Factual correction, I learned in it at 17, starting on the evening of my
17th birthday - and drove it from there onwards, till we replaced it when I was iirc 19 or 20 - t'was a sad day when that guy came and took it away :-(. It somehow went through the next 2 MOTs as well, 'cos I often saw it in town, with ladders on the side hehe! I also
It was 18 when I was arguing with my mate who had the oldest car in the college carpark. He had an A reg Fiesta which was actually an '84, so mine was oldest :-)
T'was the summer of '90 and after saying goodbye with a lump in my throat to my first ever car, it was time for something with a bit more space and better fuel economy than a 17-year-old Spitfire with completely knackered carbs.
Renophile[1] FIL was getting rid of his current car and I was the proud second owner of a burgundy red 20TX - DWL xxx Y [2]. _The_ comfiest car I have ever sat in.
Interior shots please Pete just so I can reminisce.
[1] 4, 5, 11, 20, Clio, Megane, Megane Conv, Laguna are the ones I can remember.
[2] Been flaying away at the DVLA website like a demented loon trying to remember what xxx was. 980 rings the most bells but has it down as a diseasal - mine was deffo 4 star.
I will do as soon as I've got it all back in place!! It's absolutely mint, but not all fitted at the moment. Easy stuff to do, rear seats (removable by design anyway), pillar trims, door cards etc. Somewhat incredibly, the original plastic door liners (between door and door card) are all unmarked and in place.
Well, putting it this way: I have a friend who does car restauration for a living. You come to his place, he won't even come out to look at your "classic". His minimum price -whatever is it- will be 1.000 hours in labor and probably more, parts not included.
Those who flee the premises never had the cash nor the will to go ahead but my pal has 15 people working for him full-time, his shop is full with classics all the time and he makes -just as we- zero publicity.
One has to ask if an R30 will be worth the trouble as to what Pete describes as a "minter" or "time warp stuff" I have another opinion after seeing two pics of the car.
But I confess: I won't trow Pete a stone, I suspect the R30 to be some unfulfilled childhoodtrauma. I had one too: a Matra Murena. I swore the oath I would have one and did I had one... an ivory 1.6 Matra Murena in which I covered no less than 80 km in 4 years, spent some 5.000 UKP on getting in through Belgian MOT, finally giving up on it and when towing it to the wrecker (the f*$$ink car drove into mine on the way there!) and giving it away for free on condition that I wasn't to receive complaints afterwards either.
The bloke I gave it to, painted the car yellow and tried to put in on the road again. A few years later he called me (I never found out how he got my number) if I could come over: we were to fire some heavy rounds into the Murena and then burn it.
I didn't believe him, went over anyway... when I entered the workshop the loaded Riotguns were lying ready. We had a great afternone :-)
My dad had a R20TL. Bit slow, but very reliable in the winter. Sadly, in the summer once warmed up, if you turned off the engine you would never know if would start until it had cooled down.
I heard it was something to do with the electronic ignition on them, but it might have been the fuel boiling somewhere.
My SD1 EFI is the same. The trick with it is to select drive and turn the key to start - this doesn't operate the starter, but runs the fuel pump. A minute or so cools down the fuel enough for it to start. It would be easy enough to rig up a push button to do the same.
There was a factory approved mod which included a fuel cutoff valve in the return which ran the pump via a timer (and rad stat) when you switched on hot - I assume to give max pressure at the injectors. It is fitted to my car but has never worked. The wiring was so untidy (and disconnected) I removed it all before knowing what it was.
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