike engines don’t work in cars. You’re giving the gearbox which used to have engine braking from a tiny bike tyre contact patch, forces from two fat slick car tyres. It hammers the transmission, plus the cooling was always a bit close to the limit for my liking. It was like the Ducati. My confidence in it had gone and I was spending all day watching the gauges rather than enjoying the track day.
The other thing I didn't like about the car was that your legs were the crumple zone. (Pic from day we collected it)



Anyway, if you’re still awake, the Rover had now gone as I had bought the white horse off my dad for towing the Global. At first i’d just leave the Volvo at my mates yard, using the Rover for work, but it seemed pointless so I sold it and used the white horse as my daily driver. £250 of Swedish squareness. 185K on the clocks.



My dad had given £250 for it 7 years before. Cheap motoring for him. He’d towed his caravan all over the country with it and it did me proud with the track car.
The timing belt once snapped on my dad down in Cornwall. He told the AA guy to bring a new belt. They fitted it at the side of the road and off he went again. Non-interference engine. Good stuff!

Right, off to bed.

PS I was going to take the company that sold me the Global, to the small claims court after speaking to my local trading standards people, but decided against it when I weighed up the time off work, hotels, etc, as I would have to attend the Canterbury court. If I did lose it would have been daft.

Edited by marky911 on Saturday 24th January 16:56

[marky911]

Well it's the weekend so I'll take a few minutes to answer people properly. I should be working on this old house that has nearly killed me over the last year but i can't be bothered.

rainmasterb said:

Great read! Looking forward to the next episode...

How refreshing to find somebody not afraid to hide his Max Power roots! When I was reading it, back in the early to mid 90s, it was fairly respectable and it was a dream come true to have two of my letters published! Sad sod! Then imagine my elation when an ex MP writer turned up to take a job in our press department at work!

You say that you can match the cars you had to music you were listening to at the time. I can match music I was listening to or holidays I was on with the Max Power edition I was reading! I might start a petition to revive it, but without the t***ts!

Wow! You sound like you read it even more than me rainy.
I can't remember every issue but can remember the project cars. Project XS, the wide bodied E30 and Project Thunder, the yellow Carlton GSi with 3 spokes! that the winner then crashed. In the crash pics you could see all the original red paintwork everywhere. It must have had such a quick flash over on just the outside.
To be honest Fast Car used to do some better projects like Project Stealth, the black 205GTi with TSW Stealths on.

My fave Max P feature car was a white Renault 5 GT Turbo, with iirc TSW Hockenheims on. It was really low. The title was "Deep,low,burble". I only realised what they meant when I first heard an Escort RS Turbo. The old Turbos do have a great sound, whether Ford, Renault, whatever.

Cfnteabag said:

I was always into the max power era as well, i actually watched one of the old max power dvds on you tube the other day!

I never had the money for anything decent, we just used to modify ropey hatchbacks with parts from the local scrappys!

It does seem crazy that out of all the modified car mags it is the worst of the bunch that had survived!

Yeah, I was surprised when Max Power went. The scene got bigger but the biggest mag went. I didn't have much money to be honest.

rusticm3 said:

Yeah i love the M3 mate great all rounder. I went to Foundation too, Promise on a Friday night for me it was great that place, great atmosphere.

Yep, enjoy it rustic. I'm sure I'll have one at some point. I'd forgotten about the Friday night, Promise, yeah. We only done it a couple of times. We could only hack one night a week. Out on Saturday night til 4am when the club shut, then back to some house party somewhere in Newcastle, going home at lunchtime on Sunday, then recovering for 3 days, if you know what I mean. We ended up in some right strange places. One week we'd be in a luxury apartment on the quayside, the next week some hovel off Westgate Road. Strange times, but good times. I couldn't do it now though.


Cheers Matt and SM. Glad you can relate to it. Like I say, it's pretty much the experience most petrol heads had growing up. I've got literally dozens of daft things that happened but if I list too many it'll look like bullish*t. So many funny experiences though.

Barryonyx - Cheers. Yep the VFRs are mega cool little bikes. I've been watching a few on Ebay lately. If you're six foot though they're only good for maybe a blast to Rothbury and back. A nice little thing to collect though. When I had mine we were doing Cramlington - Haydon Bridge - Hartside - Kendal - Devils Bridge - Hawes, then back the same way. 300 miles in a day. Sore wrists.

I don't remember the import place near Quayside. Typical as I even worked at the bottom Byker bank for a couple of years. Mine came form Bebside. Bunch of crooks. They're gone now. Vine Place was the big one really, down near Ferryhill, Durham. They knew how to charge though.
If I could have a Cosworth or MR2 now, I'd take the Cosworth, even a Sapphire. The MR2 feels sportier and is a better B road blaster but for something rare to keep hold of the Cosworths are a nice thing.
As you found out though you had to watch the MR2s a bit. Mind you I spun my Sapphire too, so....

Owensy86 said:

What a fantastic thread, I too can relate to so much of what you are saying, especially with regards to listening you some of your Dads advice or not listening as the case may be.

I too am from Cramlington and I loved seeing the picture of the two white Escorts outside what appeared to be the Shell petrol station in Whitley Bay!?... However from what you are saying I think you maybe a little older than me (28) but I did go to foundation a few times but Spillers was place to be with the car and that's where I spent most Saturday nights then onto the 'the underground'.

can't wait for some more updates, keep them coming.

Cheers Owesny, yep I have nearly ten years on you. I grew up in the house in my early pictures, all my life until I moved out. My mam and dad still live there. They watched it being built just in time for me being born. Parkside Chase. A few of my mates still live around Ringwood Drive.
So yep, when you were out down at Spillers, I'd have been in Shinding or perhaps had even given up the clubbing by then.

That Shell garage is the one on the A690 at Durham, as that's where I got the car from. The Whitley Bay one was a regular stop off for Optimax though.

Smelly Sox said:

I have fond memories of Concordia in the 70s!

Haha! I have memories of it from most of my life. Some of them burned into my subconscious, like middle school swimming, getting my endeavour, which basically meant I could push myself off the side then sink gracefully at a 45 degree angle. I couldn't even scrape to the 5m mark. I later learnt though.

It's still there, just the same, looking awfully dated now though from the outside.

Nuttah said:

I love the fact that you threw in some regular sheds into history and still found positive things to say about them, too many people get used to nice motors and won't be seen dead in any old shed ever again a true piston head with no ego is a great thing

Thanks Nuttah, I agree, a genuine Petrolhead should be able to see something in most cars. I suppose fair enough if you've only ever had Ferrari's from the age of 18 you may not need to appreciate lesser cars, but I've enjoyed working my way up, always planning the next one. I do sometimes think about buying a 205 GTi or RS Turbo again, particularly at the minute as budget dictates, but as I've said, they say don't revisit your heroes and I'd hate to get an RS Turbo and think "This is crap". I doubt I would think that though. They sound great and are getting rare and I've always like them. We'll see.

bassett said:

Great thread, i enjoyed reading that and took me back to those good old days when me and my mates weren't so sensible.

Also thats an envious car list once you got into the porsches and kit cars, i've definitely got some catching up to do!
Adam

Glad it sparked some memories bassett. my head has been spinning sometimes since I started this thread, the places we used to go, the people. It's amazing what's still in the old swede when you start digging.

You could catch up to me quite quickly now I'm sure , as I'll reveal later in the thread. Without wanting to sound like some preaching American celebrity, it's a good reminder to appreciate what you have when you've got it. Speaking for myself if I see a guy drive past in something I can't stretch to, I always think "Jammy bugger, I hope he appreciates owning that." But then there'll be someone thinking that when I drive by in something a bit nice or rare. There's always someone with more, just enjoy what we have. Sermon over.

coopedup said:

Ilovejapcrap said:

I actually think this looks nice

Had the estate version a few years ago and apart from not being able to pull the skin off a rice pudding it was by far one of the most comfortable and capable cars I have owned!!

+1 for a great read, keep it coming please

I quite liked that too. I think I had it for knocking on a year. Really nice smooth comfy car. Not worth trying to go quickly in but I don't anyway on my commute. One fault that can and did happen is the deadlock jammed on the drivers door. Nothing would open it, so we had to pull the door card back (not easy with the door shut) and tap away at the mechanism in the back edge of the door, with a small toffee hammer. Luckily it's plastic, so once it finally smashed, the door just clicked and opened. Doesn't sound too big a deal when i write it but it was a nightmare. Kneeling on the drivers seat backwards with my arm up the door. To be honest my dad sat for ages and finally got it done. See, I couldn't let him retire from my fleet managers position yet.

To be fair I had stopped bothering him with things as much by now. Jamie looked after my 911, but my dad still got roped in with my daily stuff sometimes and that bloody Global.


Anyway, I'll carry on if I get a spare hour over the weekend. Out tonight with some old mates/workmates, including my mate who I got the cheap blade off. I must add, that I did bung him another couple of hundred quid when I sold it on. I'm not a vulture. Ralf has done a no-show the douche-bag. He has a hot date with some nurse though, so I can't blame him.

Cheers chaps.

[marky911]

Ok, so not strictly mine but I had a say in buying them and I used them, so a quick post about my girlfriends cars.
When I met her she had this Micra. She bought it because it “twinkled” at her as she walked into the showroom. I almost said “That’s a ridiculous reason to buy such an expensive item”, but then I remembered that horrible black 911 I bought. Ahem.



The gearbox on the Micra was atrocious. You could literally almost not get it into gear. Obviously faulty I guess. So we sold it and bought this.
Lexus IS200.



Lovely car. So nicely designed. Everything was well done, right down to the door handles and switchgear. The Mark Levinson hifi is the best standard setup I’ve heard too. At the time though my girlfriend was working for a horrible head teacher and was so stressed. I said “Just quit love. We’ll manage. No job is worth that”.
So she did and had to go temping. Well despite telling the agency she only wanted local work they would send her all over. One week she put about £120 of petrol in and only earned about £300, so it had to go.

I took her looking at Mini Coopers. She didn’t need the S, although I had a go at pushing her towards one for my own selfish reasons.
We spent a weekend trailing around looking, yet the next weekend my lass announced “I’m going to look at this”. Imagine how elated I was when she showed me a Citroen Xzara Picasso.

No pics thankfully!

Now this is one of the only times I haven’t fully supported her. I told her not to get one and if she was I wasn’t going to look at it with her. Really mean of me actually. So off she toddled on her own and bought it.
To be fair it wasn’t bad. 1.6HDI and the MPGs were immense. Every time she pulled up in it though I said she looked like a 50 year old librarian lesbian (She was only 36). No offence if there any reading.

The car lasted about 3 months before I heard “I want a Mini Cooper”. We were busy doing up her house and had other stuff going on too so again I was a bit mean and said “Well I haven’t got time to detail the Citroen and advertise it, so look for a Mini at a dealers worth about the same as the trade value of the Citroen and we’ll go and do a swap”. Like I say, a bit mean but we had other things going on. In fact I was probably crawling about under that Global too.

Like I say, the only time I haven’t been supportive was with that Picasso. I wouldn’t be like that again but I know she also listens a bit more now when it comes to cars, so we both learnt from it.
So then we got this. Mini Cooper.



I didn’t really rate it at all, despite people raving about them. It was fun when travelling flat out but at all other times you were like a nodding dog. Stiff suspension and run-flat tyres. Just not a particularly nice way to travel. It had the usual corroded wheels too, so i was constantly blowing the tyres up for slow punctures.
She kept this for about a year but the tiny boot wasn’t great for her teaching stuff and the ride was annoying.
We then went looking at other things. She missed the Lexus so we test drove the newer shape diesel but weren’t bowled over by the mpgs on the test drive. Plus it was pushing it a bit money wise. So we bought this.
Ford Focus 1,8 petrol.





It was 2 year old and the guy who’d bought it new was retiring and didn’t need it as they were keeping his wives cabriolet. It had 15k miles on the clock and was like new. I think we gave £6k for it in 2010. Not a bargain but fair.

She still has this, having just clicked over 40k miles the other day. It’s been faultless and I can still clean it up to look brand new. It’s the motoring equivalent of magnolia paint, a bit boring and dull but does it’s job well. It’s actually surprisingly fun on the twisties if you’re pushing on too.
My wife will upgrade probably this year sometime, once we’re on top of the house. She was all set to buy a MK2 TT TDi but then the house came up. We are more rural now though and it can get quite bleak out here in winter, so she fancies an Evoke or 4x4. We’ll see.

Anyway, back to my cars soon. She sees them as old bangers sometimes, where as I see new stuff as boring. If an 08 plate A4 drives past I don’t really notice, but if an E36 drives past I have a neb. We are opposites like that but she can appreciate where I’m coming from. That helps when I spend 3 days solid over a long weekend, in the garage with my machine polisher.

Edited by marky911 on Saturday 24th January 16:38

[marky911]

Thanks cooped up. Last bit for today......

Ok, so we are now up to maybe the end of summer 2011. I’d left my job at the good engineering place as the travelling was getting on my nerves. I was doing 12 hour nightshifts with an hours travelling each way, so out of the house for 14 hours a day. My priorities had changed and I wasn’t happy living to work. It was stressful, a right pressure cooker. The directors would always say to the lads “There’s no pressure in here, you make your own pressure”. Utter rubbish.
In another lucky turn of events an old workmate knocked about with a guy that lived over the road from my girlfriend. We were chatting one day and I mentioned wanting to leave where I was. He said “Come back to our place”. So I did. Back to the company that gave me my lucky break, from van driver to CNC miller. My nightshift foreman says I’m a failed wine delivery driver.

So I now had the R1, 964T and the white horse. I’d sold the GSXR as I’d got more into car track days, so the bikes just sat there. Plus my mate Craig had bought the Cerbera so needed his garage.
I sold it with 434 miles on, so not even run in. I’ve never missed it as I never used it, although it would have been nice to collect.

As said, the Global had gone, so i now had no real use for the Volvo. It was quite thirsty doing about 35-40 miles to a tenner so I figured if i was paying that for fuel I may aswell buy something a bit nicer. I was missing my E36s so set about looking for a straight one. I bought this -

BMW 318 coupe.

When I bought it -



After some fettling -









It was only the little 4 pot but it was totally straight and clean. It had a Z4 BMW head unit with iPod connection and was cheap to run, so it done me fine.
I fitted an M3 front skirt and added a set of genuine staggered M3 Evo Sunflowers and gave it a clean up. It looked well.
I ran this as my daily into 2012.

While I had this a relative of my dads neighbour was getting rid of this below. It wouldn't rev so he thought the engine was kaputt. He was offered £800 trade in so I said I'd give him that. We'd had a look at it and it would run lovely just not rev, so it was highly unlikely it was that serious, more electrical.





Sure enough £30 and a MAF sensor later it ran like a dream. I thought about keeping it instead of the 318 but it was an auto and still a little too rough to bring back to my standards without spending a bit on it. I took it for a drive up the coast at night once with the roof down and it was nice, but I decided to just sell it on. I doubled my money and it was still a lot of car even at £1600.


More to follow....

[marky911]

Afternoon! Really massive thanks for the comments. I’m back to the daily grind tonight so don’t have time to address everyone separately unfortunately, but honestly, It’s good to know it’s not boring people too much.
You always run the risk of being accused of willy-waving in these threads, but anyone who knows me knows I’m not a poser and anything I buy, I buy for it’s purpose/abilities.
I’m glad people are enjoying it. I’m certainly enjoying recalling things I’d almost forgotten and also reminiscing over which cars I liked best.

I’ll add one more vehicle today. Now I only had this for about 3 months but I’ll remember it for life and not in a negative way. You’ll see why in a minute. One of those key vehicles in my journey through life.

It was now autumn 2011 and having sold the Global and the GSXR I had a bit of spare cash for another toy if I wanted. I decided on another 964 C2 to go alongside my 964T, but long story short, they had risen to more than my budget. After looking for a couple of months and wasting almost £1000 on inspections (they were long distances away) I knocked the idea on the head.

So I toyed with the idea of selling the 964T for £25k and adding the £15k budget to it. I mentioned on a couple of forums I might sell and had a couple of people enquire but no sale. I never advertised it though as I loved it and wasn’t too sure I was doing the right thing.

Spring 2012 rolled around and I really wanted to blow my money and do something enjoyable. One vehicle I’d always longed for was a VW camper van, but the old air-cooled ones are just too slow to cover ground. I began reading up, I’d been buying mags for years on and off anyway and I noticed people fitting Subaru engines in later vans, “the Brick” T25. Not pretty but starting to look retro cool in certain guises. The conversion was easy due to this model already being water-cooled, well the later ones.

I found this one for sale on Ebay down in south London. Converted panel van, 2.5N/A Subaru Legacy engine, all camper converted etc. I asked the seller what his buy it now was and he said it had been £10k, but he’d take £9k. I said “I have £8200 so he said ok. I said I’d let him no for definite the next day. Well it was into the last 12 hours of the auction by now and only upto £4k-something so I thought “I’m about to pay too much for this!”.
So I watched the auction end and bid. Got it for £5200. A bit cheeky but you have to try. Can’t believe I nearly wasted £3k. I rang the guy up and he said “You just got yourself a cheap van didn’t you!”.

Anyway, this is what it looked like when I bought it -





A bit like the Global the fun started with the journey home.
Me and the girlfriend went down and stopped at her sisters on the Friday night, in Colchester. We got up Saturday morning and headed around the M25 to the 6 o’clock position, sorry I forget the name of the place.
The guy showed us round the van and all the paperwork totalling thousands. We shook hands and off we went, me in the van and my lass in her Focus. I led the way getting us onto the road home, the A1 or M1, I can’t remember which.
We got as far north as Donnington Services and stopped for a rest. My girlfriend was knackered and truth be told so was I, mind you my lass just couldn’t wait to try out the camper really. We hatched a plan to wild camp somewhere and head home the next morning. We bought some blankets from the services and headed off in to the countryside a bit.
We had a nice steak and a beer at a country pub and it was starting to get dark. I said “we better be heading off and find somewhere to stay.”
So we drove for a few miles my girlfriend still following in the Focus obviously and found a big carpark near a reservoir. Lovely setting with the sun going down.
We got out and had a quick walk to check out the area and it seemed fine. We no sooner got back in to the van though and a Land Rover pulled up next to us. This guy on his own just sat staring in. I said to my girlfriend “He might be the warden waiting for us to go”, but he just sat there. I got the map out to pretend we weren’t staying but he didn’t budge. I gave him a couple of inquisitive looks and he eventually drove away.
Two minutes later though and a Peugeot 307 pulls in and parks right next to us. Now this was getting silly. A huge carpark but people making a bee line straight for us.
I said “Come on we’re away” so we headed to a travel inn back at the services, not for a room, just to wild camp in their carpark. Hardly Outer Mongolia but hey.

Once we got settled I said to the girlfriend “Google that reservoir and see what comes up”. Sure enough it flashed up “Derbyshires number one dogging spot”.
Phew, I think we had a lucky escape. The pervs must have thought Xmas had come early. I pull up in a campervan looking like Shaggy off Scooby Doo and a lass pulls up next to me in a Focus and climbs into the back.
What an introduction to campervan life. Just our luck, honestly!

We basically bought the van with a summer trip in mind so I had a bit of prepping and redoing of things to get it up to scratch. We both worked really hard to get it sorted and put our stamp on it ready for our trip in July/August. My girlfriend got her sewing machine out and made curtains, bedspreads, all sorts. It was a real joint effort. Hard but really good fun. A proper team effort.

I fitted a set of van tyres instead of the cheap car ones it was on, added a roof rack, whitewalls and sorted loads of things out.

We were ready -







Our trip involved leaving from Colchester (thank god for southern relatives eh ), train to france then drive to Nancy for our first stay. We did this in one day. Quite hard going actually, the fan blowers packed up before we even left England and the van had a lovely big window for the sun to cook me through all day.

Anyway to Nancy in France -



We were only here for 2 nights so didn’t bother unpacking the roof rack. Lovely town with a great town square and restaurants etc.





Next it was straight on down to Switzerland. Interlakken (between-the-lakes), more precisely Lauterbrunnen. Beautiful place, just stunning. Green valleys surrounded by snow-capped mountains. Red hot too.








The view from our dinner table at night -



Now a guy at work had told me I must take my girlfriend up the Jungfrau. I said "Look we're not into that. We stumbled on that dogging spot by accident honestly!" , but he assured me he meant the mountain over looking Lauterbrunnen. He showed me it explaining there’s a rack railway to climb you up to the top, where there’s an ice palace, activities and great views.
It looked great and I kept banging on about it to my girlfriend in the run up to the holiday.
Here’s a few pics.

You can see the rack in the middle of the tracks. This enables the trains to climb really steep gradients.



Climbing away up out of the valley.



You'd think that the last town must be the last town , then you'd climb even higher and there'd be another.

Getting high now.





Once at the top it was amazing. We'd also, totally by chance, chosen to visit on the 100th anniversary to the day, of the opening of the railway and Swiss National Day, so there were special displays, etc and we got a little passport stamped, saying 100th year anniversary. Awesome day!

Ice palace!



Polar bear holding his plums. It was that cold.



Ice penguins



The saddle of Jungfrau. Sounds like a piece of S+M dungeon apparatus.



Wengen on the way back down. Again due to National day there were bands on and lots of hustle and bustle.





It was a really great day and when we got back to camp at night, again because it was Swiss National day there were fireworks going off all over. They’d echo three or four times in the valley. Again, such a lucky time to visit!




Now the next day we decided to have a lazy one as it was read hot and we’d walked a lot the day before. My girlfriend was so grumpy and at the finish I said something like “I bring you all the way out here and you sit with a face like a smacked arse!”. that’s when she told me she’d been expecting a marriage proposal. Oops!
We’d been together for 5 years and apparently I’d made such a fuss of the mountain she presumed there must something more to it. I’m a simple man so no there wasn’t. I was just looking forward to the ice penguins and a spot of sledging. Women!

Anyway, we got over it quickly. there’s no point falling out on holiday, we rarely fight at home, let alone on holliday. Next stop was supposed to be Italy but we nearly didn’t bother as there was so much to do in Switzerland, but we decided knowing how great this place was, imagine Italy was as good and we didn’t bother ourselves to go.

Next stop Lake Como via Lake Lugano -

Leaving Lauterbrunnen on a misty morning.




En route past Lake lugano.






Now by the time we got to Lake Como it was 1pm and baking hot. The sat nav kept getting us lost and we couldn't find our campsite. We looked at a couple of other ones but weren't too keen and after an hour of driving around the narrow roads, again being fried by the sun, I just said "Find us a bloody hotel!". So we did. Clean simple room, swimming pool and decent breakfasts.

Boy were we glad we'd made the effort to carry on. Lake Como was great. The weather, the food, the scenery, just great! I won't make it a thread of holiday snaps though. Well, not too much.






After Lake Como we headed back up through France. We stopped a night by a lake an English couple we met in Switzerland recommended. We were meant to stop for 2 or 3 but decided to push onto Reims and find another hotel. Quitters!
We had a good few days in Reims. Less pics of the van now as were hoteling it. We visited the old GP grandstands and pits. Really eerie. Very pleased I’ve been. The locals have been repainting the buildings to preserve them but I’d probably prefer them original. Nice of them to put the effort in though. We were up on the top floor of the grandstand and I heard a car coming pretty fast. I stuck my head out to see a 911 on UK plates fly past. Nice touch.

Reims GP buildings.






After a nice stay in Reims with some good pubs, restaurants and shopping we headed for home.

So apologies if this post is a bit self indulgent, it was the trip of a lifetime though, or at least one of them. Me and my wife worked as a great team and we had such a sense of freedom just hitting the road and doing things as we wanted. It made me realise what I already knew was true and that I should marry her. I had actually looked into it before the trip as our neighbour owned a bespoke jewellery shop but I hadn't left enough time to get a ring made. I was too busy fitting whitewalls and applying tyre-black.

The van did us proud and never missed a beat, bar the fans packing up. There were some dramas and issues like the extending pole from the awning springing shut and slicing right into the end of my thumb. We just bandaged it up though as I hadn’t driven all the way to Switzerland to sit in A+E.

The van developed one small fault of a clicking rear brake or driveshaft when turning right. That was worrying when climbing the steep mountain passes over the Alps to Italy. Also with it being lowered the tyres scrubbed the front arches when going over bumps. Not too bad normally but really bad with a full tank of fuel. Again adding to my disgruntled-ness by Como.
Also although it now had the Subaru motor in, the gearbox was the same old 4 speed and also, due to the shape of the van itself it didn't like being pushed through the air at much above 80mph, so we were still limited to just how much ground we could cover. We did do well over 400 miles one day though from Como back up into France.

All in all though a great van and a great trip. So how did I reward the van that carried us all over full of gear and becoming almost like an old friend?
Well we got back on the Saturday night and the van was driven off by its new owner on the Tueday afternoon.

Basically we bought it to do that trip. I’d used it as a daily car to ensure it’s reliability and now it was surplus to requirements as we wouldn’t get many more weekends away in it before the end of summer and it wasn't great as an everyday car. It sounded so cool mind you! people used to stop me everywhere and ask what was in it.

I put it on Ebay on the Saturday night and got a message instantly from a guy who repeatedly tried to buy it before I did, but he was away on holiday when the auction ended this time. He just said “I want the van, I’ll give you your asking price, no haggling. I’m not missing it twice!”.
He got the train up on the Tuesday and took it away. £6200 and I kept the roof rack and other parts as he already had one.

Another reason for selling was that more car changes were afoot. More on that next time….

Cheers.

Edited by marky911 on Monday 26th January 16:53

[marky911]

Thanks again lads.
Only a couple of years to update now, so about 5 cars left. 6 if i update it after Saturday as I've just bought another E36 to tinker with if I ever get any time that is.

Cheers for that Craig. That is gorgeous. To be honest though I'd rather have a standard one. I love the wheels and paint on that one but i don't like all these front mount intercoolers and silicone hoses. I'm getting old.
I do keep an eye out on Ebay and i maybe should have held out for one but I've just paid a deposit on an E36 328 Sport, funnily enough in Montreal Blue again like my last one. Off to Cambridge on saturday for it. It's off the other thread on here. Not perfect but sounds straight and the lad is only the 3rd owner and the first two were brothers. I just wanted something i can tinker with myself and bring back up to scratch over a couple of years.

I looked at M3s again but I don't go daft on the road and they're too heavy to track and I've always said the 328 Sport is the best of the bunch for performance versus running costs. I'll be able to tinker on and run it for a couple of years then hopefully keep it when I get another 911, but if I need the money out of it I shouldn't lose my shirt.

[marky911]

Ok, so after we got back in August 2012 and I sold the camper van, I needed another everyday car. My mate James had this E46 325 coupe. He got offered £1200 trade in. He was buying a Tow car for his track day 205GTi. I gave him the £1200 for it. I'd had 4 E36s but never an E46 yet. i fitted the BBS LM reps. It already had the stainless exhaust which sounded lovely.

Great car and in hindsight I should have stopped there for a year or two.






Better update next time.

[marky911]

Thanks for the comments. I'll answer properly soon and get the thread updated.

Been working mega hours but should have time over the next couple of weeks. Cheers.

[marky911]

Hi Henry, thanks for dropping in.
People always say this but I've been meaning to email you for ages, since new year actually to check you had a good one etc.

Aston Martin? Austin Maxi more like, with my budget. In fact, I bet even they are on the up and out of reach.

My next update (hopefully tonight) will be mainly about "the pinnacle" of my motoring life, which you know well.

Anyway, I'll drop you a proper email sometime. If you're heading to any events over the summer give me a shout and I'll try and get down.

[marky911]

Siko said:

Great write up on the Campervan trip.......not sure I could have sold it myself after such an awesome trip! Thanks for taking the time to write it up, keep it coming

Thanks Siko, it was a great van and if space and money were no object I would definitely have tucked it away. I knew for various reasons though that it wouldn't see much use at all for a long time if I kept it. Plus I needed the money back in for the next car.....

AGAR said:

I've just spent the past hour and a half reading this thread from start to your latest update. Loved hearing about your first few cars and the mishaps along the way.

I am in the habit of keeping the same cars for 3-5 years at a time, but having read this, I think I'm missing out on all the excitement (and maybe headaches?) of changing cars more often. Hopefully I'll be able to make a similar thread when I'm your age.

I also think your story is a prime example of how cars are so much more than just material items.

Looking forward to your next update.

Thanks for putting the time in Agar.

To be honest you’re probably doing the right thing keeping cars for longer. As I matured and looked back at how much money I’d spent by the age of 25, I thought “Damn, I should have just run a banger til now and bought a great car”.

However, your comment about cars being so much more than material items is bang on and looking back now I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s no exaggeration when I say cars have changed my life, from the friends I have, even down to my occupation. I’ll maybe elaborate when I conclude things at some point.
If you aren’t bored with what you drive then be happy and enjoy it. I was always looking for the next car as soon as I had bought one. Which brings us nicely onto the next post….

trowelhead said:

This thread is great

I've had 8 different cars since last jan so I know of this disease

One question, how do you handle all the comments from family / friends

"What you've changed cars AGAIN?!" Etc

Edited by trowelhead on Wednesday 28th January 23:42

Thanks trowelhead. Yes it is a disease we suffer from .

When I was scrimping and saving for the next car I’d always say to my parents “If I can only stretch to one of these I’ll not want anything else for years, honestly. It’s my dream car”. 3 months later it would be up for sale with me saying the same thing again about the next one.
My parents just let me get on with it. I wasn’t ticking on debt or anything and I was working hard to pay for them. I blame my dad as he always changed cars a lot, being in the motor trade and a petrol head.

samj2014 said:

Awesome thread, love the camper! I'd really like to do a road trip like this at some point, a decent van would definitely be on the cards if I had the cash. If not, my Octavia would probably do alright.
I've been to the alps a couple of times for mountain biking holidays and the scenery is truly amazing! I'd love to drive there some day - i was a passenger driving down the first time, and flew out the second time.

Hi Sam, definitely do it when you can. Just watch out if you do some 10 hour days at the wheel, a momentary lapse of concentration and you could switch back into driving on the left. I almost did once or twice and my wife shouted to tell me.

To be honest you could do it in your car just as well. Our camper was small and not a pop top so we couldn’t even stand up straight in it. I didn’t like cooking inside as it stinks all the bedding out, etc so we lived and cooked outside really. Mainly went in the camper to sleep. One night in Switzerland we had heavy rain so lay in bed and watched Senna on DVD but if we only had a car we would have just gone to the pub.

You go for the great outdoors so you’d be fine in a car and you’d cover ground quicker too. You’d also have more fun on the passes.

jk888 said:

Really enjoyed reading this, I'm also from the max power era in the 90's, the cruises, getting pulled over by the police and getting producers all the time. I've had a few cars, some of them have been ok, some of them have been absolute dogs, namely a B reg Nova SR I bought with blacked out windows and a big bore exhaust, it looked the nuts to an 18 year old lad but it fell to pieces within a month! Actually come to think of it I don't think I've ever owned a faultless car

Cheers JK, very much like me then. If you had a Nova SR back then you were cool, but my mate pulled up one day in an AX GT. He was instantly transformed into a king amongst men.

Who wants a faultless car eh? It’s the tinkering and spannering that forms the bond. I was talking to my apprentice at work the other day. He’s 18 and has an 06 plate A3 2.0T. He came out with “I tried to paint my callipers the other week. It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done”. I was like “What?! nothing is that hard, just have a go”, to which he replied “I’ll probably get the garage to do them”.
That’s where the young ‘uns are going wrong I told him. Buying expensive cars straight away so they’re scared to touch anything. I told him about the stuff I used to do and said we’d just have a go at things back then. I know there’s a lot of talented young lads (and lasses) out there too mind, but equally a lot of others just don’t seem to get in amongst it and have a go.

ruggedscotty said:

Sadly deluded.... Cars own us lol.

After the xtrail I got an Audi A6 and that has been a great car - Ill keep that till it can do no more. Oh and Ive a Z4 for fun....

Hi Scotty, indeed they do. (Hope you don't mind that I've cut your post down a bit. Just for space).

You’ve climbed a similar ladder to me then, with the old cars and erm, choice mods.
I remember Mk2 fiesta S models, as they were a cheaper alternative than the XR2. Yours was white as you say and it would have had black up to the door strips yes? I’m sure one was on my list to own, at some point.

My mate had Corsa 1.5D he used as a runaround. He used to run it on red diesel so it became known as the Cherry Limo. I used to borrow it sometimes and he’d spilt a gearbox in the back of it. When the sun came out it would stink like cats pee.
Many years ago though and I don’t condone using red diesel.

LouD86 said:

Come on then Mark, we are eagerly awaiting the next update!

stevec33 said:

Really fantastic read, youve had some great toys and great stories to go with them

jaacck said:

still enjoying the thread

Thanks, I’ll try and get it update. Really busy for reasons which will become clear later on.
Yes Steve I’ve had some great, hilarious times and adventures. No regrets.

Right, update to follow. Cheers.

[marky911]

Ok, so going back to 2008 for a minute when I bought the 964 Turbo off my mate Andy, that was a great feeling. I actually owned a 911 Turbo! I gave Andy £18k for it. At that point in time 964s were at their all time low. As further demonstrated by my C2 selling for £12k!
This was still big money for me though and I couldn’t ever imagine climbing much higher up the Porsche ladder.

Now my mate Paul (“Clough” as he’s known to us) had owned loads of nice cars but had been tyre kicking for a while. Well, he looked throughout 2008 for something and it became a bit of a joke at the pub when he mentioned his next prospective viewing, to which we’d say “Just get the seller to stack his wheels and tyres up on the drive so you can give them a kick and leave”.

Anyway he eventually bought something in Jan 2009. A Mk1 996 GT3 Clubsport in Guards Red.
Now we didn’t know much about it at the time but Paul mentioned it was rare. I still remember him coming to see me in it when he bought it. I was at my parents and we went out for a blast. I just couldn’t believe the noise this thing made. Simply spine tingling after 5000rpm.

A quick pic to break up the monotony of my words. (Actually taken from the brekkie run we did when I still had the Turbo.)




Now this was during the banking crash etc. Paul had paid £30k for the car from a dealers in Scotland. Now £30k to me back then was in the “I’ll never have that to spend on a car in my lifetime” area of my mind. Fast forward 3 years though and hmm…

I mentioned earlier looking for a 964 C2 to go alongside the Turbo. That was over the winter of 2011/12. I’d then mentioned selling the Turbo after a fruitless C2 search. Well in the spring of 2012 Paul was making noises about selling the GT3. At the same time I had a guy who had enquired about the Turbo over winter, get in touch about buying it again. So I let the Turbo go literally a couple of weeks before our campervan trip.
On returning from my trip Paul said there was a big chance he’d be selling the GT3 due to possible redundancy at work due to an ongoing dispute with an ahole boss.
Now, obviously I was really hoping for the car, but if I got the car it would mean my mate had lost his job, so it felt a bit weird. Should I wish for the car or not? I just let things run their course (in the meantime I’d sold the camper van on my return just incase) and sure enough one day in August Paul text and said “The car’s yours if you want it”. It was in my garage within the hour.
I got it straight away as I didn’t want Clough changing his mind. This meant a bit of trust on his part as it was a Sunday and I could only switch so much via internet banking. I paid the rest the next day and all was well.

Well Wow! Talk about dream come true. In the 3+ years Paul owned the car I had become more clued up about them and it was indeed a rare car. Only 28 UK Clubsport models had come to these shores and some of those had been written off, exported etc.








Being the CS model it had the full cage, Nomex buckets, fire extinguisher, safety cut-off switches etc.








The car was a totally straight, original panel car, known to a few Pistonheaders as the owner before my mate Paul used to track it quite a bit. It had very much been used as intended but cared for all the same. It had £3000 worth of Alcon front brakes alone.

I set about bringing it back up to my standards, firstly with an engine bay clean. I also sorted the air filter out.

Before






After






The black bumper strip was powder coated and refitted with new screws soon after.




The car came with the standard air box but was fitted with a Cup filter. Not a true Cup car filter as this requires losing the MAF, but a Cargraphic Cup filter with Carbon fibre intake hose.
Well the hose was rubbish and had deformed over time. On top of that the mounting bracket was a joke.
After speaking to Ade (“keep it lit” on the Porsche forum and all round top “Madchester" dude) at Oulton he showed me his setup which was a silicone hose and better mounting bracket.

Before




New hose purchased




I machined a mounting block and adaptor ring at work out of black nylon. Nice and light and corrosion resistant.




Done. The jubilee clips were still to be trimmed.




One thing that did bug me was the engine noise on tickover. My neighbour had a Boxster Spyder with PSE and that sounded fantastic. My GT3 would trump it on noise once revving but I still wanted more at tick over. My mate Craig had 2 rear boxes spare so we set about fitting them.

Stripped rear end




Rear light apertures a bit grubby




Brackets powdercoated factory colours




All cleaned up




All done. Forgot to take a pic on the day so here’s one from later on.



In all honesty I preferred the look of the standard rear pipes but the new ones did sound better and a lot deeper and gave out much more pops and bangs on the over run.


Apart from the general tinkering I just used it on nice days and for weekends away, mainly to watch my mate Andy racing. I also went to a few shows and runs out with the north east 911UK lads. Good bunch and not arsey like some car club/meets.

A few more pics. Why not. It was the best car I’d ever owned after all.

Croft on an unusually sunny day.




Croft on a more usual not so sunny day, with my mate Craig in his. More on that later. Totally sorted car. A real lucky find!




Beamish show with 911UK lads
Colour looks a bit washed out in these pics, but it wasn't.




If you look carefully in this picture you can see a 993 in the background under its blue cover.




Anyway, I bought this in August 2012 after my awesome camper van trip. I then proposed to my girlfriend (in a little boat on Ullswater) in September and we wed in November (don’t ask! ), so it’s fair to say 2012 was one of the best years of my life.

Apologies for the self indulgent post, but I’ll only be doing this once so I may as well include the back story and lots of pics.

Cheers.

Edited by marky911 on Saturday 7th March 00:02

[marky911]

One more quicky for tonight.

Whilst I had just bought the GT3, I was missing my track days. The GT3 was built for the track but I was never going to do that to it. It had a very easy life with me and even though I had track cover included in my insurance, I wasn't going to be responsible for one less MK1 CS in the world, should the worst happen.

I'd bought the E46 off James but one day when speaking to Jamie (Nelson) he mentioned selling his Seat Leon Cupra. This thing had had £20k spent on it by a former keeper. Utter madness and a lot of it was things being done twice, such as a hybrid turbo one year, then a different one the next. Anyway, Jamie had used it as a regular car but had also tracked it in the UK and at the 'Ring.

He said I could have it for £4k. i said ok but knowing the fanny that I am, Jamie said "Take it away for a couple of weeks to make sure you like it". Well I'm glad he did as I just didn't get on with it.
The plan was to sell the BMW and use the Leon as a daily car and also do some track days in it, however when sitting in traffic on my way to work i just felt like an old Chav. I was 35 now and I just felt awkward in it.
It had 300bhp and some nice bits. It gripped and handled incredibly well for a FWD hatch with the power it had going through the front wheels but I was used to Turbos from years ago that made a lovely burble. This thing just sounded dull despite a stainless sports exhaust. So Jamie kindly took it back. He wasn't too bothered at all and had been having second thoughts anyway. I'd given it a good clean up for him too so it was mint again.

So technically not mine but almost.

Some pics from when Jamie and I had it.

Jamie at Blyton




Jamie going camping. Very practical




Jamie at the ring




Tarox 10 pots




Clean








Anyway, good car, just not for me.

Edited by marky911 on Saturday 7th March 00:32

[marky911]

Actually one more I'd forgotten about until I seen it next to my GT3.

MGF.

My mate Craig got offered this but wasn't interested.

I paid £200 for it and stuck it straight on Ebay. Got £650 a week later. Horrible little car that you sat on top of, rather than in. Mind you it was far from the best example. A mint one maybe ok.
Only pic I have is this one where it's on the drive when we were doing the GT3 exhausts.