Well its been long promised thought it might be a bit of a hoot. Made a few nominations please add your own categories
Nomination for The Jekyll & Hyde Award
Saab 96 V4, strange motor, on tarmac especially with a bit of a load up it felt like it was going to go off on every bend, but get it on a loose surface forest track and watch that baby fly! Fantabulous!
Nomination for Most Incongruous Driving Moment Award
Practising reverse flick cornering technique on loose surface forest track in a ??????????
Ford Crown Vic. Baby was it big! Like driving a tennis court with clapped shockers and recirculating ball steering.
Nomination for the Best Car Driven Ever Award
Original Elan, Chapman magic, did not have to steer, thought transfer did it, nice try Mazda with the MX5 but?? je ne sais quoi.
Nomination for Worst Car Award
Well if I nominated a Ford 4X4 I cannot face the ensuing heap of invective so it has to be????..
Mars Bar Viva on X-plies
Nomination for Worst Bit of Design,
Ford vacuum wipers, regulars will know that already.
Nomination for Best Bit of Design
First time clapped eyes on a Pug 205. It was before it had been launched, perhaps a test car.
Nomination for Biggest Brown Trouser moment
Well I could nominate that spin on the camber & surface change just after I had re-sprayed my Escort (sorry Mick D who after incident said ?well held?, little did the lad know) but just to provide a little light relief and have a laugh at my own expense will nominate an incident from a few years back.
Driving a rental car in US, not sure exactly what the car was, think it was a Chevy Cavalier, V6 transverse fwd, about size of a Carlton, which it resembled. Think it was the first US car I ever drove with a proper handbrake as opposed to that stupid pedal which is as much use as a chocolate fireguard.
Anyway meandering along a fairly twisty road in PA, limit 45, road similar to a minor A good B in UK, drop into fields on RHS and wall/grass banks on LHS, double yellows all the way down the middle. I speeded up a bit as I noticed I was being caught by a truck, which then continued to catch up. So I speeded up a bit more and by now was over the limit but not by much say about 55.
At this point two things happened, firstly I noticed that the truck was a plain unmarked white Mack, towing a bulk tanker semi-trailer, and secondly that it was still catching me quite quickly by straight lining all the bends which he could see over. By now, all I can think about, sad I know, is the Spielberg film Duel where Dennis Weaver is chased by an unmarked black Mack tanker. (what was Weaver driving in that film?)
So how do you think it ended? All I will say is could that b*stard drive!
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Forgot one,
Nomination for Biggest Laugh
John Slaughter will like this one. Its during the firemans strike in the late 70's(?) and it was priceless to see a Green Goddess, full of hairy arsed soldiers, complete with plod escort all with blues and two tones going fit to bust up this hill, get absolutely blown away by a Moggie Minor, all the drivers, even plod, laughing fit to bust.
(sorry cannot give you the technical spec John, think it was a Series II, split screen, headlights in the wings, but not all of the series I were low lighters, I think?)
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Just shows what an advanced car the Minor was when it came out in 1948 - decent ride and actually capable of cornering!
Spot on on the description Stuart - only early MM's were lowlights. We'll soon have you a MM expert!
Regards
John
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Best Car of all time
1962, Morris Minor (2222 UN) hand painted black, twin SU carbs (shocked a few at traffic lights), red leatherette seats (could just about manage two in the back seat), on the edge handling, having to start it every morning with a starting handle in winter (!!) - losing it on ice, when it did a neat 360 spin without hitting anything (under the A55 flover on the Talardy Roundabout at St. Asaph). The morning its brake cylinder seized............ the marks are still on the green fence on the back road to Denbigh at Henllan 24 years later. Clap hands windscreen wipers that had a habit of jamming open, especially when passing Police cars/men. The day that the crosswired Philips tape player started smoking, being able to wipe the condensation off the inside back window, without stopping it ...........its yellow wheels....what a motor (happy days) and still sold it for £80.00 without an MOT in 1977.......
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Wow, done it again - two Minor mentions in 3 postings - keep it up and we'll beat the Citroens yet!
Cheers
John
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Nomination for the Worst Possible General Election Result For Motorists;
A landslide victory for the Green Party.
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I think one of the worse cars built must have been the FSO (FIAT 1500 copy).My friend had the agency in Bradford, cars would come without half of the spot welds being made and parts missing they also rusted through on the inner wings in under two years ,the driving manners were something else and the depreciation was lead weighted
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I can't really agree with the worst car nomination - the mars bar Viva was awful, but in it's day it was comparable with a lot of the other rubbish on the roads.
No, my vote would be the Morris Marina - pick any variant, but mine was the last 1700 estate model before the Ital. When you put this car against its peers it was bloody dire!
At 5 years old mine had rust holes in 11 separate body panels. It had different size wheel cylinders fitted to each side of the rear axle. It had UNF studs retaining the manifold, but the BL dealer insisted they were metric and culd only provide metric replacements (I had to cut a new UNF thread on one end of each stud). I had to fit a new gearbox just to sell the car!
I must not be too negtive though, it did have good headlights.
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Did anyone ever find out how to pronounce "Ital": EEtal, eeTAL,IHtal, ihTAL, EYEtal, eyeTAL, . . . ?
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Worst car? Hillman Avenger. All the mistakes ever made by the British motor industry, handily packaged in one car.
Chris
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Worst car to DRIVE, especially in view of all the eulogies about the marque, was the Morgan Plus 8.
Impossibly heavy controls, painfully solid suspension, and general lack of body stiffness which made 50 mph feel like 90.
I'm sure many of those on the long Morgan waiting list have never DRIVEN one!
I'm inclined to agree that the original Elan was most fun to drive, provided you learnt the trick of keeping the drive shaft 'doughnuts' wound-up - otherwise you though you were using 'Kangaroo-petrol'!
However, my Focus Tdi is, apart from its thirst, IMHO, my best car ever in all-round terms.
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C'mon lets have some more confessionals! I've given you lot a laugh, loosen up, it'll be a hoot.
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Ok, Stuart: worst brown trousers moment.
Travelling south on the M11 about five years ago in a C reg. Metro (City X no less). Lovely day only spoiled by howling from one litre engine in fourth gear at seventy. But busy on the road as a well. Suddenly there is this enormous rain storm. Everyone jams on brakes because they can't see, then we hit the flood. You know that Merc advert where the bloke asks the kids water or bridge? Well imagine three lanes of motorway traffic going through it at fifty-five. Total chaos. Cars and trucks sliding everywhere. A coach in front of us crossed three lanes and back again to avoid hitting something. Then the engine on our box gives up. Hurrah. Manage to get into the inside lane from what I think was the middle (we were in the inside lane when this all started) when it comes back to life, only it won't let us do more than about fifty, just makes horrible groaning noises. Eventually it dried out enough to let us do sixty/sixty-five, but it was never the same again. When we got it home to Kent there was mud and grass in the engine compartment, and sand INSIDE the distributor, as if we'd driven through a pond. I am frankly amazed there was not a crash that day.
Chris
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Worst moment: going down the suicide lane on the M1, fifth in a block of vehicles doing about sixty. Middle lane fairly clear.
Someone from behind undertakes up the middle lane and pulls out in front of the leader, who hasn't seen it coming. Leader throws out the anchor and cars two and three shunt. Car four dives into the middle lane. I stop safely behind the shunted pair.
Look in rear view mirror and see the car behind coming backwards down the outside lane, scraping the Armco on the central reservation with its nearside.
Move forwards as far as possible (about three feet) and pray that the car behind uses up its energy before getting to us. (it did).
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