156 Selespeed. The first month.

Trick is when it is a stack of loose 1u and 2us, not 4u's you can get a few well specced Dells into 15k.

At least you get a couple of frozen pizzas and some fish fingers in exchange.

Regardless of what they are, if the drives have been removed and packed correctly the boxes don't really have any real value or real fragility. If you're transferring them with the drives in place then care is the name of the game.

Ah, you don't know there's a V6 do you? Actually there is a 2.5 V6, and then the 3.2 V6 GTA - but they'll take longer to be come banger money though. If you can find a cheap 2.0 engine, adverts online for ones in need of an engine aren't that rare. I suppose you don't know if the 2.0 you're putting in is much better though... But anyway, the 2.0 doesn't matter now I've opened your eyes to the V6s does it :-) ?

Mind you, there is a 1999 2.0 estate 156 on the trader for £695, 105k miles and part ex is even welcome heh!

Or, if you run to £750, there is a 2001, 73k miles, 2.4 JTD Lusso, with £750 recently spent on a cambelt and service! I know it's a diesel, but, it sounds like it well might be a bloody good bargain. It says nice condition, v.good mpg, 11 months MOT and 6 months tax. So I guess he MOT'd and cambelt serviced it last month now just needs some cash - or it had some monster advisories hehe!

Although how about, a 140k mile, 2000 2.0 Selespeed saloon. Here is a fabulous snippet from the description...

"The only problem is that it doesn't go into 4th gear . The car drives well, and indeed you can drive it as it is, without using gear 4, and is hardly noticeable. I have done some research and have also spoken to few mechanics and have found out this is quite common with alfa romeo and it is most likely caused by a build up of something called swarf, which just needs to be cleared"

How cool is that? It drives well, except, you can't have 4th.... The list just goes on and on, there's 31 156s under a grand. I quite like this one for £450 though, 2001 2.0 Sportwagon on 113k miles, and it's a Selespeed and, in capital letters mainly, the seller says - "MOT March 2009, 5 months TAX. GOOD TYRES, RADIO, 2 SETS OF KEYS, ALL ELECTRICS OK, SOME MINOR MECHANICAL FAULTS, DRIVES WELL AND RELIABLE. OFFERS" - so it's reliable, it drives well, all the electrics are fine and oh, it has some mechanical faults. I just love how these cars can drive so well when broken... Perhaps they're designed with breakage in mind :-) ?

Swarf. In the gearbox. In manual I'd consider that to be a case of careless gearchanging, and wouldn't buy the car. In an automated gearbox surely that's a sign of poor desingn.

I've seen what that did to Kerry Catona. Not pretty, and that was before the Iceland diet.

Ready installed to be stuck on a hand trolley and wheeled across a stone set car park, up a curb and over a nice and bouncy metal railed door mat.

It is fun.

Yep, I remember that being a problem with them when they came out - the extra length of the 6 speed box meant the lock had to be reduced to avoid the tyres touching the gearbox casing. I'd still have one though :)

I spent the weekend in my mates Navara - now that turning circle is pretty rubbish. And squeezing into a Bristol car park was pretty tight in all dimensions (to the point of having to pull the aerial down). Quite a handy tool though.

The good old 'Katona Konundrum'.....

The 'Katona Konundrum'

Was it a pickup style one? Or are they all pickup styled ones heh....? I love them, and stuff like, the L200, I'd have no use for the load space whatsoever i just like the idea of a big pickup truck, and like, once a year I could help a mate or something by putting some stuff in the back to take to the tip or something hehe :-)

You don't want to take anything that looks like anything other than a regular car to the Council tips. They are quite hot on stuff that looks like it may possibly be useful enough to be used commercially. At very least they will take details, ask you to sign that it's not commercial waste and go though the load so should they decide it was commercial they can charge the going rate.

Heck they took my name, address and I had to sign for 10L of waste oil last time.

When gutting my mates garden when he moved into his first house, three of us took about 20 bags of bricks/random stuff to the local tip, in a white van, with a business name on the side. They didn't do anything, except half way through unloading one of them said "You're just borrowing a work van yea?" to one of my mates, which he confirmed. There was certainly no hassle, and definately no details taking. 3 weekends in a row we did that.

Yeah, tis a pickup style one but with a snug top thingy on the back so it's just like a massive boot. Very comfortable for the 5 of us in there at the weekend (leather, cruise, sat nav, electric everything etc) but you can certainly carry a lot of stuff too. And everyone gets out of your way too.

Did you call him on that one? Or did it look like he'd not actually call the plod but do something more painful instead?

"Clive George" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I might be daft, but I'm not THAT daft...

Bah, I don't care enough about her to worry about how her name is spelt. But I do know they bring her into the local studios to shoot the commercials. She brings her kids in, I know because the studio canteen also serves the local offices and factories, and I use it for lunch.

Awesome :) So is it like, 2 seats in the front, and 3 seats behind them and then a 'wall' and then finally the big load bit? I'd love to have one of them, and just pimp around with all the chrome accessories - including some, probably illegal, bull bars hehe. Obviously the truck itself would be black too.

Ours is pretty like that. It even has a max height bar, and if you turn up in something taller, they open it.