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Cars Cars Card
Oct. 2nd, 2015 06:01 pmReally should update here more often, but you know, easily distracted.
It's over a year since I started contributing to Classic Car Weekly, and it's been a great job - love reviewing workshop gear and telling people about solutions, and getting to write about cars I am passionate about (Mercedes C124 and Sera most recently), document the work done on my cars, and generally be involved in an industry that matches my obsessions.
And the obsession has seen the departure of the big Chrysler 300C earlier this year, in favour of a cheap old Mercedes E320 CDI. Which after 2,000 miles developed a gearbox fault. Awesome. It's been stranded for months, during which time I've used the MG F until the MOT ran out (it's got a serious hole in one side), got my SLK back on the road and running fantastically well with cleaned and restored MAF, PCV and breather systems, and last week, bought a front wheel drive car for winter hack duty for £170. You can imagine the sort of grim, basic, unpleasant thing that'll be, right?
Nope. 1999 Honda Accord Coupé 2.0iES - with automatic, aircon, big sunroof, cream leather, and apart from a few small dents and sticking brakes a perfectly comfortable thing. Crazy how little they're worth.
After selling a few things, word of a long-term classic project crossed the radar, ending with a trip to Essex with a LandRover Discovery and a big trailer - and a return trip with a 1992 Jaguar XJS V12 on the back. It's a clean one, not too rusty, nice enough interior, but has a blown head gasket. Very, very long term project, but it's my first ever Jaguar and it'll be glorious when it's finished. Sometime around 2020 at the rate I'm going so far!
My friends, who are Bad Influences, have also been instrumental in a "OMG no money can't buy this" whine about a car becoming a "will friends buy me a car?!". I am astounded by how quickly it's ramped up:
https://www.gofundme.com/notagothhonest
There's no sob story, if anything this year I've really made a lot of progress in putting life back together and enjoying myself - but I simply cannot afford another car, yet this one... it has so much potential!
It's over a year since I started contributing to Classic Car Weekly, and it's been a great job - love reviewing workshop gear and telling people about solutions, and getting to write about cars I am passionate about (Mercedes C124 and Sera most recently), document the work done on my cars, and generally be involved in an industry that matches my obsessions.
And the obsession has seen the departure of the big Chrysler 300C earlier this year, in favour of a cheap old Mercedes E320 CDI. Which after 2,000 miles developed a gearbox fault. Awesome. It's been stranded for months, during which time I've used the MG F until the MOT ran out (it's got a serious hole in one side), got my SLK back on the road and running fantastically well with cleaned and restored MAF, PCV and breather systems, and last week, bought a front wheel drive car for winter hack duty for £170. You can imagine the sort of grim, basic, unpleasant thing that'll be, right?
Nope. 1999 Honda Accord Coupé 2.0iES - with automatic, aircon, big sunroof, cream leather, and apart from a few small dents and sticking brakes a perfectly comfortable thing. Crazy how little they're worth.
After selling a few things, word of a long-term classic project crossed the radar, ending with a trip to Essex with a LandRover Discovery and a big trailer - and a return trip with a 1992 Jaguar XJS V12 on the back. It's a clean one, not too rusty, nice enough interior, but has a blown head gasket. Very, very long term project, but it's my first ever Jaguar and it'll be glorious when it's finished. Sometime around 2020 at the rate I'm going so far!
My friends, who are Bad Influences, have also been instrumental in a "OMG no money can't buy this" whine about a car becoming a "will friends buy me a car?!". I am astounded by how quickly it's ramped up:
https://www.gofundme.com/notagothhonest
There's no sob story, if anything this year I've really made a lot of progress in putting life back together and enjoying myself - but I simply cannot afford another car, yet this one... it has so much potential!
