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A Morris Marina.  One of the worst cars ever made :lol:

My Dad had one on a rare venture away from Vauxhalls.   I'd be driving along a country road, hit a bump, and suddenly find myself heading either for the ditch or for the other side of the road.  It was years later that I discovered that this was known as "bump steer", and that the Marina was notorious for it.

Below is my very first car, in 1980.  Looking back, it wasn't a sensible choice for a first car when money was tight, but it was a fantastic car.  I swear that to this day it was the most comfortable car that I have ever driven.

car01.jpg.50a4a999d75e4bd48480f71572739012.jpg       car02.jpg.48f4b860ca3aaaee81924e9e20b5ef51.jpg

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41 minutes ago, snorbens_caleyman said:

A Morris Marina.  One of the worst cars ever made :lol:

My Dad had one on a rare venture away from Vauxhalls.   I'd be driving along a country road, hit a bump, and suddenly find myself heading either for the ditch or for the other side of the road.  It was years later that I discovered that this was known as "bump steer", and that the Marina was notorious for it.

Below is my very first car, in 1980.  Looking back, it wasn't a sensible choice for a first car when money was tight, but it was a fantastic car.  I swear that to this day it was the most comfortable car that I have ever driven.

car01.jpg.50a4a999d75e4bd48480f71572739012.jpg       car02.jpg.48f4b860ca3aaaee81924e9e20b5ef51.jpg

I borrowed my boss's Marina down in Prestwick and I lost the back end coming out of a roundabout. He wrote it off a few weeks later.

I was on the Citroens for years too. 3 BX diesels, 2 Xantias then a Picasso. Hydropneumatic suspension or whatever it was called. Raised a few eyebrows in a ferry queue when you started up. Very stylish cars but not the most functional. I'm on my 3rd Skoda Octavia now.

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Mine was a Citroen GS Club.  Air-cooled flat-four 1220cc engine kept the bonnet line low - and the spare wheel was under that bonnet, flat on top of the engine.  Front-wheel drive.  Disc brakes all round.  Spade-handle handbrake coming out of the dashboard.  Single-spoke steering wheel.  Radio mounted vertically between the front seats. 

Wasn't a hatchback, but the boot lid was that vertical section where the number plate is, including the central part of the bumper. So there was a massive boot, and no sill to lift stuff over.  I cut holes in the rear-window parcel shelf and basically mounted my speakers in the boot  :groovy:  The fabric on top of the rear seats crumbled to dust, baked by the sun coming through that rear windscreen.

First time I went under it, I was gobsmacked, because it was streamlined like a boat.  The exhaust and brake pipes were set into channels in the underside, so that they didn't interfere with the aerodynamics.

And the hydropneumatic suspension.  Great when it worked.  But we were on a break in Yorkshire when suddenly there was green fluid spattering across the windscreen, and we lost much of the suspension and some of the brakes.  Limped into a garage in Beverley, where the owner took one look at it and said "There's the workshop.  Use whatever you want - I'm not touching it!".

Fantastic that Citroen was putting something like that up against the Ford Escort.  But a little too complex and expensive for a first car.

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5 hours ago, TheMantis said:

My second car. After I scrapped the Minx and got a fiver for it I had a company car for about 3 years then I bought this one. Here in Lewis about 1980 or 81. LNO 196P I think.

Untitled (2) (10).jpg

That's a Hillman Avenger :wink:  my father had the 1500 GLS which had good spec for the time and was quite nippy although if yo went over 70mph there was a howling wind noise from the front windscreen/door pillars.

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I like the Macbraynes Bedford TK in Stornoway, they were a basic lorry but good to drive the one that I had was the 570 which had the four cylinder engine and lacked power especially on the hills.

 

File1335.jpg

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18 minutes ago, snorbens_caleyman said:

:oops:     I compared it with quite a few photographs of Marinas, just to be sure! 

I wondered what you were on about. I even checked the ferry pic to see if there was a Marina there. IBM will soon say, but I think it’s a Triumph and a Volvo?

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40 minutes ago, TheMantis said:

I wondered what you were on about. I even checked the ferry pic to see if there was a Marina there. IBM will soon say, but I think it’s a Triumph and a Volvo?

Are you sure you didn't think it was a Marina you had :ponder:

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25 minutes ago, IBM said:

Are you sure you didn't think it was a Marina you had :ponder:

That Avenger was a good servant. I think it cost £750 and it replaced my company car, a Chrysler Avenger HSX 7T. It took us all the way to the south of France and back, even though I had to stop at a garage and use their airline to blow the flakes out of the petrol line. The fuel tanks had a plastic coating which flaked off. I replaced the tank at home and I replaced an engine valve on it too. Nowadays I wouldn't even do an oil change, leave it to the pros.

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1 hour ago, TheMantis said:

That Avenger was a good servant. I think it cost £750 and it replaced my company car, a Chrysler Avenger HSX 7T. It took us all the way to the south of France and back, even though I had to stop at a garage and use their airline to blow the flakes out of the petrol line. The fuel tanks had a plastic coating which flaked off. I replaced the tank at home and I replaced an engine valve on it too. Nowadays I wouldn't even do an oil change, leave it to the pros.

The first fuel problem I had on my first car a Ford Corsair broke down on Carse Road on my way home from work.  My father was a plant fitter but could do sort any problems on cars as well so we went round with his van after dinner.  I opened the bonnet and he took of the air filter to get to the carburetor then I started to turn the engine over he was saying there was no petrol getting to the carburetor.  He then came round to the drivers door turned the key and said "it won't start with no bloody petrol in the tank"  Oops................:slapme:

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  • 4 weeks later...

Here is a 1974 Ford bus for Robert, I don't know any more than that.  The cars parked are Ford Granada Mk1, Volvo 123, Hillman Hunter GLS and Ford Escort Mk1 estate.  The Hunter GLS registration SST4 was owned by a Mr Morrison who was an inspector on the buses who I think stayed on Oldtown Road in Hilton and his son Gordon was a Typewriter Mechanic with C H Webster.

HST202N.JPG

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That’s a Ford R1114 with an Alexander 49 seat coach body. Fleetnumber T102. How sad am I!! Pictured at Farraline Park, although I don’t recall buses being able to exit that way, but I did live in the Fort at the time. 

Edited by Robert
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2 hours ago, Robert said:

That’s a Ford R1114 with an Alexander 49 seat coach body. Fleetnumber T102. How sad am I!! Pictured at Farraline Park, although I don’t recall buses being able to exit that way, but I did live in the Fort at the time. 

It might have been ok to exit that way if you were going to Ullapool :wink:

Does anyone remember this car?

F112OAR.JPG

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15 hours ago, IBM said:

Does anyone remember this car?

Did you mean the actual car - presumably an unmarked police vehicle - as opposed to the make and model?

In which case the answer is no - because I had left town long beforehand.

I do, however, remember an "unmarked" police car in the early 70s, which was an acid green Ford Escort.  It stood out by a mile.

If my school-friends and I saw it parked near a hostelry that we were intending to visit, we knew to steer well clear.

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It was the first unmarked police car with in car speed detection and video camera which you can see in the top centre of the windscreen to be used on the A9 and when the locals got to recognize the registration number they would change it.  At the time they had 10 different plates along with the road tax for each plate!  I never had to sit in the back and watch a video :wink:

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  • 1 year later...

Far too many there I will be up all night :lol:  The photo will be early seventies and I will pick out a few rare ones.  To left and above the back of the Austin/Morris FG lorry with a dark bonnet is a Volvo 123 and just above the lorry the big car looks like a Rolls or a Bentley.  The second one above left of the white Austin Maxi at the BT pole (DP9) is a Hillman Imp and the next row back to the right  facing sixth car in is an old Ford Zepher.  The rest are the usual poor quality cars from that time including the white Ford Cortina passing on the road!

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22 hours ago, IBM said:

Far too many there I will be up all night :lol:  The photo will be early seventies and I will pick out a few rare ones.  To left and above the back of the Austin/Morris FG lorry with a dark bonnet is a Volvo 123 and just above the lorry the big car looks like a Rolls or a Bentley.  The second one above left of the white Austin Maxi at the BT pole (DP9) is a Hillman Imp and the next row back to the right  facing sixth car in is an old Ford Zepher.  The rest are the usual poor quality cars from that time including the white Ford Cortina passing on the road!

Who do you think made decent cars back then? I was always a bit of a Rootes fan as my first car was a Hillman Minx and my mate had a Humber.
I remember I had a customer who ran limos which were Fords. I managed to upset him and the son when I repeated my dad’s opinions that Fords were heavy on petrol and hard to start 😂

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50 minutes ago, Robert said:

OK, for old vehicles, this was laid on to take us to a wedding at the end of August.

Can IBM identify the type of bus??

 

684AFA44-72D4-4047-82C5-0001D7CC3582.jpeg

It's a Bristol but I can't tell you anymore.  I hope you had a good time at the wedding.

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Indeed it is.

Bristol SC4LK with a body built by Eastern Coach Works. New on 1961, it seats 35.

Immaculately restored by Stagecoach and used for weddings and events on Lincolnshire.

It has a crash gearbox and no power steering so is a beast to drive. 

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I will show how sad I am, but the Eastern Scottish ones were most likely AECs. Bristol single deck vehicles were primarily operated south of the border, although some did appear for Scotland - London services from the mid 60s. 

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