Minis, Mondeos and More...
Discussion
Having gone through a succession of car changes lately, finally resulting in a particularly good purchase yesterday (more on this later), I thought now was as a good a time as any to do a ‘my car history’ thread.
So take a seat ladies an gentleman as I take you on a tour through karts, barges and all sorts..
My driving career started just 8 years ago at the age of 17. Prior to this I had owned 100cc TKM Kart which should probably get a mention here:
Unfortunately, it turned out that despite my protestations I was no Lewis Hamilton. Although maybe there was some Jenson Button in there as I de recall complaining about a lack of rear grip an awful lot. Particularly as I headed backwards in to a tyre wall.
The plan was a to do the livery to match the tow car but sadly that never happened:
I did have my heart set on my Dad’s Triumph Dolomite Sprint as my first car for a very long time. As I recall, my Dad (H6 CJF on here btw) was actually not too averse to the idea. However, Norwich Union et al were and rather predictably no one would insure a 17 year old on a provisional license to drive a 1970s RWD 2l sports saloon.
SO. Back to the drawing board. We briefly toyed with the idea of 1300 Dolomite but the fact that it wasn’t RWD, fast or in fact a Dolomite Sprint put me off.
And so we arrived, rather inevitably, at the Mini. The Mini in question was a 1989 Mini 30th Anniversary Edition. It was fantastic. Half leather interior, great paintwork and, unbeknown to me when I bought it , it had a Stage 1 tuning kit. That did very little but make it sound nice.
Any here are the pictures! A lovely car I’m sure you’ll agree.
I drove that car for about 18 months and it was the best thing ever, as everyone’s first car is. A good friend also had a Mini at the time, so lots of driving down B roads and going to mini shows and the like.
Sadly, it developed a recurring fault where one of the tie rods would shear from the subframe with rather dramatic results. This may or may not have been related to a brief foray in to a curb some months earlier. I think the jury is still out on that one, my Dad disagrees.
Anyway no amount of welding would get the bloody tie rod to stay attached to the subby and neither I nor my Dad had the stomach to undertake a subframe replacement.
Enter the 1995 Mini Sprite. This was a mini my brother had bought from a neighbour I believe some months earlier in a fairly sorry state. It had dents all over the place and the head gasket had gone causing the head to warp. Other than that it was a pretty solid car.
I don’t actually have any pictures of how it started life but it was much like this but with dents.
One way or another I ended up with it and, being 18 at the time, decided that I would spend every penny I earned working in my Dad’s shop and the pub on making it better.
The order in which things happened is probably pretty dull. But the spec ended up as follows:
1310cc
Stage 2 Cylinder Head
Swiftune SW5 Cam
Lightened and Balanced Bottom End and Flywheel
LCB Manifold
Maniflow Exhaust
X Pin Diff (or did it? See below)
I also completely renovated the inside and out (mainly when I should have been revising for a levels) with the following results:
This car was great, although I do wonder if I would have enjoyed it much less without the ridiculously expensive engine build. I must say this car has probably put me off engine tuning for life.
But anyway, it got a lot of use on the road and also at sprints and road rallies. By this time I was a student in Southampton and had joined the motor club. Unfortunately the diff pin snapped on one of their events as a result of the fact that the engine builder did not in fact fit a cross pin diff as he had suggested. By suggested I mean contractually agreed to.
Anyway the car and I got towed back from some back road in Hampshire at 1am to my parent’s house… in Birmingham. The car went back to the engine builder who, as I recall, sorted it out gratis and fitted a slightly lairier cam at my request.
However the poor mini’s days were numbered as I had my heart set on graduating from the mini... to an MGB GT.
Before we get on to the MGB I should add that for a period I had also had use of a Corsa C whilst the mini build was going on. That was subsequently bought by my older brother for his then partner. In return I ended up with her old 1997 Peugeot 1.1 Independence.
The Peugeot ended up living with me in Southampton and the plan was that the MGB would be a summer and weekend car. More on the Peugeot later.
I eventually settle on a relatively recently restored 1973 MGB GT in the inevitable Restoration Red. It was beautiful. It was also a much wore rewarding car to drive than the mini. Other than the aforementioned foray into the curb in the mini very early in my driving life, I never felt that the mini was hard work to drive fast.
The MGB on the other hand was another story. The weight of the car, the low down torque but very narrow power band it made every corner an event.
Anyway the important bit is pictures!
Overtime the car needed a full suspension refresh which it got and that did improve the handling no end. Perhaps it didn’t need to be such hard work to drive after all!
So at this time I had both the MGB and the Peugeot 106 1.1. Enter the worst 6 months of my driving life.
August 2009. I’m driving along a country lane in the Peugeot making good progress but within speed limit and road conditions. Car coming the opposite way indicates right and comes to a halt waiting to turn across after I’ve passed. Seemingly he decided at the last minute that actually he did have time to pull across in front of me. Unfortunately for both of us he could not have been more wrong and I had barely time to get on the brakes before colliding with the side of his car at approx. 40-50mph.
Fortunately no injuries but it bloody hurt and the car was a wreck. It was a real shame, the car was a joy to drive and the handling was excellent. Supremely predictable lift off oversteer. It made a couple of outings on road rallies. I would still be tempted to buy another one although I would definitely be looking for a gti.
So we waved goodbye to the Peugeot and the MGB became my daily driver.
December 2009. I’m driving down a wide main road in Southampton. Quite a complicated accident but to cut a long story short, I get overtaken, before the stopping distances work themselves out the guy who’s overtaken me has to perform an emergency stop. Its wet. I didn’t have ABS. I probably wasn’t concentrating as much as I should. Crunch. My beloved MGB was very bent. Uneconomically so the Insurance man told me.
And so we waved goodbye to the MGB. VERY VERY sad.
By this time I was approaching the end of uni and was very skint. Buying another expensive classic was not an option.
On Christmas Eve 2009 I bought…. A 16v 2.0l…1996 Ford Mondeo. 160,000 miles. Sigh. I don’t even have a picture of this car. Suffice to say, it was poo brown and had a velour interior. £400 well spent.
However. It was actually not too bad to drive. It was definitely a barge but it was really comfortable on long journeys. I even drove it through Snowdonia fairly enthusiastically completely cooking the brakes and arriving with a smile on my face.
Anyway I kept the Mondeo for the best part of two years. I spent nothing on it other than tax, tyres and insurance. Most cost effective motoring ever.
Anyway, by 2011 I was studying the legal practice course before training as a solicitor and I had quite a lot of time on my hands. My dad had recently returned to doing consultancy work and so also had a bit more flexible time. So we started going to the sub £3k auctions run by a nearby car auction house every Monday morning. To be honest we mainly went to get a bacon and egg sandwich.
We bought a few cars at auction and sold them on for a small profit but I never really drove any of these. Anyway, one way or another, a nice facelifted MG ZS 1.8 ended up going through and I ended buying it.
If you look very carefully you can just make out my rather camera shy Mondeo in background.
Anyone who says these are just Rover 45s are wrong. I loved this car. The turn in was fantastic and it was really engaging to drive. It was a little underpowered, had a silly spoiler and exhibited terrifying lift off oversteer in the wet but it is definitely a car I would recommend. Especially at the right price, which this was.
Fast forward 12 months and I had now started working as a trainee solicitor. My brother had recently bought an MX5. I had never had even the slightest urge to buy, or even look at an mx5. However, I took his for a quick blast up the road and it was a revelation. All I could think was, this is the car the MGB would have become. Save that they had completely opposite engine characteristics: MGB = No revs, loads of torque, MX5= Loads of revs, no torque.
I was sold. I went and bought one within a month. A 1997 MX5 1.8iS. It had done circa 85k if remember correctly. Full leather interior.
I drove it every day for around 2 years and I was smiling for pretty much every mile I drove it. Other than a couple of small issues it didn’t miss a beat.
My mother reversed into it on the drive causing a bloody great dent to the front wing. I didn’t have the heart to make her claim on insurance and I said would replace the wing and she could just pay me for parts. I never got round to that, in part because not long afterwards someone drive into the other front wing whilst it was parked on the road.
I was now left with a very sorry looking mz5 that still drove fantastically. I must confess I lost enthusiasm for keeping it good shape and it deteriorated a little over time. The inevitable rust crept in on the sills and it failed the MOT in around September last year.
At this time I had just moved house and started a new job working in the city so I didn’t really need a car everyday and I just made do for a while.
My dad, feeling sorry for me I think, agreed to buy it off me for a price which I think we both now realize was a bit too high. I went out and thought I’d buy a more sensible car.
I bought an E46 BMW 330ci. OK. I was enamored with idea of 6 cylinders, 3000cc, straight line speed and comfort. And I got all of those things.
Sadly, as I wasn’t driving to work anymore, I didn’t actually need any of them. It used too much fuel for me to just want to go out and drive it for fun and to be honest the weight of the car killed it for me. In someways I think the Mondeo did a better job of being a barge. At least it knew it was one. I am probably being overly critical. Simply put, me and the BMW never saw eye to eye, although I still think it’s a very pretty car.
Which brings me to yesterday’s purchase. The answer to my problem was, as it always is, an MX5. A very very very shiny mk1 MX5.
Spec:
1800cc
Bilstein Mk2.5 Suspension
Rear Cage
Hard Top
Larini Exhaust
Photos:
I have not stopped smiling since I picked it up. I have a feeling this may be one of those cars that I just don’t sell. Ever. The only problem is, I will cry if it deteriorates. It must be looked after. It must be serviced. It must want for nothing. It must not live out doors. Fortunately, I have a garage.
Unfortuantely, it looked like this.
I had some clearing out to do. Two hours later and far too many spiders later...
So take a seat ladies an gentleman as I take you on a tour through karts, barges and all sorts..
My driving career started just 8 years ago at the age of 17. Prior to this I had owned 100cc TKM Kart which should probably get a mention here:
Unfortunately, it turned out that despite my protestations I was no Lewis Hamilton. Although maybe there was some Jenson Button in there as I de recall complaining about a lack of rear grip an awful lot. Particularly as I headed backwards in to a tyre wall.
The plan was a to do the livery to match the tow car but sadly that never happened:
I did have my heart set on my Dad’s Triumph Dolomite Sprint as my first car for a very long time. As I recall, my Dad (H6 CJF on here btw) was actually not too averse to the idea. However, Norwich Union et al were and rather predictably no one would insure a 17 year old on a provisional license to drive a 1970s RWD 2l sports saloon.
SO. Back to the drawing board. We briefly toyed with the idea of 1300 Dolomite but the fact that it wasn’t RWD, fast or in fact a Dolomite Sprint put me off.
And so we arrived, rather inevitably, at the Mini. The Mini in question was a 1989 Mini 30th Anniversary Edition. It was fantastic. Half leather interior, great paintwork and, unbeknown to me when I bought it , it had a Stage 1 tuning kit. That did very little but make it sound nice.
Any here are the pictures! A lovely car I’m sure you’ll agree.
I drove that car for about 18 months and it was the best thing ever, as everyone’s first car is. A good friend also had a Mini at the time, so lots of driving down B roads and going to mini shows and the like.
Sadly, it developed a recurring fault where one of the tie rods would shear from the subframe with rather dramatic results. This may or may not have been related to a brief foray in to a curb some months earlier. I think the jury is still out on that one, my Dad disagrees.
Anyway no amount of welding would get the bloody tie rod to stay attached to the subby and neither I nor my Dad had the stomach to undertake a subframe replacement.
Enter the 1995 Mini Sprite. This was a mini my brother had bought from a neighbour I believe some months earlier in a fairly sorry state. It had dents all over the place and the head gasket had gone causing the head to warp. Other than that it was a pretty solid car.
I don’t actually have any pictures of how it started life but it was much like this but with dents.
One way or another I ended up with it and, being 18 at the time, decided that I would spend every penny I earned working in my Dad’s shop and the pub on making it better.
The order in which things happened is probably pretty dull. But the spec ended up as follows:
1310cc
Stage 2 Cylinder Head
Swiftune SW5 Cam
Lightened and Balanced Bottom End and Flywheel
LCB Manifold
Maniflow Exhaust
X Pin Diff (or did it? See below)
I also completely renovated the inside and out (mainly when I should have been revising for a levels) with the following results:
This car was great, although I do wonder if I would have enjoyed it much less without the ridiculously expensive engine build. I must say this car has probably put me off engine tuning for life.
But anyway, it got a lot of use on the road and also at sprints and road rallies. By this time I was a student in Southampton and had joined the motor club. Unfortunately the diff pin snapped on one of their events as a result of the fact that the engine builder did not in fact fit a cross pin diff as he had suggested. By suggested I mean contractually agreed to.
Anyway the car and I got towed back from some back road in Hampshire at 1am to my parent’s house… in Birmingham. The car went back to the engine builder who, as I recall, sorted it out gratis and fitted a slightly lairier cam at my request.
However the poor mini’s days were numbered as I had my heart set on graduating from the mini... to an MGB GT.
Before we get on to the MGB I should add that for a period I had also had use of a Corsa C whilst the mini build was going on. That was subsequently bought by my older brother for his then partner. In return I ended up with her old 1997 Peugeot 1.1 Independence.
The Peugeot ended up living with me in Southampton and the plan was that the MGB would be a summer and weekend car. More on the Peugeot later.
I eventually settle on a relatively recently restored 1973 MGB GT in the inevitable Restoration Red. It was beautiful. It was also a much wore rewarding car to drive than the mini. Other than the aforementioned foray into the curb in the mini very early in my driving life, I never felt that the mini was hard work to drive fast.
The MGB on the other hand was another story. The weight of the car, the low down torque but very narrow power band it made every corner an event.
Anyway the important bit is pictures!
Overtime the car needed a full suspension refresh which it got and that did improve the handling no end. Perhaps it didn’t need to be such hard work to drive after all!
So at this time I had both the MGB and the Peugeot 106 1.1. Enter the worst 6 months of my driving life.
August 2009. I’m driving along a country lane in the Peugeot making good progress but within speed limit and road conditions. Car coming the opposite way indicates right and comes to a halt waiting to turn across after I’ve passed. Seemingly he decided at the last minute that actually he did have time to pull across in front of me. Unfortunately for both of us he could not have been more wrong and I had barely time to get on the brakes before colliding with the side of his car at approx. 40-50mph.
Fortunately no injuries but it bloody hurt and the car was a wreck. It was a real shame, the car was a joy to drive and the handling was excellent. Supremely predictable lift off oversteer. It made a couple of outings on road rallies. I would still be tempted to buy another one although I would definitely be looking for a gti.
So we waved goodbye to the Peugeot and the MGB became my daily driver.
December 2009. I’m driving down a wide main road in Southampton. Quite a complicated accident but to cut a long story short, I get overtaken, before the stopping distances work themselves out the guy who’s overtaken me has to perform an emergency stop. Its wet. I didn’t have ABS. I probably wasn’t concentrating as much as I should. Crunch. My beloved MGB was very bent. Uneconomically so the Insurance man told me.
And so we waved goodbye to the MGB. VERY VERY sad.
By this time I was approaching the end of uni and was very skint. Buying another expensive classic was not an option.
On Christmas Eve 2009 I bought…. A 16v 2.0l…1996 Ford Mondeo. 160,000 miles. Sigh. I don’t even have a picture of this car. Suffice to say, it was poo brown and had a velour interior. £400 well spent.
However. It was actually not too bad to drive. It was definitely a barge but it was really comfortable on long journeys. I even drove it through Snowdonia fairly enthusiastically completely cooking the brakes and arriving with a smile on my face.
Anyway I kept the Mondeo for the best part of two years. I spent nothing on it other than tax, tyres and insurance. Most cost effective motoring ever.
Anyway, by 2011 I was studying the legal practice course before training as a solicitor and I had quite a lot of time on my hands. My dad had recently returned to doing consultancy work and so also had a bit more flexible time. So we started going to the sub £3k auctions run by a nearby car auction house every Monday morning. To be honest we mainly went to get a bacon and egg sandwich.
We bought a few cars at auction and sold them on for a small profit but I never really drove any of these. Anyway, one way or another, a nice facelifted MG ZS 1.8 ended up going through and I ended buying it.
If you look very carefully you can just make out my rather camera shy Mondeo in background.
Anyone who says these are just Rover 45s are wrong. I loved this car. The turn in was fantastic and it was really engaging to drive. It was a little underpowered, had a silly spoiler and exhibited terrifying lift off oversteer in the wet but it is definitely a car I would recommend. Especially at the right price, which this was.
Fast forward 12 months and I had now started working as a trainee solicitor. My brother had recently bought an MX5. I had never had even the slightest urge to buy, or even look at an mx5. However, I took his for a quick blast up the road and it was a revelation. All I could think was, this is the car the MGB would have become. Save that they had completely opposite engine characteristics: MGB = No revs, loads of torque, MX5= Loads of revs, no torque.
I was sold. I went and bought one within a month. A 1997 MX5 1.8iS. It had done circa 85k if remember correctly. Full leather interior.
I drove it every day for around 2 years and I was smiling for pretty much every mile I drove it. Other than a couple of small issues it didn’t miss a beat.
My mother reversed into it on the drive causing a bloody great dent to the front wing. I didn’t have the heart to make her claim on insurance and I said would replace the wing and she could just pay me for parts. I never got round to that, in part because not long afterwards someone drive into the other front wing whilst it was parked on the road.
I was now left with a very sorry looking mz5 that still drove fantastically. I must confess I lost enthusiasm for keeping it good shape and it deteriorated a little over time. The inevitable rust crept in on the sills and it failed the MOT in around September last year.
At this time I had just moved house and started a new job working in the city so I didn’t really need a car everyday and I just made do for a while.
My dad, feeling sorry for me I think, agreed to buy it off me for a price which I think we both now realize was a bit too high. I went out and thought I’d buy a more sensible car.
I bought an E46 BMW 330ci. OK. I was enamored with idea of 6 cylinders, 3000cc, straight line speed and comfort. And I got all of those things.
Sadly, as I wasn’t driving to work anymore, I didn’t actually need any of them. It used too much fuel for me to just want to go out and drive it for fun and to be honest the weight of the car killed it for me. In someways I think the Mondeo did a better job of being a barge. At least it knew it was one. I am probably being overly critical. Simply put, me and the BMW never saw eye to eye, although I still think it’s a very pretty car.
Which brings me to yesterday’s purchase. The answer to my problem was, as it always is, an MX5. A very very very shiny mk1 MX5.
Spec:
1800cc
Bilstein Mk2.5 Suspension
Rear Cage
Hard Top
Larini Exhaust
Photos:
I have not stopped smiling since I picked it up. I have a feeling this may be one of those cars that I just don’t sell. Ever. The only problem is, I will cry if it deteriorates. It must be looked after. It must be serviced. It must want for nothing. It must not live out doors. Fortunately, I have a garage.
Unfortuantely, it looked like this.
I had some clearing out to do. Two hours later and far too many spiders later...
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