Help me...

Four or five - or more - at a time. Usually something a few years old, financed, and some bangers. A good example would be my Volvo 480, which cost £6000 on finance when it was... hmmm... 6 years old? Maybe 5. It required, in 2 years or less, new exhaust (£400), new alternator and battery (£400ish, again), regular servicing and a few plastic bits (say £100 or so). It also started to show signs of difficult to fix rust, along the tops of the doorframe.

It was worth, when I sold it roughly 18 months to 2 years later, £1,600. I wasn't, I felt, unreasonable in expecting it to be worth about £2,500-£3,000 at the time, but it wasn't possible.

So now, I will have that kind of car at the point at which it is worth £1,600, not £6,000.

I can add my VW Jetta Syncro, my Citroen XM 2.0, my BX 16RE, my X1/9 and quite a few others to that list and category. And other people's cars that I'm aware of as well, such as my sister's LandRover - they bought a P-reg for £6,000 when autotrader has 2 year older L-reg models advertised in similar spec/condition for £2,000.

Richard

!!!

I've got three (sorry, four, I keep forgetting the Subaru) Japanese cars, a Volvo and my gf's Scorpio as well as my Beetle!

Okay, the Scorpio is almost German.

I can be persuaded; I've considered a lot of different cars, I just don't like the 9-3 at all. I'd like to like it, but I just don't.

Richard

If you're a fan of the angular frogmobiles, you should be aware of how many of those I've owned! My third main car (and I forget where on the list it was overall) was a BX 16RE and I loved it, but fell for the X1/9.

Richard

Do you do your own maintenance?

Oops. Was that about 6/7 years ago when s/h car prices went through the floor?

And 6000 quid for a mid-range 5 year old car? A certain oft-repeated remark from this NG comes to mind.

Um, yes. 1600 quid is above 'banger' in my mind though - and yours - you said earlier 50 to 500 quid.

I could giggle at this point. Yes, it is fairly pointless paying 6K for a car which will be worth 2K in two years time. But how long did it take you to work that out?

cheers, clive

Yebbut you had it when they were expensive. Much more sensible now :-)

cheers, clive

Thats fair enough:-)

By the way, I lost my whole lunchtime going over your Acorn webpages. Class! I've an A310 in the loft which gets dragged out every now and then when I need an Alerion/Elite2 fix

He disagrees, given that you can't usefully punt Cooper-S poke through the front wheels but you can through the rear. You may as well opt for the Ka and never ever slow down...

Hmm. Well from a certain perspective, if the MR2 is even 80% as much fun, we still see plenty of mark one MR2s kicking about.

Sadly I can't remember the last time I saw more than one X1/9 in a twelve months period...

That's because it lost weight during rain, during driving, all the time really.

Not always; it depends on the car. I can do a lot on a Citroen CX, but I can't do bodywork, and my time is/was generally worth more than the costs of getting a garage to do the work.

I'd like to think that was the case, but looking back, s/h car prices have always been through the floor.

At the time, it was what they cost and the car I wanted. It had leather, A/C, FSH and was what I was looking for.

In my mind, a £500 banger, if it is the car you want in excellent condition, can be worth paying up to £1500 for - bodywork, clutches, engine rebuilds and so forth all cost money.

Me? Not long. Doesn't mean that I didn't want the newest, nicest car I could afford at the time; since I had things like a Porsche 924S, a Fiat X1/9 (when I was 19), a Land Rover, and bangers like my Vauxhall Victors, Opel Manta and so forth, I think that I've quite enjoyed my cars.

I've also made plenty on other cars, so it is a matter of swings and roundabouts. I've owned more CXs than most people have had cars, from a

Of course, if you can remember when you were 30, and how many cars you'd owned and what sort of experiences you had, I'm happy to listen ;)

Richard

It was one of the cars I had which didn't lose much money, actually. I got nearly as much as a trade in against the X1/9 as I'd paid for it. Did you have something so nice and comfortable when you were 18?

I also had a £50 BX19 GTi 4x4, cheap 19TRS, an S1 19 something or other (it was blue and failed the MOT).

Much prefer CXs. Less likely to be killed by a rotten bit of plastic that costs more than the whole car is worth to replace.

Richard

I've got my A410/4 set up right now writing new AMPLE discs for the BBC Master/Music 5000 setup.

One of the Acorn nuts - Sprow - has developed a coprocessor board which sortof emulates the ARM development system (in that it puts an ARM into a copro) - with a fast ARM, up to 64Mb RAM etc - as an internal Master co-processor.

I want one just for the sheer "Why" value. All that power and a 1MHz system bus ;)

Richard

So why the constant downer on people's suggestions of nice s/h cars to get? Choosing your worst case experience rather than your average seems deliberately obtuse.

Not very long ago at all :-)

No point in having a car when I was 19 - uni rules meant they weren't allowed there (and there wasn't any need anyway), and I could borrow parent's at home. Favourite and least favourite car was the CX (22 safari). Hindsight says I should have got a 25, but that's hindsight for you. Pity about the diesels - were it not for their porous blocks I'd have had one of those. That was my

On the whole though I've been happy with the cars I've had. Not relying on them probably helps - they don't really get used for boring utility work (commuting, going to the shops). My CX itch has been scratched, and that's about it for ones I actually want.

'sides which, I've got a bike habit to fund :-)

cheers, clive

Cooper S - isn't that a measly 163 bhp? You need 280bhp for real front drive stupidity, even 200 bhp is run of the mill now.

I saw a very nice looking red one the other day - I think your right about seeing one per annum.

It's primarily because I've already considered these options. I'm not down on all the suggestions, anyway; I'm having a serious think about an Alpina C2 Touring, I think I would enjoy that rather a lot.

I like having my own car; my parents had a LandRover Defender 110 and a Fiat Uno when I started driving (I had a Chevette) - I much preferred my Chevette, finding the LandRover silly and the Uno just impossibly uncomfortable.

I'm not a diesel fan; my favourite CX was a Series 1 2400 Pallas with

The BX was Galvanised? So how come I see so many rusted ones? (One of my S1s had a rear wing so rusty, it peeled off the car - and it wasn't repaired with pattern parts either!).

My cars are generally used for pleasure, except, I need to have something reliable for rare but essential trips to the other end of the country.

Bikes are next on the list for me, still undecided between ZZR600 and VFR, plus I need to get the license ;)

Richard

Mate of mine is selling his VFR800, can get you details if your interested - it's a "gentle ride with the missus" bike so is in very very good condition.

"And later on, on 'pun night' on uk.rec.cars.modifications....."

Isn't there handling issues due to limitation with FWD at 280BHP?

Yep. But there's also stability control, and stupendous burnouts. Not to mention every other vehicle becomes an opportunity to overtake.