Some more pics

You wanna get some G3 on that. Double it's value in an afternoon.

BTW, what sort of rallying's moderately cheap? I was thinking p'raps the kind they do in 1.4 motors but I can't rember what it is.

Enlighten me. Some kind of polish?

Enduro. Get yourself another 340 and have some RWD fun :D

Rubbing compound. Made by farecla, sold by paint factors. It starts out fairly coarse then rubs down to a finer grade as you go on. It is The Nuts. However it's something you really want a machine for unless you're into hard labour.

I was thinking more AX GT or 106 XSi to be honest. 100ish horses in 800 kilos VS 75 or so in 1000kilos? The volvo would be the equivalent of going rallying with 2 burly blokes in the back...

Rubbing compound. Can be bought in various grades. The professional version of 'T Cut' :-) Mike.

Yeah, but also two hefty blokes to get between you and the tree compared to a 106 or AX...

I like to carry a bit of a crumple zone with me, especially tanking round muddy corners...

Whatever I have, I'll put a cage in it. If it were practical for road use, I'd put a cage in my MK2, but I'm not willing to drive around in 6 point harnesses with a lid on.

You wouldn't be competitive in terms of speed, but if it was me I'd be having more fun with RWD!!

But as you say most the the small 'warm' hatches would blow a 340 away. Popular, decent cars I can think of: 106 XSi/Rallye, 205 XS/Rallye, AX GT/GTi, Metro GTi and Swift GTis. IIRC you can also use a n/a diesel upto

Got the other half out washing/polishing the car today (just pikey T Cut I had in the garage) and it's come up much better....

Cracking little cars :) Some of the coloured T-Cut - the red stuff would probably have it up even better. Of course, 6 hours with a PC or a G220 would have it lookin like new hehe ;-)

I'm planning attacking the 156 this week.

The paint is generally in decent condition, but 3 years of parking it in a dodgy part of Newport have taken their toll.

Current plans are to give it a going over with T-Cut, lots of water, and an electric polisher first - then go over it with black colour-match polish.

Does this sound like a reasonable plan?

Shiny!

I like.

Will she have a go at the Passat I have found myself custodian of?

I'd wash it first, then if it's never been done and now that I know how, clay it, then do the T-Cut and polisher thing, then the colour match T-Cut, then wax it :-)

Blims?

Washed today.

Can't be arsed with clay.

T-Cut, colour match sounds good, waxing sounds like hard work..... although I'll probably have to wax it once it has been colour matched.

Better buy a couple of packs of bonnets for the polisher.

Yep, it was the red stuff. Got quite a collection of colours in the garage after all the cars I've owned :)

Can't see the point in doing shit loads of work on the paintwork of a 14 year old car TBH!! It's not perfect anyway - few blemishes and the roof has gone 'crazed'. An hour of polishing and back-to-blacking seems to do the trick!! I think it looks damn good, and so does Nat and that's the main thing.

Us to:)

Drive it down to Southampton and she may do

Umm isn't that "all of Newport"? I had to go to work with a colleague at Cwmbran recently and because he had committments on the evening I turned up had to look after myself until the next day when we started work.

I tried finding a cash machine - most of them out of action and when I looked up on the satnav databse to find some it resulted in drives to places where there used to be a cash machine but now there is a hole in the wall with chipboard over it.

I tried to get a takeaway and was poisoned by the brown slop masquerading as a Chicken Jalfrezi.

And whenever I walked away from my car I wished I had a roll of razor wire to spead out around it. I stayed at Cleppa Park which was where a previous client (WSA) used to have an office. That actually felt safer than central Newport, particularly the part close to the transporter bridge.

OTOH, had a realised you were close I'd have aksed you out for a beer, provided you could find a pub that didn't look like downtown Baghdad.

It's not *that* bad, ffs.

I feel safer in Newport than I do in Manchester, for example.

The Welsh chavs are pretty harmless - whereas in Manchester, you never know who's packing a gun or knife.

She parks somewhere around Market St. / Lower Dock St.

Not a nice place.

Heh. Newport is undergoing a transformation at the moment, funded by WDA money. It's going to take some time.

Mind you, I probably wasn't around anyway - I'm away for 2-3 nights / week these days.

If you're ever around the Oxford / Peterboghorror / East Anglia kind of areas, give me a shout, though.

Unlikely nowadays. I used to visit Huntingdon often (now there's a dump) but the office that was there got moved to South Mimms which is about as far up that side of the Yoo Kay I go at present. Well, sometimes I drive past and end up in "almost Scotchland" territory, north of Conor.

Next week I shall mostly be in/around Wakefield then Manchester and by a strange coincidence I shall be stopping in a hotel not far from where I used to have a house in Wilmslow.