As promised, here is what I've racked up ownership off since July 2000. I only passed my test (first time) in Dec 02 so my first two cars, I acquired before I passed. I'm only 24 now so I haven't got much to tell I'm afraid.....
If you've heard my stories on A-S please look away now!
What you should see above is my first passion wagon! My 1985 Fiat Panda 45CL 903cc. Bought in 2000 for £145, collected by the council for £35 (WE paid THEM!) in 2002 when we moved house & decided that my 'Sea Cow' was not coming with us as was too rusty, and my affection had shifted to the Ritmo I found in 2001. I was not around to see it get taken away, that I was glad about! It was a loveable little car, but I was still learning & it was too much of a go cart to make a good learner car. It wasn't a good car to get me used to driving as it was so nimble & jerky.
Taken during 2001 after I had acquired the Ritmo as well. So between Jun 2001 & Mar 2002 I was the proud owner of two very old & wibblepoo Fiats! I love rare & interesting vehicles, the street must have loved me! In those days I didn't even drive, didn't take & pass my test until Dec 02! Shocking.
Destiny brought my 1980 Fiat Ritmo 65CL 1300cc & I together! Spotted in an Autotrader in 2001 for £195 in London. I enquired about the car (1 owner, only 44K on the clock, zero rust!) but somebody just beat me to it. I was completely gutted! Fast forward about 3 months, & was flicking through the Autotrader in the shop as per usual, not looking for anything imparticular, when suddenly I spotted it back in there again! What were the chances?! This time it was being offered in Sevenoaks & the price had gone up to £350, and definitely the same car! Didn't make the same mistake again, & this time the car became mine. Turns out the guy only bought it for the gearbox for his X1/9 but when he received the car, it was so good he didn't have the heart to pull it apart, so wanted it to go to an enthusiast. He did one or two things like repair the headlining, the car was still a great bargain! Alot of the people enquiring wanted to take it apart for racing, nab the shell, etc but he didn't want that luckily. It really is a RHD Ritmo!! It was Strada over here & Ritmo all over Europe, but this is a RHD badged Ritmo, don't know if that makes it especially rare!
Unfortunately sometime after this picture was taken, whilst the Ritmo was parked in that exact spot, an old lady clipped the rear offside of the car with her car. So unbelievably intoxicated off I was! She had the sun in her eyes, but it makes me feel the biggest danger on the roads is not the young (yes, I am biased) but the over 70s! At least the young are capable of driving well, they just choose not to. Old folk can't help driving doddily & badly. At least her newer Rover ended up looking worst off! Anyway ever since the Ritmo was hit (it needs a rear panel beating, bumper reattaching on one corner, rear offside light replacing, bit of paint) it was pushed round the corner into a garage I'm renting & has just been kept out of harm's way for the past 4 years until I get around to sorting it out, which I do intend to do! Still really dig the look of this car, only seen 2 more in the flesh in the past 5 years since I got mine. One at the Bromley Pageant & one in the South of France. The one at Bromley is a peach, a mint 105tc Abarth but badged as Strada!
In Dec 2004 my longstanding dream of owning my two favourite 1970s hatchbacks became reality when I became the owner of my favourite Renault & my favourite Fiat (Fiat & Renault being my favourite old car manufacturers). Whenever on holiday on the continent, I'd love looking out for the odd looking Fiat Ritmo, & the equally odd looking Renault 14. These two cars have so much character to me & I thought that tracking down & owning both of them together would be an impossible dream, but it wasn't! I responded to an ad for my 1978 R14 TL in Oct 04 which was located in Bristol being sold by mouseflakes (Tim). The ad was on the Renault owners club website, which I always checked on the off chance but R14's just NEVER come up! Up until I found my car, I'd only ever seen one other R14 advertised anywhere & that was 6 years previously when I was only 16 & could only yearn for it when I had neither the money nor the understanding parents. It coincided with recently being in France on holiday so they were still at the front of my mind. Therefore although I already had 2 cars, my mind was made up in a flash that my modern Fiesta would be sold to make way for my R14! When these cars come along, if you want it, you take it! I never wanted to regret not having it! Only 30k, body pretty good, & a nice pure early version which I have been driving to work every day for nearly 2 years without any trouble worth mentioning, I certainly don't regret it! At £80 compared to £2000 for my 1995 Fiesta, I had the AA out on Friday for the FIRST time in 2 years for the R14. In the 2 years I had the Fiesta, I had the AA out 5 times!! My battery is not holding charge, seems I need a new alternator! This is the only time the Renault has had a problem that stopped it being driven, I'm still chuffed with it's dependability!
You can see my former 'dependable' everyday Fiesta in the background of this picture! Yes the car looked nicer, & was not autoshite, but boy it had it's problems! Not like the Renault touchwood! Can't get better than finding your dreamcar, & it actually works!
The Fiesta I got in Oct 02 intended to be my first modern daily car. It was for nearly 2 1/2 years. This actually got 'superceded' by the Renault believe it or not! But at the time, the Renault was a must have buy! I reckoned that keeping 3 cars would be a bit too 'far out'!
Fast forward to April 07, and that's exactly what's happened! I'm now a 3 car guy! Well basically now that I've got the exact two old cars I was craving all that time, it was just left to acquire something fast, modern, and acceptable to the girlfriend, to take me about on a daily basis. Cue this......which I'd have owned a fortnight on Thursday! It might be modern, but it had to be equally madcap of course!
........it's a 'wheely' nice car!
So, there we have it. My life of automobiles in a nutshell. Ok bit of a coconut shell, but we all have our faults!
If you've heard my stories on A-S please look away now!
What you should see above is my first passion wagon! My 1985 Fiat Panda 45CL 903cc. Bought in 2000 for £145, collected by the council for £35 (WE paid THEM!) in 2002 when we moved house & decided that my 'Sea Cow' was not coming with us as was too rusty, and my affection had shifted to the Ritmo I found in 2001. I was not around to see it get taken away, that I was glad about! It was a loveable little car, but I was still learning & it was too much of a go cart to make a good learner car. It wasn't a good car to get me used to driving as it was so nimble & jerky.
Taken during 2001 after I had acquired the Ritmo as well. So between Jun 2001 & Mar 2002 I was the proud owner of two very old & wibblepoo Fiats! I love rare & interesting vehicles, the street must have loved me! In those days I didn't even drive, didn't take & pass my test until Dec 02! Shocking.
Destiny brought my 1980 Fiat Ritmo 65CL 1300cc & I together! Spotted in an Autotrader in 2001 for £195 in London. I enquired about the car (1 owner, only 44K on the clock, zero rust!) but somebody just beat me to it. I was completely gutted! Fast forward about 3 months, & was flicking through the Autotrader in the shop as per usual, not looking for anything imparticular, when suddenly I spotted it back in there again! What were the chances?! This time it was being offered in Sevenoaks & the price had gone up to £350, and definitely the same car! Didn't make the same mistake again, & this time the car became mine. Turns out the guy only bought it for the gearbox for his X1/9 but when he received the car, it was so good he didn't have the heart to pull it apart, so wanted it to go to an enthusiast. He did one or two things like repair the headlining, the car was still a great bargain! Alot of the people enquiring wanted to take it apart for racing, nab the shell, etc but he didn't want that luckily. It really is a RHD Ritmo!! It was Strada over here & Ritmo all over Europe, but this is a RHD badged Ritmo, don't know if that makes it especially rare!
Unfortunately sometime after this picture was taken, whilst the Ritmo was parked in that exact spot, an old lady clipped the rear offside of the car with her car. So unbelievably intoxicated off I was! She had the sun in her eyes, but it makes me feel the biggest danger on the roads is not the young (yes, I am biased) but the over 70s! At least the young are capable of driving well, they just choose not to. Old folk can't help driving doddily & badly. At least her newer Rover ended up looking worst off! Anyway ever since the Ritmo was hit (it needs a rear panel beating, bumper reattaching on one corner, rear offside light replacing, bit of paint) it was pushed round the corner into a garage I'm renting & has just been kept out of harm's way for the past 4 years until I get around to sorting it out, which I do intend to do! Still really dig the look of this car, only seen 2 more in the flesh in the past 5 years since I got mine. One at the Bromley Pageant & one in the South of France. The one at Bromley is a peach, a mint 105tc Abarth but badged as Strada!
In Dec 2004 my longstanding dream of owning my two favourite 1970s hatchbacks became reality when I became the owner of my favourite Renault & my favourite Fiat (Fiat & Renault being my favourite old car manufacturers). Whenever on holiday on the continent, I'd love looking out for the odd looking Fiat Ritmo, & the equally odd looking Renault 14. These two cars have so much character to me & I thought that tracking down & owning both of them together would be an impossible dream, but it wasn't! I responded to an ad for my 1978 R14 TL in Oct 04 which was located in Bristol being sold by mouseflakes (Tim). The ad was on the Renault owners club website, which I always checked on the off chance but R14's just NEVER come up! Up until I found my car, I'd only ever seen one other R14 advertised anywhere & that was 6 years previously when I was only 16 & could only yearn for it when I had neither the money nor the understanding parents. It coincided with recently being in France on holiday so they were still at the front of my mind. Therefore although I already had 2 cars, my mind was made up in a flash that my modern Fiesta would be sold to make way for my R14! When these cars come along, if you want it, you take it! I never wanted to regret not having it! Only 30k, body pretty good, & a nice pure early version which I have been driving to work every day for nearly 2 years without any trouble worth mentioning, I certainly don't regret it! At £80 compared to £2000 for my 1995 Fiesta, I had the AA out on Friday for the FIRST time in 2 years for the R14. In the 2 years I had the Fiesta, I had the AA out 5 times!! My battery is not holding charge, seems I need a new alternator! This is the only time the Renault has had a problem that stopped it being driven, I'm still chuffed with it's dependability!
You can see my former 'dependable' everyday Fiesta in the background of this picture! Yes the car looked nicer, & was not autoshite, but boy it had it's problems! Not like the Renault touchwood! Can't get better than finding your dreamcar, & it actually works!
The Fiesta I got in Oct 02 intended to be my first modern daily car. It was for nearly 2 1/2 years. This actually got 'superceded' by the Renault believe it or not! But at the time, the Renault was a must have buy! I reckoned that keeping 3 cars would be a bit too 'far out'!
Fast forward to April 07, and that's exactly what's happened! I'm now a 3 car guy! Well basically now that I've got the exact two old cars I was craving all that time, it was just left to acquire something fast, modern, and acceptable to the girlfriend, to take me about on a daily basis. Cue this......which I'd have owned a fortnight on Thursday! It might be modern, but it had to be equally madcap of course!
........it's a 'wheely' nice car!
So, there we have it. My life of automobiles in a nutshell. Ok bit of a coconut shell, but we all have our faults!
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