Pistonpoppers MotorJournal.

If you decide to part ways with the Fox bodies please bear me in mind.

I have a cunning plan that involves big motors, big turbos and the destruction of rear bumpers....

P

I've had similar issues with insurance engines and the like not registering a couple of my reg no's. Looking into a bit deeper I discovered that the cars were initially registered on private plates when brand new then assigned an age related plate later in the line. Ironically they were both 54 plate cars with similar endings too.

Not saying this is your issue but might help, has it had a plate change recorded on the mot history online?

Ahh pistonpopper... what is it with you and ebay??! I do get a sense of foreboding when you sell something! :-P must be said ebay is full of messers/prats/*insert swearword of choice heres*.. I know good buyers/sellers too, (hey we all buy/sell stuff!) though you do seem very skilled at weeding them out! Makes a better adventure tho I suppose :-P I do wish you well with sale of the alpine, if I wasn't saving for a house move I would be after that! I would even break my no-more-white-cars rule (driven 2, killed both) so hope it goes to a good home and you get a GOOD buyer!!! :-)

just a thought, but not anything to do with it being a commercial vehicle is it?

i ran it through Compare the market, and money supermarket both thought it to be a 2 door Chevy LI Auto 1964-2016.
however when i tried the reg on Autotrader (Sell a car) it recognised it to be commercial and asked if it was a van, when i said yes it pulled in Chevrolet, gold 2004 Diesel so its closer

good luck with it though.

Did you ever have an issue with your Firebird? If I go to more mainstream insurance companies with my Skyline I either get "is a micra?" or "is it a GTR?", the latter I sort of get as that's the closest the computer can find that was ever sold here. The former gets them a dial tone...

Was meant to be crossing the border yesterday but decided against it when the weather forecasts said thunder n rain. Living in Scotland, rain aint too much of an issue, but driving 4 hours in it i really couldnt bring myself to do. Nothing booked so no great loss and a crackin pair o storms to watch!

So what did i do? Yes i looked at this thread......

.....then the other one! I then took inspiration in your wramblings and took the wife n youngest 2 for a run to "nowhere" and ended up in Glen Doll! Tell you what, there is nothing Mundane about my Mondeo!

But then i am now wrambling on! My interest here was piqued by your Alpine as it is what i first drove after passing my test way back in 88. My dad an me even re-engined it soon after for some reason (1.2-1.5??) and it did him another wee while. I then see you drive a Mustang which i would love to get one day! Other things you mention i can also relate to, as if i had somewhere to store em like you, i would also have a wee collection!
All the best,
Geoff.

I had similar insurance issues with the Transit - it comes up on their systems either not at all or as a swb 80 popular... Caused no end of hastle as people had to use their heads and manually enter data.

So, over two months since my last update i figured it was about time i made some sort of effort! You might want to make yourself comfortable and maybe get a cuppa! Todays episode is going to be kinda BIG, and probably in three parts... Part 1.

I've got to tell you, you are not alone. Even the thought of putting something on ebay fills me with dread! It should be so simple, but due to the amount of messers it's just a pain in the buttocks! As ever i have given this some thought, and here is my solution. Someone puts something on ebay for auction. Someone bids on said item and wins the auction. The listing, and sellers fees are then instantly paid by the winning bidder, no ifs, no buts, paid straight away automatically. The winning bidder then gets an invoice for the item they have won, minus the fees that they have already paid... Simple! All the ebay wasters wiped out instantly! Flubbergusted indeed! The thing is, i have got quite a collection at the moment, and i really need to try and raise some revenue for the Carlton restoration, although it's so bad that i reckon it'll be more like a recreation! I have another reason for selling it, and the other cars that i sell, and that reason is neighbours. I have, as i look from the window of Pistonpopper towers three cars parked outside. They're all taxed, insured, MOT'd and ready to roll at a moments notice. However i change them all of the time with three other cars that i have parked outside on the street of where i work. These too are all taxed, insured, MOT'd and ready to roll at a moments notice. So sometimes i go out in one car, and come home in another! This it would appear has become a problem for some of my neighbours, actually it only seems to be some of my newer neighbours. The other day a lady who lives along the road from Pistonpopper Towers and who only moved in about six months ago stopped me as i got out of my car and had a right go at me in the street. She had a real rant about how i was taking up all the parking spaces in the street with my cars. So i said to her that i wasn't taking up all the spaces, i was only taking up three. But she kept on moaning. Then i said to her, so whos is that car? She said, it's mine. I said, and that one? She said, it's my husbands. Oh i said, so whos is the van? She said, it's my husbands works van. So then i said, so you've also got three vehicles parked in the street. But she said that her husbands work van didn't count because it wasn't their personal car! So i said, of course it counts, it's taking up a car parking space, now sod off! i was pretty grumpy, and this is because i'm also getting it from the neighbours of my workplace where i park some of my other cars. I have started getting these annonymous notes left on my cars outside where i work. Now my place of work has a pretty large frontage, and i try to park outside the building, and three cars doesn't fill up the whole frontage of my building. Now i have this neighbour there who has moved in just over a year ago, and it is them that is leaving the annonymous letters on my cars. They think that they're being clever because they leave these annonymous letters signing off, "The angry residents of the street". What this idiot doesn't realise is that i have known most of the residents on this street for over thirty years, and beleive me when they have a problem, they don't leave an annonymous letter, they come over and tell you there's a problem. But i've asked them, and they all seem fine with me parking three cars outside my building. The other thing is i have a security camera on my building, and i can see this muppet come out of his house, and put the note on my cars. I honestly feel like writing him a note saying to the annoymous angry resident, stop putting notes on my car. P.S. you're not so annonymous as i can see you with my security camera putting notes on my car, so stop trying to hide behind the other residents of the street who i have known for thirty odd years! But then i feel like i am sinking to his level, and to be frank i can't be arsed with writing a letter to this moron! But it has to be said that it's kinda just all getting to me at the moment, and this is why i have decided to have a culling! I want to just get down to a resonable amount of cars, something like, oh i dunno, five or so. Or atleast get my collection into single figures again! So starting with the Alpine, the culling began... It was initially won, and i say won in the loosest possible sense by ebay member 'bolde-uk2015' who only had 6 feedbacks! I thought, oh, here we go, but then i looked at his profile and it said they were based in United Kingdom, and have been an eBay member since 25 May, 2015, so i figured that maybe they just didn't do much trading on ebay. So i sent them an email asking when they were collecting the Alpine... Nothing... Waited... Nothing... Waited some more... Nothing... Sent another email and waited... Nothing... So then i decided to check their feedback.



As you can see, not exactly a glowing report! First feedback good, then it all goes shitfaced from there on in! DAMMIT... As predicted by Darkspeed , the curse of the ebay idiot had stuck again! As ebay are less than useless about the idiots who infest their site i figured that i'd have a little whingy whiney moment to myself and then re-list it for a second time.



This time i decided not to start the bidding at £1, but instead go straight for £400, and hope for the best, as ever the second time around it sold for less, just £460, a £65.99 drop from the first time it sold, but never mind. So the guy who bought it sent me a message and asked if i could deliver to Fareham at all as he wanted to do some bits on it before taxing insuring etc. This is not normally something i would even consider doing, but a quick look at google maps and i saw that he was about 26 miles from me, and as i enjoy driving the Alpine very much i figured why not, it will be my farewell voyage! So i said i would deliver it if he could paypal me a deposit of £60 that will leave £400 to pay in cash when I deliver the Alpine. So that was agreed, and i delivered it for free. I did however have some concerns about driving it. My concern was this, as i hadn't driven it for a long time, i felt ok about selling it, however, as i was delivering it, how would i feel about it after driving it for half an hour or so? Would i still be happy to sell it? Well, i guess i'd know soon enough, the day of deliverence came, a Monday no less, so i took the morning off work, convinced my friend to come with me to give me a lift home in his car, and off we went... Except the battery was flat where i hadn't driven it in months, so my friend gave me a jump start, and THEN, off we went!



Driving along the M27 at just over 60mph i must admit i was wondering why i was selling my car, and by the time i had arrived to do the deal i was completely ready to back out of it, turn around, and drive home. But i kept telling myself that if i did that, then i too would be an ebay messer, just i'd be one from the other side of the deal. All too quickly we had arrived at the buyers house. He came out and gave the Alpine a fairly good looking over, and pointed out a few things that he wasn't too happy about, and oddly i kept thinking, thats fine, i'll just take it home again! Then he decided that he wanted to take it for a bit of a test drive, but ofcourse i had turned it off, and with the flat battery it refused to start! I figured that this would put the new owner off, but it didn't! So we hooked it back up to my friends car for a jump start. It then started easily, and we were off for our test drive for a few minutes or so, and the whole time i was thinking that hopefully he was going to back out of the deal, but he didn't. When we got back to his house he had another look over it, and eventually he decided that he was happy, he'd hand over the cash, and we'd fill out the documents... Drat! That was that then, my adventure with Tallbot Alpine C592 NJM was over.



One last photo and a pat on the bonnet before we drove away! In the car on the way home my friend and I were chatting about how i was feeling after selling the Alpine, i told him that i wasn't that thrilled to be honest, and that i actually would've kept that car atleast until i had my original one back on the road. But i told him that i must be strong, and the culling must continue. I followed this up by saying that if the guy had decided he didn't want it, then i wasn't going to talk him into it, i'd just jump back in the Talbot, and high tail it back home! But as that hadn't happened, then i would just have to let it go, and that i guess it was for the best as i really did need to cut down my fleet!

The following day i got an email from the Alpines new owner, he said that it's not going well so far and that the car is not ready to drive because of these faults:-

Rear wiper not working
Battery dead will not charge
Front wiper only one working
Battery tray insecure
Fans don't work
Boot rusted though
Drivers window not working
No radio
Two tyres need replace due to cracks
Exhaust mount broken

This was a bit of a surprise, and i replied that i was sorry to hear that he wasn't happy with his new car. But as i am not a mechanic, and don't really have much in the way of mechanical knowledge (which i think is pretty obvious if you read any of my threads lol) i thought that the car was fine. As far as i was concerned it drove just as well as it always did, infact to be honest it drives a lot better now than it did when i bought it (sorry igotthepoison ). When i delivered it to him the previous day it drove fine, therefore in my opinion it is ready to drive. I also reminded him that it is a 31 year old car, not a brand new car, or even a completely restored car. But after i delivered it to him free of charge, and he gave it a look over, inspected it, took it for a test drive, and when he was happy with it, and handed over the payment for it before filling in the V5c so it that became legally his, this then meant that he approved of it, and he was happy with it. If at any point while he was inspecting it, or test driving it he was not happy at all with it, then this was the time to say that he wasn't happy with the car, and didn't want to complete the sale, not over 24 hours later, and not after filling in the V5c. I might have been a bit grumpy, but due to the other idiots that i've had to deal with, my tolerance levels for this are at an all time low. Anyhoo, a couple of days later i get another message from the Alpines new owner, he said simply that the car was listed as ready to drive. Starts first time, and when it did not start i had said it was a newish battery just needed a charge. He went on to say that he was going to try and fix the faults and he would have to buy a battery! Unfortunately he had caught me on the wrong day. I had already fallen out with my neighbour over my two cars that i now had parked outside Pistonpopper Towers, and i had arrived at work to find a note on each of my cars. To say i was pushed over the edge was an understatement. On top of this i had noticed that he had painted the poor thing, and was trying to punt (unsuccessfully) it on on another forum for more than he had paid me, so ofcourse i let the poor new owner of my Alpine have it with both barrels, and replied by saying that I didn't know what to say as it was fine when I had it, but things can and do fail on old cars without any notice, I then reminded him again that it is a 31 year old car, not a brand new car, or even a completely restored car. Also that i had delivered it to him free of charge, and after he gave it a look over, inspected it, took it for a test drive, and was sure he was happy with it, he filled in the V5c so it that became legally his, he then handed over the payment for it, which obviously meant that he approved of it, and was happy with his new purchase. If at any point while he was inspecting it, or test driving it he wasn't happy at all with it, then that was the time to say that he wasn't happy with it, and he didn't want to complete the sale, not over five days later, not after filling in the V5c, and definitely not after painting it. I have noticed that you have put it up for sale, so you may want to mention these 'faults' that have developed since you have owned it. I finished of by wishing him good luck with the sale! I was not having a great day, and i was properly angry!

The following day after i had calmed down a bit i started to think that maybe i'd been a bit of a nob! Perhaps i had been wrong, i mean it has happened before, i seem to remember a day back in the summer of 1979 when i was wrong the last time, so obviously it wasn't out of the question! Anyhoo, i had spent the day thinking about it at work, and came to the conclusion that maybe i should offer to pay for the battery as i had actually said in my advert that it is quite a nice example of a 31 year old Talbot Alpine, it starts first time every time, and is great fun to own and drive. I meant this too, when i was driving it it did start first time every time, but as i hadn't driven it for a while maybe the battery had given up. I had also decided that as a mark of good will i would give him the replacement wings i had bought, and some other spares i had collected. So i logged onto fleabay, and noticed that he had left me feedback...



Oh dear!! Well it was probably justified after my rant, but lets just say that had a negative effect on my mood, and all thoughts of offering to chip into the price of the battery, and give him the wings and other spares i had collected sort of evaporated right there and then! Moving on, rumour has it that he is now breaking the car for spares, which seems a bit of a backwards move after re-painting it, but there's probably method in his madness.



Personally i don't care for it's new look. I cannot pin point what it is that i don't like about it, but something just doesn't work for me, but each to their own. It has to be said that i did consider painting it matt black, but for me there was something about it's beigeness that i liked... I dunno, maybe it's being middle aged... I'll just get me pipe and slippers and go sit by the fire! By the way, if you do happen to be in the market for a Talbot Alpine, then it's on Gumtree, and it's Ad id is:- 1186539150. I stand by what i said in my original advert, it was quite a nice example of a 31 year old Talbot Alpine, it is great fun to own and drive, but it's not a brand new car, or even a restored car. It bares the markings, and patina of a thirty one year old car that has survived over three decades of use on the highways and byways in all the weathers that the English climate can throw at it (although it's now covered over with blackboard paint or something!) but it was in nice condition for its age although it is not perfect like a brand new or completely restored car is!

Right then, moving on, but sticking with the Alpine for a while longer. What was it like for me? Well, with the exception of this:- It was good, and i really enjoyed it.



Under the bonnet that little 1.6 litre engine whirred away in a very uncarachteristic way for this particular Simca engine, it didn't rattle like a bag full of rusty spanners! It was powerful enough to whip the Alpine along the road at decent enough speeds that you could keep up with the modern traffic who were keeping to the speed limits! It's not a fast car by any stretch of the imagination, but driving it you felt like you were going fast!



Inside the dashboard was functional, however i always meant to swap that non working clock for a rev counter, but never seemed to get around to it. There was no radio but to be fair even if there was one, you would've struggled to hear it over the loud exhaust!



The front seats were lovely big, comfy things, which probably didn't hold you in very well if you were driving it like you stole it, but for normal driving, they were very comfortable, like driving around in your favourite armchair! I spent a whole day driving this thing once, and when i got back home it felt as comfortable getting out of it as it did when i got into it! Brilliant!



In the back it was the same deal, big comfy chairs. The Pistonpoppets said it was great in the back, and said they had plenty of room, and it was comfortable! They did however moan when i fitted the seatbelts!

Now for a few pretty pictures of the outside of it in all it's beige fabulousness!











Fantastic... The fourth picture is my personal favourite. Personally i think it's not a bad looking machine at all, and to me it is just a bit more interesting, and unusual than the normal Cortinas, Golfs, Cavaliers, etc that everyone else wants. Despite being Hearing Aid Beige in colour (when it was mine) this is not the car for someone who wants to just blend in! It was a car for an individual, something that would stand out from the crowd where ever you are, be it driving along the road, at a car show, or doing the weekly shopping. So would i have another one? Well, i don't really need one...



I still have my original one, and a Simca 1308 in bits spread across several council garages! Well, when i bought this Beige one part of the reason was because the Pistonpoppets wondered what they were like to drive in, and partly i bought it because i hoped that it would help to re-kinidle my interest in restoring my original one. I can say that my interest in it has been rejuvinated, and once my Carlton project is finished, my original Alpine is next on the list! It's a while off yet, but watch this space!

Now before i move on to the next installment of this thread, and while we are talking about cars that i used to own. A while back i posted some pictures of my Range Rover. As you can see, not too shabby, infact a bit of a golden oldie! Well, like a great deal of you probably do, i often find myself wondering what has happened to my old cars once i am no longer their custodian. Well, good news, i need wonder no more about my old Range Rover as during the summer it turned up on ebay...











I think it's safe to say it doens't look quite as good as it did when i had it... What the heck happened? And on that note, you might want to go and brew yourselves another cuppa, and maybe have a Digestive or two, and prepare yourselves for part 2...

In part 3 of this monsterous update of biblical proportions i'm going to start with the Carlton, now you may remember that back in May it failed it's MOT in spectacular fashion... It IS bad! Actually it's far worse than probably even the MOT inspector thought! Once it was up on the table at Aunt Fannys we started to have a good prod around the Carlton, and the more we proded, the less we had to prod!



So it's currently perched on a table looking very sorry for its self!



Actually, in these two photos it doesn't look too bad, but underneath there's next to nothing left! So the first thing we did once it was up on the table was have a good prod around, this was followed by my friend and I sitting on the floor while i had a cry! My friend said to me that he would like to comfort me by saying not to worry, it's not too bad, but unfortunately he couldn't as it was really REALLY bad! I have to say that i am quite lucky in a way, because my friend understands that finding another one will be hard, and we might end up no better off, so he said, what shall we do? What's the plan? So i said that i really didn't have a clue, and asked him what he thought. He thought that what we should do is go out and find a nice V6 Omega, like this thing of beauty from last years 12 cars thread...



Chop the body off the Omega, chop the floor out of the Carlton, then glue them back together with the hot sparkly stick! I sat there, letting his words of wisdom penetrate my feeble brain, before saying, ok, lets have a measure up! Before too long we had the measurements for the Carlton, Starting with, what i consider to be the most important measurement, the wheelbase which was about 105 inches. The car itself is about 182 inches long, and 68 inches wide. Good, now we have something to work from we thought, right, go out and find an Omega to measure! It took a while, but eventually after driving around all the carparks in town i spotted an old guy filling up at the petrol station. I pulled in and wandered up to the old fella and asked him if he would mind if i measured his car up? He was a bit dumbfounded and my request, but he said that it would be ok. Good, so, out with the tape measure. The all important wheelbase was 107.5 inches, the length was about 193 inches, and the width was about 70 inches! Good, so as expected the Omega is bigger everywhere. Back at base we looked long and hard at the difference in measurements. It was decided that we could chop 2.5 inches from the middle of the car to get the wheelbase right. With that removed there would only be another 8.5 inches to lose from the over all length of the floorpan, which should be easy enough, most of that would probably be lost from the boot to be fair! And this just leaves the difference of 2 inches in width, and this, it was decided just meant that the wheels would fill the arches better! So that was the plan. And it was a good plan, it meant that it would have a V6 engine with plenty of power, decent brakes, decent suspension, it was going to be just epic! Then i had a thought, if we did this, would it not need a BIVA? We discussed this at length over a bit of a brew, and after a bit of research we thought that it probably would need a BIVA... Oh BOVVER!! But worse than that, it seemed a sketchy area to chop the floor pan out of one car, and weld it in place in another. I probably have this wrong, and hopefully if you know better you'll tell me, but it looked like if we weld the floorpan from an Omega into my Carlton, it may not even pass a BIVA test? We thought some more, did a bit more research, and finally my friend said, "But who would know? What MOT inspector is going to look under there and go, no, thats not a Carlton floorpan, thats the floorpan from an Omega?" I must say that he's got a point, i mean who would know (apart from you guys obviously!), how would they find out? If we did a good enough job, once it was all welded, seam sealed, and painted under there nobody will know that it's not a Carlton will they? But, the trouble was that by now i was starting to think that i didn't want it to be an Omega underneath anymore, i wanted it to be a Carlton. Something will be lost from the driving experience if it's too good! I can't beleive that i'm writing this, but i want it to be more of a restoration, so it's as it left the factory... Well, more or less! So after all that research and discussion we were back to where we started, with a very rusty Carlton, and wondering where we go from here! A list was made that looked more like a scroll of work we needed to do. We then turned to the body, removed all the glass carefully. Then turned our attention to the rusty body panels! I said to my friend that as we are going down the resto route, i wanted it done properly, so any rust we found was to be chopped out, and filled with fresh steel. Any panels that were rusty would be replaced. Before too long it was apparent that i was going to need a new bonnet, front wings, valence, doors, sills (obviously), rear arches, the lower edge of the rear wings, and a new tailgate might be good too. However the good news is that the roof is fine! Currently i have located most of the parts in either very good, rust free condition, and in some cases, brand new! However, none of these parts are in the UK, they are all spread across mainland Europe. I'm thinking, roadtrip! Probably with a trailer, lets just hope it goes better than my first attempt at towing a trailer across Europe!

This brings us on to the last bit of my update. The Fiat!



Now, i'm nowhere near ready to sell this little car, and i absolutely love driving it, it handles superbly, and goes like the devil. It is an absolute blast to drive! I really do believe that as a track day toy this would be phenomenal fun! They sell for next to nothing, and they're just brilliant, far better than the Golf or Scirocco! So but after selling the Alpine, and the Scirocco, i had the bit firmly clenched between my teeth. So while it's got a couple of months MOT on it, it's got to go! DAMMIT!



So on to the bay of e it went where i figured that it will probably sell for peanuts! If indeed it actually managed to find a buyer who wasn't going to mess me around! Three days into the auction i still had no bids! Parking it at a murder scene probably didn't help, but stupidly i didn't notice that when i took the photos lol! Something needed to be done, no one was even looking at my little Fiat, so i posted a link for a Cheap, and fun runabout in the Ebay and Elsewhere bit on this very forum. Didn't mention it was a Fiat in the hope that people would look first, and judge later! It worked ha ha! I had a bidder, and then another one, and another... It was taking it's time but with about two days left to go i was up to a massive £50! Which wasn't enough frankly, but i was hoping for a mad flurry at the end! I now had a few different bidders, and a fair amount of watchers! I started to wonder which one of my potential winners was going to be the one who messed me around, but i shouldn't have worried, because it was to be none of them. Instead i was blind sided, and ebay decided they would mess me around instead, and ended my listing! WHY?!! I said in dispair, why when i'm not being messed about by buyers, why has Ebay done this to me? Probably because it was going too smoothly! But here's the email i got... We've determined that some of your listings haven't followed our Brand Name Misuse policy. Therefore, we had to take the following actions:- Listings that didn't follow our policies have been removed. Adding brand, celebrity, or manufacturer names to a listing that was not made by that company, person, or manufacturer isn't allowed. The Title of your listing contains "not Punto, Stilo, Strada, Panda, Multipla". We understand you try to describe your item in the best possible manner by comparing with other items or brands or mentioning other keywords; however, these unrelated keywords/brand names affect the search results and may attract buyers searching for these items. We have credited all associated fees except for the final value fee for your listing! WHAT!? I had no idea this was not allowed, besides, i'm not sure i have mislead anyone, They're all Fiats, and they all use the Fiat The Type Two platform that was a front wheel drive platform which was designed by the Fiat Group and used during the late 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s for a range of Alfa Romeo, Fiat and even Lancia models. The Type Two platform introduced the concept of a "modular" platform, allowing the Fiat group to assemble various models from the same floorpan with some special modifications. It uses four-wheel independent suspension, composed of MacPherson struts at the front and trailing arms at the rear. Ok so maybe the Punto, the Panda, and the Strada might be a bit of a stretch but i'm pretty sure it's under the Bravo, Brava, Marea, Multipla, Tipo, Stilo, and various other Fiats, plus many more Alfa Romeos, and Lancias. But as ever there's no way of arguing with ebay as they won't let you contact them in any way shape or form. So instead i had to just suck it up, and move on. However, i did call my credit card company and instruct them that when ebay put in for their fees this month they were not to pay them. I told them that they had cancelled my listing and as such they should not be paid for it. My credit card company agreed, and told me that ebay would not be paid for this listing! Yay, it's a small win, but a win never the less! Of course ebay will probably cancel my account, and i'll be thrown off ebay altogether so it'll probably end up by being a Pyrrhic victory for me, but its a victory never the less!



I wish i could say that i hated this car, but i don't, i just love it. It's 1.8 litre Twin Cam engine whizzes away under the bonnet, and makes it quite a fun little car to drive, every time i take it out i find that it's a better car than i thought the last time i took it out, it's just brilliant. Yes it's a little scruffy, but it's not rusty, it's just the laquer is all peeling off! If i had plenty of cash, and a massive wharehouse where i could keep my favourite cars, then this one would be one of the cars i'd keep forever! I wouldn't even bother finding a tidy example, i'd keep this one! But time, space, and needing the cash for the Carlton all mean that in reality, it's got to go! But, it would seem that due to being a Fiat, and a particularly unloved Fiat at that, that it's not going to sell for any proper money. Therefore i have decided that i shall just keep it until the MOT runs out, then its back onto fleabay as spares or repair due to the crack that it has in the windscreen!

And here endeth my massive update. Thanks for reading!