Serendipity - the FiveTenBen fleet...
Discussion
The Oxford English Dictionary defines serendipity as ‘the occurrence of events by chance in a beneficial way.’
I define it as ‘whenever I buy a car, I seem to find a use for it which I never dreamed of before I bought it.’
So what are these vehicles which seem to end up performing tasks so far removed from the reason I bought them? Well, the fleet currently consists of a sheddy Volvo 850 T5 daily driver, a TVR weekend toy, a globetrotting Chevvy Corvette and a 1974 Mini which is currently in about 1,974 pieces. I’ll fill in the stories behind all of these in due course, but first up, it’s the newest, cheapest, most practical and possibly most powerful of the bunch – the mighty Ovlov:
After selling my Porsche 944 daily driver last summer, I was in need of a cheap daily driver to run through the winter, and hence I did the usual Ebay thing, randomly bidding on cars I kinda fancied owning. Then getting outbid with 30 seconds to go. A rather nice-looking 106 GTi slipped through my fingers this way. And an E30 BMW 3-series. And, perhaps very serendipitously, a rather rusty VW campervan. But then I clicked on an a Volvo T5. Estate naturally, with the rare manual box. 120,000 on the clock, a sports exhaust, 280hp chip and – as funny as it’s incongruous – a dump valve. On a standard looking Volvo estate.
Clearly, I’d found my car. £700 and a trip up to Gloucester later, I’d bought it.
So, what’s it like to own? Let’s get the negatives out of the way first. It’s so long it won’t fit on my drive, so I have to roam the streets each evening in search of a parking space which matches its ample dimensions. It likes to drink both fuel and a bit of oil, and won’t do more than 34mpg, however careful you are on a long haul. And finally, whenever anyone has anything bigger than a microwave to move, they come straight to Mr Volvo, which gets a bit annoying after a while...
But enough negativity, what of the good points? Well, first up, it’s hilarious. Laugh out loud hilarious. The turbo is of the old-fashioned, unapologetic variety, kicking in at around 2,500 RPM and building momentum relentlessly right up to the red line. Which in second, equates to about 60mph. Then, with a comedy hiss from the dump valve, it’s on to the next gear where the process is repeated. It never gets old. And is even more comical in the wet, where the front-wheel-drive chassis is completely overwhelmed at sensible speeds and feathering the loud pedal to avoid torque-steering straight off the road is the order of the day. And yes, I see this as a good thing; a characterful flaw, shall we say?
What else is good? Well, it’s not broken yet, the only costs in the past 7 months being 4 new tyres and a few litres of oil. It’s pretty comfortable, grips pretty well in the dry and strangely, everyone seems to really like it.
So, where’s the serendipity in this fine purchase? Well, although the car I’ve ended up with is about as far from my initial goal of buying ‘something cheap and economical for the winter’, as it’s possible to get, barely a week seems to go buy when it doesn’t get pressed into service to move some outsize load. Against the odds, I seem to have fluked my way into buying the car I’ve needed, without actually setting out to. So what are these loads of which I speak? Well, thanks to a house move, a business relocation and a total lack of a work van, it’s been pressed into service to move quite the variety of random objects, from furniture to climbing wall panels. Here’s a few of the more memorable rounds of 'Will it Volvo?' which have taken place over the past few months:
So, that’s the Volvo. A turbocharged shed which comes with its own unique brand of hilarity and can move pretty much anything you want. When I bought it, I’d planned to only keep it for a couple of months but it’s still here, 7 months later, which says it all really.
So, that's enough Ovlov for now; I'm planning to keep this blog updated to cover the whole fleet over time, so stay tuned!
I define it as ‘whenever I buy a car, I seem to find a use for it which I never dreamed of before I bought it.’
So what are these vehicles which seem to end up performing tasks so far removed from the reason I bought them? Well, the fleet currently consists of a sheddy Volvo 850 T5 daily driver, a TVR weekend toy, a globetrotting Chevvy Corvette and a 1974 Mini which is currently in about 1,974 pieces. I’ll fill in the stories behind all of these in due course, but first up, it’s the newest, cheapest, most practical and possibly most powerful of the bunch – the mighty Ovlov:
After selling my Porsche 944 daily driver last summer, I was in need of a cheap daily driver to run through the winter, and hence I did the usual Ebay thing, randomly bidding on cars I kinda fancied owning. Then getting outbid with 30 seconds to go. A rather nice-looking 106 GTi slipped through my fingers this way. And an E30 BMW 3-series. And, perhaps very serendipitously, a rather rusty VW campervan. But then I clicked on an a Volvo T5. Estate naturally, with the rare manual box. 120,000 on the clock, a sports exhaust, 280hp chip and – as funny as it’s incongruous – a dump valve. On a standard looking Volvo estate.
Clearly, I’d found my car. £700 and a trip up to Gloucester later, I’d bought it.
So, what’s it like to own? Let’s get the negatives out of the way first. It’s so long it won’t fit on my drive, so I have to roam the streets each evening in search of a parking space which matches its ample dimensions. It likes to drink both fuel and a bit of oil, and won’t do more than 34mpg, however careful you are on a long haul. And finally, whenever anyone has anything bigger than a microwave to move, they come straight to Mr Volvo, which gets a bit annoying after a while...
But enough negativity, what of the good points? Well, first up, it’s hilarious. Laugh out loud hilarious. The turbo is of the old-fashioned, unapologetic variety, kicking in at around 2,500 RPM and building momentum relentlessly right up to the red line. Which in second, equates to about 60mph. Then, with a comedy hiss from the dump valve, it’s on to the next gear where the process is repeated. It never gets old. And is even more comical in the wet, where the front-wheel-drive chassis is completely overwhelmed at sensible speeds and feathering the loud pedal to avoid torque-steering straight off the road is the order of the day. And yes, I see this as a good thing; a characterful flaw, shall we say?
What else is good? Well, it’s not broken yet, the only costs in the past 7 months being 4 new tyres and a few litres of oil. It’s pretty comfortable, grips pretty well in the dry and strangely, everyone seems to really like it.
So, where’s the serendipity in this fine purchase? Well, although the car I’ve ended up with is about as far from my initial goal of buying ‘something cheap and economical for the winter’, as it’s possible to get, barely a week seems to go buy when it doesn’t get pressed into service to move some outsize load. Against the odds, I seem to have fluked my way into buying the car I’ve needed, without actually setting out to. So what are these loads of which I speak? Well, thanks to a house move, a business relocation and a total lack of a work van, it’s been pressed into service to move quite the variety of random objects, from furniture to climbing wall panels. Here’s a few of the more memorable rounds of 'Will it Volvo?' which have taken place over the past few months:
So, that’s the Volvo. A turbocharged shed which comes with its own unique brand of hilarity and can move pretty much anything you want. When I bought it, I’d planned to only keep it for a couple of months but it’s still here, 7 months later, which says it all really.
So, that's enough Ovlov for now; I'm planning to keep this blog updated to cover the whole fleet over time, so stay tuned!
So I started this reader’s cars blog back in March... then promptly went on holiday and totally forgot I’d started it - sorry about that!
Anyhow, since the last post about 4,000 miles have passed under the wheels of the FiveTenBen fleet, with the Volvo – or ‘the Mighty ovloV’, as it’s affectionately known – accounting for most of that number.
Easter saw said hefty estate setting course for France, its cabin seating 4 people and the boot loaded to capacity with camping and climbing gear. Predictably the Volvo took the 1,300 mile round trip to Fontainebleau, just south of Paris, in its stride, and also provided a couple of serendipitous coincidences too. Firstly, it came to the rescue when I found that my tent had been put away wet over the winter, and gone mouldy, by providing somewhere to sleep for the week, meaning I can vouch that for anyone under about 6 feet tall, the back of an 850 is a pretty comfortable place to get a night’s sleep. We also learned that if you randomly acquire a 9 foot long table on a campsite in France and want to get it back to the UK, sawing up a couple of bits of forest to make a temporary roofrack is a perfectly legitimate way to get it home:
In other news, with summer here, the TVR has been racking up its first trips of the year, crisscrossing Dartmoor and proving just as satisfying to drive as you’d expect. So much has been written on Pistonheads about TVRs that it almost goes without saying that it looks, sounds and feels wonderful, while not quite instilling 100% confidence that it’ll complete any given journey without drama. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing...
And what about the Corvette? Since it returned to the UK after its 14,000 mile drive across Asia, from England to Singapore, it’s led a rather sheltered retirement, leaving the garage for the occasional burble across Dartmoor, and sometimes a bit further afield. It’ll be getting MOT’d this month though, and so should be seeing a bit more tarmac beneath its wheels over the summer...
So that’s the current state of the fleet – a thirsty-yet-reliable daily driver, a TVR which is making summer feel worth the wait, and an excessively well travelled Corvette which is just getting set for a few more adventures over the summer once it’s through its MOT...
Anyhow, since the last post about 4,000 miles have passed under the wheels of the FiveTenBen fleet, with the Volvo – or ‘the Mighty ovloV’, as it’s affectionately known – accounting for most of that number.
Easter saw said hefty estate setting course for France, its cabin seating 4 people and the boot loaded to capacity with camping and climbing gear. Predictably the Volvo took the 1,300 mile round trip to Fontainebleau, just south of Paris, in its stride, and also provided a couple of serendipitous coincidences too. Firstly, it came to the rescue when I found that my tent had been put away wet over the winter, and gone mouldy, by providing somewhere to sleep for the week, meaning I can vouch that for anyone under about 6 feet tall, the back of an 850 is a pretty comfortable place to get a night’s sleep. We also learned that if you randomly acquire a 9 foot long table on a campsite in France and want to get it back to the UK, sawing up a couple of bits of forest to make a temporary roofrack is a perfectly legitimate way to get it home:
In other news, with summer here, the TVR has been racking up its first trips of the year, crisscrossing Dartmoor and proving just as satisfying to drive as you’d expect. So much has been written on Pistonheads about TVRs that it almost goes without saying that it looks, sounds and feels wonderful, while not quite instilling 100% confidence that it’ll complete any given journey without drama. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing...
And what about the Corvette? Since it returned to the UK after its 14,000 mile drive across Asia, from England to Singapore, it’s led a rather sheltered retirement, leaving the garage for the occasional burble across Dartmoor, and sometimes a bit further afield. It’ll be getting MOT’d this month though, and so should be seeing a bit more tarmac beneath its wheels over the summer...
So that’s the current state of the fleet – a thirsty-yet-reliable daily driver, a TVR which is making summer feel worth the wait, and an excessively well travelled Corvette which is just getting set for a few more adventures over the summer once it’s through its MOT...
Dr G said:
Update travel thread and tell us when book is coming please :P
Haha, since getting back from V8Nam I've been rediculously busy starting a new business so I haven't had as much time as I would have liked to crack on with the book. Still, it's currently about half finished, and will be out just as soon as I get the other half written. Here's a sneak peak of the cover:
And in the meantime, here's the trip report: http://80breakdowns.com/2014/07/23/the-east-is-lou...
BTW, in case you were wondering what the next big road trip is going to be...
http://bencoombs.net/Pub2Pub.htmlHad a great few days recently, playing with the TVR on Dartmoor. On a clear day, there can't be many better ways to experience the British countryside than sat in the Chimaera's armchair-like driver's seat with the rood off, the sun glinting off the turned aluminium controls and the baritone V8 echoing off the drystone walls.
Last Saturday in particular demonstrated what a versatile cars these TVRs are, as it was pressed into service as the support vehicle for a clothing photoshoot, a job which basically entailed carting loads of clothes and outdoor kit around the moor - and down to the South Hams for the day. There aren't many sports cars which could carry all the clothing and outdoor kit needed for such a shoot, but serindipitously, the humble Chimaera fits the bill:
'Kermit' completed 100 miles in the persuit of photos during the shoot, running faultlessly and generating several audiable 'wow, that's a nice car' responses from passers-by in the process - not bad for something that turns 20 next year! Also, not one to be outshone, the TVR even joined the shoot for a bit, staring in its own photoshoot to provide pictures for use in the marketing proposal for my next big road trip - Pub2Pub:
Damn I love that car!
Last Saturday in particular demonstrated what a versatile cars these TVRs are, as it was pressed into service as the support vehicle for a clothing photoshoot, a job which basically entailed carting loads of clothes and outdoor kit around the moor - and down to the South Hams for the day. There aren't many sports cars which could carry all the clothing and outdoor kit needed for such a shoot, but serindipitously, the humble Chimaera fits the bill:
'Kermit' completed 100 miles in the persuit of photos during the shoot, running faultlessly and generating several audiable 'wow, that's a nice car' responses from passers-by in the process - not bad for something that turns 20 next year! Also, not one to be outshone, the TVR even joined the shoot for a bit, staring in its own photoshoot to provide pictures for use in the marketing proposal for my next big road trip - Pub2Pub:
Damn I love that car!
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