Twelve Cars In A Year!

Have i guessed the next one?
m.ebay.co.uk/itm/251957086198?nav=SEARCH

Wow, thats a pretty impressive selection of BMWs, i always think it's nice to have choices. I'm glad you're still enjoying the read, it's good to hear that i'm still writing something worth reading to be honest.


YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'RE IN A BELLIGERENT MOOD? lol I feel like i'm getting nowhere with the RAC about my trailer, i really do think that's gone for good. I'm now battling with them over the breakdown with the Omega in Germany. As for the DVLA, i think this kind of job attracts little dictators who like to have power and control over other people, so it's to be expected really. Should've gone with my first instincts, say nothing to the DVLA, cross my fingers, and just go for it


Ha ha, no it won't be that! I'm not a big Cadillac fan, infact if it's not something like this vvv



Then i'm not all that interested... I just wish i could afford something like this!

However, i have noticed that four months into my twelve cars in a year quest i've had a Vauxhall Frontera Estate, a Rover 416 Estate, a Vauxhall Omega Estate, and a Jaguar X-type Estate. I like estate cars, i really do, and i think this is due to being ferried around in nothing but estate cars as a child, so my tiny brain has been branded from an early age with long roof cars! But in a bid to stop buying another estate car and turning this into the year of the wagon i plan to not have an estate car next (hopefully). But this does not mean that i wont return to my estate car roots at some point before the year is out. I have a couple of other estate cars i'd quite like to own at some point.

Yeah, when you're a kid they get ingrained in you psyche, you can't help it, it's like subliminal messages... We've been brainwashed by our Dads lol! However, i've always fought it, and out of the 54 cars i've owned in my life only 7 have been estate cars, thats only about 13% (I think, maths isn't my strong point!) My Dad never like saloon cars, and i've picked up on that too, i can't stand them, YUCK!! They just look plain ugly to me, and to this point of only had 2 of them, so i guess thats about 2%. But in my defence the two that i had were a Humber Super Snipe, which i thought was pretty cool, and a Volvo 240, which was an absolute blinder of a car! For the most part my car back catalogue is filled with hatchbacks (35%) pick ups (22%) coupés (15%) vans (7%) convertibles (4%) people carriers (2%) I was weak, it was an original Fiat Multipla a vehichle thats so achingly ugly it's gotta be cool!!

Still, could be worse, think of the kids twenty years from now, brainwahsed by their parents into thinking that people carriers are cool! I'm trying my hardest to keep my kids away from the dark side of motoring!

Interestingly, or not, my taste in cars matches no one else I know, haha.
Everyone thinks I like terrible cars (they're mostly right).
My dad has had either Landcruisers or trucks as far back as I can remember. Both parents and my brother like Minis but I have no interest in them (Minors are a different matter, and I get agitated when someone unknowledgeable talks about my 'mini')
But everything else I want is just obscure and probably tasteless.
Current want list is a big american estate of some kind, but I would settle for an Amazon wagon.
A Mitsubishi Starion widebody, and a Mazda Carol P360 which barely exist

Oh, and I would love to own a Citreon DS 

I still think that having a car that is easy to push to it's limits can be a lot of fun to drive. As long as you're not short changed when you need it.

Yeah, my next project I was thinking of converting one of my spare Minor shells to a sort of short-trayed crewcab. Sort of like this.


4WD and all, of course.

As for American wagons, a bunch of friends and I are thinking of doing a trip around america with some beaters and then shipping them back here to pay for the holiday.
Although if I can find either of these, I may hold on to it.


(not a wagon, I know. But would definitely hold on to it)

I like the idea of a 4x4 Minor i must confess, you've gotta build it! There was something along those lines on ebay here a couple of months ago, i liked it and saved a pic from the listing...



I thought it looked pretty cool. I had something along these lines myself a couple of years ago...



It started off as a very underpowered Tata loadbeta pick up, and it all ended up on a Range Rover chassis and running gear complete with 3.5litre V8 engine, it was pretty damn cool to tool about in!

As for your idea for buying American wagons with your friends and driving across America and shipping them home, well that would be truly EPIC my friend! I'd quite enjoy reading that thread!


I don't know about that, i reckon if you did a build thread with lots of pictures people would read it, looks like a pretty sweet ride to me! don't forget, you're reading about my adventures with a 2004 Jaguar, and previously a 2000 Vauxhall, i reckon a 2000 Mercedes is pretty retro, i mean it's already 15 years old. Like Geordie said...


Write the thread my friend, like they say in Field Of Dreams, if you build it, they will come!

For me, and this is only my opinion it as much a state of mind as anything else. The word 'retro' derives from the Latin prefix retro, meaning backwards, or in past times it can be used to describe objects, like cars, motorcycles etc and attitudes from the recent past that no longer seem to be what would currently be described to be modern. It suggests a fundamental change in the way we relate to the past. The term retro appears to be different from more traditional forms of revivalism, retro suggests an almost ironic longing consideration of the recent past. So pretty much anything that could be considered to be 'old tech' is retro, and as car design moves fairly quickly retro could be anything that is as new as a ten year old car, or possibly newer than that! I think the term retro car doesn't really have a clear definition in relation to the age of the vehicle, unlike the term classic car which in the UK atleast is a term generally referred to as a vehicle of at least 25 years old, however some people define a car 15-25 years old as a 'modern classic' which perhaps is another term for retro car? To confuse matters further you also get 'retro style' this is style that is consciously derivative or imitative of trends, modes, fashions, or attitudes of the recent past. So for examples of this in the automotive world would be cars like the VW Beetle, Fiat 500, 2005-2010 Ford Mustang, and even the styling on the Jaguar X-type harks back to Jaguars past. Retro style refers to new things that display characteristics of the past. It is mostly the recent past that retro seeks to recapitulate, focusing on the products, fashions and artistic styles produced since the Industrial Revolution, of Modernity. Does this make sense, or am i just twittering on?

So then, back to the April car, the Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag... Well, back in the middle of the month i listed it on the bay of E with a ten day listing in the hope that by now, the last day of May it would be in someone elses custody, unfortunately for me atleast this wasn't to be. I had set my reserve at the price i wanted to recieve for the Jag, which was £1800.00, which as you might remember was the price i paid for it way back in February. Clearly the price i paid for it back then was too much, so it didn't meet it's reserve. Bummer! It's typical that the car that i've liked the least so far out of the four cars so far purchased for the twelve cars in a year project would be the one that i am having most trouble selling. There was very few 'watchers' on the bay, and only a handful of bidders two of which had no feedback and had only recently joined ebay. Due to previous experience with new bidders i always expect them to be a 'no show' if infact they win it, and infact i'm always apprehensive when i have people bidding on my stuff who are new, and/or don't have feedback. I also had very few questions about it, i think i had two or three in the nine days leading up to the end of the auction, but on the tenth day, the day the auction ended i had a flurry of questions emailled to me, all from people who had not yet bid on it, or asked questions previously. Due to not being available to answer these questions, i didn't answer them, this of course meant that the people submitting the questions didn't bid, which is understandable. What i don't understand is that these people had ten days to submit questions, why wait until the last day? I also think that another problem may be the way i write my listings, or take the photos, or something else? Who knows, and i think the best thing is probably to not get too hung up on the failed listing, re-list it with a lower reserve, stand back, and hope for the best. I have considered if the problem is setting a reserve, i've noticed that when i don't set a reserve i seem to get far more interest than when i do. I guessing that this might be because people think that the reserve price might be more than they want to pay, so they just don't bother bidding in the first place, and of course there's always the theory that when you're bidding on something, and the reserve is met, then you could actually win it, and then you get caught up in some kind of bidding war, and possibly end up paying more than you initially hoped to pay. Hopefully, due to my lower reserve it will be met this time, and the Jaaaaaaaaaaaag will be in someone elses driveway in about ten days time... Time will tell.



Here's the link to my ebay ad, should you fancy bidding on it:-
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151699417506?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

I'd agree with all that, the under bonnet picture is quite off-putting. Something else which is a bit strange but the headrests pointing down doesn't look good to me makes it look a bit sad....