The Art of Shedding

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S100HP said:

So much win.

Can I ask a stupid question? Alongside these (wonderful) sheds, do you have a "nice" car. You know, one you can just jump in and drive that looks vaguely presentable?

Most of my cars I can jump in and drive anywhere but I don't really have anything that the majority of people on here would consider "nice".
The newest vehicle I currently own is a tatty looking 2004 Ford Ranger. I have no requirement or desire to own shiny new cars.
I buy cars I like the look of, usually the squarer the better, if it's mechanically sound it doesn't matter if it isn't "nice" to look at in others eyes.
Most of my current collection is 80's and 90's generic ste.
I have never bought a car from a dealership and I think the most I'd ever paid for a car was £1800 for a Nissan Laurel in 2015.

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alex98uk said:

Does your missus ever tell you to pack it in and buy something a bit more decent?

I love the concept of shedding, but it's very much "beauty in the eye of the beholder" kinda thing and not everyone appreciates it.

Our cars are decent in both of our eyes, as long as it's possible to jump in them and drive them anywhere I'm struggling to see how they could be a "bit more decent".
My Mrs actively encourages buying older cars, when we first met I had one car, a 1988 BMW e30 325 touring but soon enough I was buying a variety of old crap to run around in.

I'm not too bothered if other people dislike my cars or look down on them, you can't please everyone and there are going to be people out there who follow a certain brand of car and write everything else off as inferior.
If you get enjoyment out of whatever car you choose to drive then fk what anyone else thinks.

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avinalarf said:

What a great bloke and a real perspective on life and you're lucky to have found a lady that shares your vision.
Did your parents have the same outlook on life or are you a one off ?

Life is far too short to be spent worrying about trivial matters!
My Mrs comes from a large family who generally had minibuses like ldv convoys as their family cars over the years.
My dad works for the railway and always had company vans so never bothered buying a car for personal use.

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I'd update the thread more frequently but I'm unable to post between 9pm to 9am where I get this annoying notification saying new members aren't allowed to post...

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To me, a focus is a modern car!
Last year I bought the newest car I'd ever had, a 2008 Ford Ka for a grand total of £90.
It needed some welding to the sills but other than that it drove well.
I did the welding, mot'd it and sold for £650.
It was a perfectly decent and usable car but just wasn't very "me".

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Hunky Dory said:

Multiple purchases of Subaru Brat = massive win.

Well done, sir!

I've always been a fan of pickups, especially the less common ones. Back in 2014 I bought a Tata Loadbeta from a farmer, this one was the rear wheel drive version. It was seriously rough and had typical farm spec welding all over it, it was truly horrible but I loved it!

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I decided a change in colour was in order so painted it olive drab outside with a roller and brushes...


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I was out for a random drive in the Tata when I spotted a Subaru Brat sitting in a field next to a farmhouse, I chapped on the door and asked if they would sell it. The farmer said he was using it for his sheep as it had a wooden ramp/tailgate attached to it but he had another one I could buy sitting in his barn.


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I told him I'd get back to him but never did for a number of years.


In January 2019 I spotted a pair of Subarus for sale on facebook, one was roadworthy and the other for spares, I can't remember the exact figure he wanted for the pair, maybe £1500 or something like that of he wanted £1200 for the roadworthy one.
I thought that was a good price so made arrangements and jumped on a train to Durham to collect it.

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It had odd seats, the passenger's one was original but the drivers from a Sierra. It also had a bad paint job, there were plenty of runs in the paint. One of the doors was a different colour. None of that stuff really mattered, it started and stopped with no issues and got me back up the road with no problems at all.
The "Brat" has a 1.8 carburettor boxer engine and 4 speed gearbox in constant front wheel drive but has switchable hi/lo 4 wheel drive for use on loose surfaces like gravel or snow. It's not fast but will happily sit at motorway speeds without feeling under geared.
It came with a pair of spare wings, it's original bumper and original weller style steel wheels.

The only issue with it was a crack in the windscreen.

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I month later I spotted another one while out driving, it had bits missing and was outside a garage so I wondered if it was breaking for spares. I went inside and found it was owned by a young guy who was planning on restoring it, he said he had two others for parts so I asked about buying a windscreen. He said he wanted £80 for the screen and I said I'd think about it.
This got me thinking of the barn find Subaru I'd seen some years earlier so I took a drive up to see if it was still there.

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Yeah, still there!

The farmer said he had since bought a Ranger so didn't need the other one and I could buy that as well. I paid £100 each plus another £100 to get them transported.

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I got them back to the unit then tried to get them running...

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I took all of the good bits from the blue one including the windscreen and sold the rest for £250 to someone who just wanted the rear axle. At that point I had gotten a windscreen and a complete beige Subaru for £50. Not bad at all but it was soon to get a whole lot better, it certainly beat paying £80 for just a windscreen.

I gave the beige brat a quick wash and fitted the good bits from the blue one to make it complete and put it up for sale for £3000 on a popular classic classifieds website. Someone contacted me to say they would have it but didn't think it was worth the asking price so made an offer of £2300 which I happily accepted.

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Under all of the muck it was surprisingly solid with just some odd bits of surface rust here and there.


The prices of these seem to be on the rise and the buyer was of the opinion a good brat could be bought for £6k so buying one for that price that needed a little spent on it to make it usable was a sensible thing to do. I've seen people asking for over £10k for mint examples, whether or not anyone pays those kinda prices who knows?

I was back down to one Brat but up £2250 and had a spare screen. In June it was used in a Bollywood movie called '83.

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Someone else had this horrible Capri Convertible in the movie which kept overheating and breaking down, typical classic Fords for you ha!

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In November I spotted another beige brat for sale on facebook by what looked like your typical beavertail driving scrap trader. I made an offer of well over scrap value, I think £300 or £400 and the seller dropped it off.

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This one is in far better condition than the last beige one, I think I may have gotten lucky with how much I sold the last one for so chances are this one will be kept and fixed up!

Mod edit: YouTube link removed

Edited by Scrump on Sunday 9th February 16:48

[Retroshite]

thebigmacmoomin said:

What do you do about insurance as you keep swapping cars?

I like the idea of buying a car, driving it till it dies then scraping it and buying the next one.

Obviously very handy that you've the skill and equipment to fix them (i.e welding).

Trade insurance with access to the MID so can add and remove motors whenever I like.
I like the idea of buying cars and preserving them while I use them and move onto something different when I feel like it. I'd only really scrap them as a last resort.

What you're talking about is bangernomics.

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Fermit and Sexy Sarah said:

Have been enjoying this thread over recent days, and I suspect it will run and run. Keep it going at this rate and I dare say it will find its way in to the Legendary Threads section - you seemingly have an eye for what can be turned around/improved easily

Thanks, I bought, sold or swapped up to 40 cars a year for the last 6 years so there's plenty of things to write about as well as all of the tat I have currently.
I have no set plans of say spending £500 each month on buying a car and selling/trading for another at the start of the next month, I just buy what I want if it's available, there will be months go by without anything coming or going.
This month I've already bought and sold two vehicles and I'm a couple of hundred up, I lost a bit on one and made a bit more on the other, I didn't buy them with the intention of selling on but quickly found out that they were both piles of st so just got rid of them sharpish - no point on hanging onto things you're not really into is there?

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Mexman said:

You Sir are nuts........but I like you.

Surely not, I thought this was a perfectly normal and acceptable way to live!


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JakeT said:

This is a fantastic thread. Mainly because it's full of so much old tat. I really like old tat. Especially when it's not tarted up, it's used. The 305 van is just so cool. Moreso with the beacon on the roof.

I love old tat too.

Edited by Retroste on Wednesday 15th January 21:58

Moderator edit: no links to your YouTube channel please.

Edited by jeremyc on Wednesday 15th January 22:03

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SlowV6 said:

Fantastic thread. I would like some explicit Nissan Laurel action please (is it a 2-tone 2.4?) or failing that, I spied the CX estate in the background a bit higher up this page....

It was this one.

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Sorry about the filters, I was going through a bit of a bad photography phase at the time.

I absolutely loved the look of this car but there were aspects of it I hated. It was far too low, the original suspension had been binned by the previous owner and a set of S13 Tein Coilovers had been fitted instead. It also had welded diff. The gearing was incredibly long and was much more suited as a cruiser so the welded diff was pretty much pointless it wasn't easy to make it slide in the wet so actually trying to take it drifting on a dry track would have been hopeless.
It had a 2.4i straight 6 engine and 5 speed manual box. The interior was superb, a lovely soft velour. I loved the car but having to navigate my routes to avoid speed bumps soon got very tiring so sold it onto a mate.

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The Stanza in the last photo I also ended up owning but that's a story for another time perhaps?

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SlowV6 said:

Thanks. Now having cigarette..

Are there any old cars you would particularly like to unearth that you haven't yet managed to find?

Maybe a Peugeot 505, I haven't had one yet but other than that I'm not your typical "petrolhead" and don't have dreams or aspirations to own anything exotic. I'm not even into cars that much, I just see something I like, try it out and when I've fallen out of love I move onto the next thing. There's so many old cheap and interesting cars still out there I'm just constantly surprising myself with what I pick up and get to experience.

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Fermit and Sexy Sarah said:

Do you keep track of your profits, or just consider it car to wallet filling?

I don't really keep track of them, I usually remember what I paid and how much it sold for but if I was doing it as a business and being paid for my time then on paper I'd be losing money constantly. Look at the 305 van for example, the initial cost was around £300 and the selling price was £1000, that's a nice £700 profit but imagine I had to pay a professional to spend countless hours welding, a mechanic to replace parts and a breaker to source replacement panels etc. From a money making perspective it just wouldn't be worth the effort, I'd possibly save more money by just putting the wages from my actual job in the bank and not bothering with cars at all but where would the fun in that be?

[Retroshite]

I started 2017 with a variety of old tat.


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The first car I got in January 2017 was a Datsun Stanza I swapped my mate a Mitsubishi Sigma estate for.

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The stanza was pretty rough and had already had a variety of horrendous looking pigeon st welding by the previous owner.


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I added some more horrendous looking patches to the end of the sill...

And resprayed all of the parts the previous owner had painted matt black with the original colour.

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Next car I got in January was a freebie V70 XC AWD.

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From what I remember it didn't run and needed the petrol tank replaced so I sold it on for spares.

Also in January I bought a mk1 BX estate for £25 on eBay.

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It was a non runner and had some bad rust on the edge of the roof. I removed the front seats and fitted them to my C15 van and sold the rest on.


In February my Mrs decided she wanted a Mercedes 190E, we spotted one on eBay and won it for £375.


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It needed tyres and brakes for it's mot but gave over a year of trouble free motoring.

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I sold my old Proton for £100.

I swapped my 305 saloon for a ropey old Datsun Sunny.

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And swapped the Stanza for a Carlton

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In March I bought back a Renault 18 GTD which I'd owned around twice previously, it kept being passed between myself and two friends and went through a variety of paint jobs including it's original maroon, oxide red, olive drab and white.


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It must have had 4 different roller painted coats on it so decided to take it back to bare metal and try painting it in its original colour.

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I started off with some industrial paint stripper which did work reasonably well but was equally time consuming so changed to a flappy type buffing disc on a grinder to get the rest of the paint off.

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It looked pretty crap in the end but it was a good learning experience!


Also in March I picked up a turbo-D ZX for £100

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It needed some patches on the sills and chassis legs where it had been damaged over the gears from being jacked up which eventually led to rusty holes.

In April I drove the shonky 70's Datsun from Scotland to Wales to swap for a Lada Riva estate coming over on the ferry from Ireland.


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It had a top quality sound system...

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It made it back to Scotland without issue.

Also in April I swapped a set of wheels for a great condition Rover 216 auto with head gasket issues.

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This one actually had the Honda engine which was usually much less prone to head gaskets failing. I had the head skimmed and new gaskets fitted and sold it for £800 at a Car meet organised by Practical Classics.

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I sold the Carlton on to my mate.

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In May I bought a 306 D-turbo sedan for £80


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It was seriously abused so I removed the engine and scrapped the rest.

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Also in May I bought this awful heap of crap.

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It was one of the most truly awful driving experiences I've ever encountered, it was slow, uncomfortable and unreliable.

I used the transit to pick up another free car from a guy at work.

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Then just took it straight to the weighbridge.

I used the Transit a couple of times but hated every minute of driving it, In June I took it over to Kilmarnock to pick up a £60 ZX estate and the Transits front wheel bearing collapsed halfway there. I still picked up the car and when I returned I changed the bearing and got rid of it.

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In June I took my Ranger down to the Lake district to pick up an old Rover which needed "some" welding, the owner failed to mention that it was an auto as I had planned on using the Ranger to A-frame it. It hadn't been on the road for a couple of years but still seemed to drive ok so ended up just driving it and my mate drove the ranger.

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The Ranger blew its head gasket halfway up the road, the only option was to occasionally stop to top the coolant up with water as it boiled out of the expansion tank.

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The Rover was totally knackered so I gave it away to someone else to have a go at fixing but it eventually ended up in the scrappers.

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With the Ranger out of action I bought a Tata Loadbeta from a scrapyard for something like £250. It was rusty but still had some test on it and came in handy later on for towing.

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My Alto FX also blew its head gasket so the Tata came in handy for towing it.

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I sold the Alto after fixing the head gasket issues.


In July I bought a mk2 Polo

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I had no end of bother with the original Pierburg carb so binned it in favour of a Weber and it ran so much better.

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In August I sold my Lada to a guy from Sheffield.

It appears 2017 was the year of free cars, another guy at work gave me a Clio.

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I sold it on cheap to a friends brother in law.

The end of August I picked up a W123 230E for £350

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September I picked up another R8 Rover in withe but this time it was a manual 220 which went really well. It was £80.

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I lent it straight out to a mate who used it for a couple of weeks then used it for a while and gave it away to another mate who used it over the winter, he then lent it to another mate who used it for a while. It ended up being used in an episode of still game the year after.

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October I bought an early Proton Aeroback, I always had a soft spot for these so when this turned up locally for a couple of hundred quid I had to have it.

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The end of October I bought another Polo.

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It had a few nice bits on it but I just wanted the 5 speed gearbox for my mk2 Polo so broke it for spares.

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I won a 940 Celebration 2.3 LPT with manual gearbox on ebay for £600.

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I didn't like it much so sold it on.


The Tata left in trade for the 305 van.

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I swapped the mk2 Polo for another silver 360 which broke down 5 minutes after swapping up in the north east of Scotland, it took over 5 hours to get home.

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It had some nice bits on it so I ended up breaking it for spares.

I picked up a manual 2.0 190E for £200


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and sold it to a mate for £450.

I eventually got around to having the head removed for my Ranger and discovered it had cracked when it had overheated some months previously.

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I swapped it for an XT350 which I sold for £600 a while later.

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November I bought a Cinquecento

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It seemed to missing a first gear so I sold it the next day.

I was missing having a pickup so bought an L200 from a dodgy import/export place in Kirkcaldy, they are the type of place that pick up scrap and try to flog it on to the genral public as spares or repairs.

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When I arrived to collect it they were in the middle of painting over all of the rusty bits.

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In December I spotted that Senator I had parked next to at the Practical Classics meet up for sale locally for £600

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It looked great but didn't run very well and had suspected head gasket issues.

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I also picked up a 406 estate for £400

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The Last car of the year was another Lada Riva which was up near Wick in the very north east of Scotland, the seller wanted a couple of grand for it so I decided to swap the Senator for it.

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I probably shouldn't have because it was really quite st. It had only done 20k miles but was rusty underneath and was very uncomfortable to drive and unreliable. I replaced the carb with a Weber but it still didn't run very well and I ended up selling it the next year.

[Retroshite]

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Just some clones...

[Retroshite]

Jonny-Jimbo said:

But which is the real you!!??

I'm the one behind the camera...

[Retroshite]

To shed successfully it's always a good idea to know where to go to get bits and pieces if they can't be found online, it usually means a trip to the scrapyard.
The ages and types of cars I'm usually driving means that it's highly unlikely I'll be able to find anything in the majority of scrapyards so knowing where to go is helpful.

My favourite place to visit is in the north east of Scotland.


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The owner of the place is in his 80's, a nice old guy who will happily sell bits for little money, I've bought a variety of parts from him over the years for various sheds.



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DSC_7026 by srblythe, on Flickr

DSC_7027 by srblythe, on Flickr

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The story with the place is it was really just a dumping ground for scrap cars owned by the farmer and his friends, he never paid anyone for the cars but allowed people to dump them for free over the years, it was only when the price of scrap started to rise that the cars stopped coming in so the newest cars in there all seem to be mid 90's.

RJC_3223 by srblythe, on Flickr

RJC_3220 by srblythe, on Flickr


The last time I visited was in December 2019, I managed to get a rear bumper for my Chevette, a parcel shelf for my 205 and a repair section cut from an Ascona for my Cavalier.

RJC_3206 by srblythe, on Flickr


Quite an enjoyable way to spend a Sunday afternoon if you're into that kinda thing. I know a lot of people will see it and just think it's scrap metal with absolutely no use but there are still loads of useful bits in there still to be found.

Moderator edit: no links to your YouTube channel please

Edited by jeremyc on Sunday 19th January 23:24

[Retroshite]

2020 is off to a cracking start, I've managed to get myself another £300 Mercedes 190e!

[Retroshite]

RJC_3626 by srblythe, on Flickr

RJC_3627 by srblythe, on Flickr


Here it is, I didn't actually purchase this for £300 but did swap another car for it. What happened was a friend of mine had a Peugeot 305 saloon which I previously owned, he decided he wanted a Mercedes 190D so went out and bought one and left the 305 sitting for a while, with the mot due to run out in February my friend thought the quickest way to sell the 305 was to raffle it so organised a raffle through facebook at £10 a go. All of the numbers sold during the week and it made him £590.
The winner of the raffle made his intentions clear when he won that he wanted to banger race it, I didn't think that was right so offered the banger racer a cash alternative to save the car from the oval.
The racer was happy enough to take the cash and I ended up with a 305 I didn't really want or need.
Another friend had a 190E but wanted a retro diesel for commuting in so offered me a swap for the 305.

DSC_9498 by srblythe, on Flickr

DSC_9506 by srblythe, on Flickr



I drove the 305 over to Edinburgh and my friend brought the 190E up from Galashiels to do the swap, he was happy, I was happy and another rare old car didn't meet an untimely end on the banger track.

[Retroshite]

CATstrangler said:

I'm nearly sure I know that place. My brother and I used to get bits there. And we dumped two subaru 4x4 estates there - one towing the other. I'm nearly sure that's one of my Sherpas too. I sold it to a South African bloke in Aberdeen who wanted to turn it into a camper. Wondered what happened to it.
Somewhere around the village of New Deer if I'm right.

This is the greatest thread ever BTW. Thanks OP.

That's the place!

RJC_3270 by srblythe, on Flickr

It's right next to a place called Knaven just south of New Deer, the guy who owns the place lives nearby and is called Lesley Fairfoul or something like that.