Pulaski

I used to get a kick out of tripping GATSOs when I was going in the opposite direction to the way the camera faced.

tom169

I didn't know that you drove one of these:

SultanOfSwing

I used to have a Corsa

Didn't bloody well look like that, though ...

tom169

Sounds like you were missing out on all the fun that owning a Corsa can unlock.

mrken30

He may have been a metro driver

SultanOfSwing

Nah, it was plenty of fun. It could do 100 if you pushed it. Didn't like it, but it could do it. Handled 85-90 like a champ though.

Pulaski

I didn't, I had one of these:



With a 3.0 V6, in a slate blue, and it was awesome. I bought it when it was nine years old, but to date it was the nicest car I have ever owned - smooth, quiet inside, handled like a dream, .... and went like §4!t off a shovel! ..... It was fun at traffic lights when yobs in XR3i's, and Corsas tried to outrun me. I would keep pace along side them until we got to about 40mph, then I would put my foot down!

mrken30

I didn't know Alfas lasted for 9 years unless they were made lighter by using filler.

SultanOfSwing

Nice. I couldn't afford one of those. I could barely afford the bloody Corsa and it wasn't a fancy one - it was whatever the 2002 Vauxhall version of a Popular Plus was

I was only 23 though and not long from dropping out of uni, so I'd been working less than a year full time, so you do what you can. I had to make the decison between renting a shitty house in some paramilitary-run ghetto in Belfast or stay with my mum and buy a car. I chose the car. It was nothing special but it was my car and I was able to get a brand new one so I loved it even if it was nothing special.

Pulaski

After Alfa started zinc dipping the bodies the rust problems disappeared. Mine, a 1989, was rust free except for a spot on one wheel arch where it had been dinged. The odd thing was that when I bought it, at 125,000 miles, it had 5,000 miles on a rebuilt engine. It had been rebuilt by a garage down in Surrey (or was it Sussex?), that used to race Alfas in the BTCC. It was a totally stock rebuild, that had cost the owner £3,000; the car came with receipts and I checked with the garage too. All totally legit, and gave me three years of cheap, fun motoring. I drove it all the way to Naples on our honeymoon.

tom169

A buddy had a Lexus LS400. It was a land yacht, but rapid.

Pulaski

Neither could I at the time - I borrowed £2,000 from my mother, who thought for more than a year that she had lent me a top-up amount, until I told her it had only cost me £2,600 total! ..... Which left her wondering why my father had paid several times as much for an Astra, which was cramped and noisy.

mrken30

The most fun car I had prior to company cars was a citroen with hydraulic suspension. It was surprising how fast that thing would go over speed bumps. The brakes were very different, either on or off. It stopped very quickly. Gave me 3 or 4 months of fun.

SultanOfSwing

It was insurance that killed me when looking at used cars. I had my eye on (what I thought was a rather nice) late-model Escort LX that was in a used car lot down the road from my house. I would have been able to scrape together the money to buy it, but the insurance would have run me something like £3,500 a year because I was 23 at the time with no driving record.

Buying the new Corsa allowed me to get free insurance for the first year, so I went with that.

SultanOfSwing

My dad once had a 1999 Xantia, which was some special edition or other with (I think) a 2.9L turbo in it. Holy shit, that thing went like a stabbed rat.

Had the hydraulic, adjustable suspension too. Very comfy ride.