First Cars-car tales and pictures

This is the place for posts that don't fit into any other category.

Moderator: RichardW

Post Reply
User avatar
CitroJim
A very naughty boy
Posts: 49526
Joined: 30 Apr 2005, 23:33
Location: Paggers
My Cars: Bluebell the AX, Polly the C3 Picasso, Pix the Nissan Pixo, Propel the duathlon bike, TCR Pro the road bike and Fuji the TT bike...
x 6160
Contact:

Re: Nostalgia-car tales and pictures-first cars.....

Post by CitroJim »

I'm enjoying this thread enormously :-D

Yes, my Austin 1300 was as rotten as a pear. Looked gorgeous in bright red but it was beyond repair so along came the first of my R4s. Not cool enough and hence the Viva. Biggest mistake of my life. Another R4 followed. That car may not have been all that cool but by golly it served me well.

That was followed by an R5 and then a succession of new MG Metros courtesy of my posting to Cyprus for a few years :-D
BW wrote:I also had an FS1E and an RD200 before the GT500.
A nice selection BW :-D I badly wanted a FS1E when I was approaching 16 but circumstances (financial) dictated that my first wheels were in the form of an NSU Quickly :)

Neil, you're right about first vehicles being valuable for learning. It's certainly where I honed a lot of skills starting a 15 when I fully rebuilt by NSU Quickly from scratch, including painting it.

Ass yes, the motorbike test of long ago. Happy memories :-D Mine consisted of riding a loop between two roundabouts about six or seven times followed by a trip down a side-road to perform an emergency stop!
Jim

Runner, cyclist, time triallist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
User avatar
NewcastleFalcon
Posts: 24563
Joined: 25 Feb 2009, 10:40
Location:
My Cars:
x 6866

Re: Nostalgia-car tales and pictures-first cars.....

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

I met someone last week whose garage was consumed by his 2 hobbies.....making large scale model aircraft.... and restoring old mopeds. He did have an NSU, very probably a quickly. Looks like even your average wreck for restoration gets a pretty good price.

£299 for this on ebay

Image

regards Neil
Only One AA Box left
687 Trinity, Jersey
User avatar
CitroJim
A very naughty boy
Posts: 49526
Joined: 30 Apr 2005, 23:33
Location: Paggers
My Cars: Bluebell the AX, Polly the C3 Picasso, Pix the Nissan Pixo, Propel the duathlon bike, TCR Pro the road bike and Fuji the TT bike...
x 6160
Contact:

Re: Nostalgia-car tales and pictures-first cars.....

Post by CitroJim »

Yep, that's a Quickly!!! dates from around 1960.

£299 though :shock: :shock: :shock: Really I'm :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :evil: :evil: :evil:

I threw an identical one away in 2005 when I cleared out dad's old garage. It was in far better nick than that and complete with brown logbook too :evil:

Quicklys had a severe problem. Well two actually. Their cylinder was hard-chromed alloy and it used to wear through on the thrust side and kill the compression. The other common problem was a broken layshaft in the two-speed gearbox.

The best Quicklys were the later three-speed ones.
Jim

Runner, cyclist, time triallist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
User avatar
NewcastleFalcon
Posts: 24563
Joined: 25 Feb 2009, 10:40
Location:
My Cars:
x 6866

Re: Nostalgia-car tales and pictures-first cars.....

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

CitroJim wrote:
I have many tales to tell about them all but time precludes right now. If interested I'll tell all. sadly no pictures.
keep lobbing them in from time to time until you have run out!
CitroJim wrote:I'm enjoying this thread enormously :-D
Me too, I do like a bit of nostalgia. My mini's sills were "repaired" with aluminium litho plates cos one of my friends was a printer and could get them :!: . Maybe if I knew how, I should add ..."and bikes" to the thread title, but I am quite happy that we are all digging up our first bike memories spontaneously and it all makes for a more interesting read and a greater chance to join in.

regards Neil
Only One AA Box left
687 Trinity, Jersey
citronut
Posts: 10937
Joined: 29 Apr 2005, 00:46
Location: United Kingdom east sussex
My Cars:
x 92

Re: Nostalgia-car tales and pictures-first cars.....

Post by citronut »

many many moons ago i purchased a blue Hillman imp for £25 quid taxed and tested,
we lived in Hythe at the time,
my sexy sister in law and her familly came over on the bus from Dover one day,
we attempted to drop them home after there visit,
we pointed the Imp up Dover hill fully laden with sis in law her two kids and hubby, and her in doors and of course the driver ( me ),
just about coxed the poor thing up around the first bend of the hill and she refused ( dug her heals in ( no not the sister in law ) point blank to go any further,

i managed to roll her back into a farm entrance to go back down the hill and attempt Canterbury hill as it is less steep, then head to Dover via Alkham Valley,

got up the hill and onto the Alkham road, them my sister in law stats panicking and shouting pill over!!! let us out!!!!, theres flames comming out of the back of the back of the car,

i pulled over onto the grass verge and they all bundled out and ran across the other side of the road,
my brother in law and i gingerly went over to it and opened the boot lid to see a small flame coming from a hole in the side of the crank case,

i went back a couple of days later to retrieve her remains and she was gone :shock: :shock: :roll: #-o :-D :wink:
Regards, malcolm.

current ride a BX 1.7 TZD estate
1986 MK1 BX 1.9na D Auto(in Mothman Andy's stable )
layed up roppy 1.9TD XANT estate, now gone to meet her maker
purple and lilac metalic 2CV(VIOLET)registered to her in doors
1972 DS special been layed up aprox 31 years
addo
Sara Watson's Stalker
Posts: 7098
Joined: 19 Aug 2008, 12:38
Location: NEW South Wales, Australia. I'll show you "Far, far away" ;-)
My Cars: Peugeot 605
Citroën Berlingo
Alfa 147
x 93

Post by addo »

As an automotive "twitcher" I feel an irresistible need to share that behind the pictured Simca 1301, is a Renault 16 TX. Note the roof spoiler and rear wiper...
User avatar
CitroJim
A very naughty boy
Posts: 49526
Joined: 30 Apr 2005, 23:33
Location: Paggers
My Cars: Bluebell the AX, Polly the C3 Picasso, Pix the Nissan Pixo, Propel the duathlon bike, TCR Pro the road bike and Fuji the TT bike...
x 6160
Contact:

Re: Nostalgia-car tales and pictures-first cars.....

Post by CitroJim »

BW, interesting you should accuse the Kettle of having evil handling. So did the GT550 and virtually all Japanese bikes of the period. Think of the Kwaka KH500 and 750 as well as any Honda of the period. None were handlers in tghe accepted sense of the word.

We used to reckon their frames were made out of old Access cards... The Access card was the forerunner of the MasterCard and had a strapline of 'Your flexible Friend' in adverts for it as well as the even more famous 'Takes the waiting out of wanting' :roll:

Whatever, the Japanese bike frames of the period were certainly flexible!

Not as bad as Suzuki front disc brakes of the period though. In the wet they were pure ornaments and in the dry not much better. We did a mod on a GT550 to fit the twin disc set-up from the Kettle. It was twice as good but then twice nothing is still nothing!!!

Going back to the GT550, it had something in common with the NSU Quickly and was very troublesome - Anyone remember? It was a problem unique to the 550 - neither the Kettle nor the little sister GT380 triple suffered from...

Mike, yes, the Kettle was the big water-cooled two-stroke triple tourer and very sexy even if it was atrocious to ride!!
Jim

Runner, cyclist, time triallist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
User avatar
CitroJim
A very naughty boy
Posts: 49526
Joined: 30 Apr 2005, 23:33
Location: Paggers
My Cars: Bluebell the AX, Polly the C3 Picasso, Pix the Nissan Pixo, Propel the duathlon bike, TCR Pro the road bike and Fuji the TT bike...
x 6160
Contact:

Re:

Post by CitroJim »

addo wrote:a Renault 16 TX.
Possibly the best Renault ever :-D
Jim

Runner, cyclist, time triallist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
User avatar
Xaccers
Posts: 7654
Joined: 07 Feb 2007, 23:46
Location: Milling around Milton Keynes
My Cars:
x 184

Re: Nostalgia-car tales and pictures-first cars.....

Post by Xaccers »

I started out with a Kawasaki AR50 when I was 16, I wanted a proper looking bike rather than a scooter. Managed to clock up 600 miles in the first week (150 on the first day which introduced me to the reserve tank switch, and then a 200 mile round trip the next two days down to Cheddar and back).

Image

Then at 17 I got a Honda CB 100 in silver and with engine bars, could do 60mph and the engine sounded lovely.

Image

After a bus went up the back of me when I stopped at a red light for road works (the bus driver thought I was going to go through the red light for some reason), I took ownership of my sisters Mk2 mushroom coloured Cavalier (which she'd had for a year and hadn't worked out how to turn the interior light on). Doing physics A level at college, part of the course involved going to the local hospital to be shown their scanning and imaging devices. A friend and I spent the morning watching an image of a woman's thyroid appear on a screen as it was scanned by a gamma camera, then in the afternoon we were supposed to go to the X-ray department but no one was there, so after waiting for 30 minutes we went and ate lunch in my car. My friend joked how good X-ray was what with the sandwiches, and the name stuck to the car. A911WUH was it's reg, and despite being a 1.3, with only 4 gears it used to fly off the starting line and even once surprised a Lotus Elise driver by pulling away faster and getting to 30mph before he caught up and flew past me.
Had a woman in a Skoda pull out across a lane of traffic in front of me, hit her B pilar and wrote her car off. She admitted liability, but then tried to sue me for psychological damages to her, her husband and her kids. She was the only one in the car. Thery played silly buggers right up until the court case where late the Friday before they faxed through a letter saying they withdrew their claim, too late for our solicitor to get it before he was on the first train from Bristol to Portsmouth. Our barrister was fuming.
The only problems I had with it was the charging wire broke and had to be replaced by the RAC, and one night on the way to (S)Hatfield Poly's observatory along a country lane, I dipped the headlights and they turned off as I was travelling at speed around a bend. Not sure how we made it but I managed to get the lights working and it never did it again.

Image

Sold the Cavalier and got a 205GRD which was the best 205 I owned, even if 1st would sometimes pop out of gear. It went like a rocket and still returned 50-60mpg. One night returning to the University of Herfordshite I decided to go via London Colney rather than stuck with the dangerous idiots on the M25 all the way to the A1. Big mistake, I think I hit oil on the road doing 30-40 on a long curve in the road, the back span out like it was on ice, I rumbled along a fence, hit a "Bend" sign just by the B pilar which pushed into my chair, broke two ribs but thankfully moved my head out of the way for when I rolled and ended upside down in a ditch with the A pilar somewhat compressed and the roof where my head would have been. Wiggled my fingers and toes to check my back was OK and released myself from the seatbelt, only to land head first on the sunroof. Crawled out back to the road and was found by a passing motorist who called the ambulance.

Recovered and used my student loan to buy another 205. Driving it home feeling happy with a bargain my friend in the passenger seat pointed out a chip at the bottom right of the windscreen. Pondering if it would be a MoT failure I said it can't be as it's in the same place as the tax disc on the other side, and then realised there was no tax! Quickly got that sorted. She had a leak from her fuel sender under the back seat, and taking my dad's advice on which garage to use I learnt not to take my dad's advice. It took them 3 goes to find the leak before they actually listened to me as to where it was coming from, each time charging. The car, if they were to be believed went through CV gaters like they were going out of fashion, and regularly pitted it's breaklines. I decided then that I'd start doing my own servicing etc.
Sold the car to a friend when I got a company car (1.4 astra estate that was awful), and he was a wanna be boy racer, claimed he'd get the engine chipped (it was a 1.8D so best of luck with that) and complained that soon after chaning the oil it turned black. He ended up rear ending someone he tailgated and was sued by his passengers for whiplash.
After being offered the oppertunity to travel many more miles in the Astra, I turned them down and took a permanent job with DSSD (or Comax as they changed their name to, or Comix as we called them) and bought my first Xantia; a 1995 SX with a lovely big wing spoiler that had a middle leg and a brake light built in. Unfortunately at the time I owned a house on a council estate and some kids torched it, so I got another 205, which they beat up with a brick.
I gave the 205 to a friend when I sold the house and bought a Laguna II which was lovely, apart from the ECU running Windows ME that needed rebooting quite a lot and cost a fortune in tyres due to pulling over onto the hard shoulder to reboot and finding nails all the time.
After 2 years and 76K on the clock, a blown turbo (which Renault replaced under warranty despite me being lax with servicing), I traded it in for a 3 door Meganne (with XRD in its reg), not as plush as the Laguna it was still a good car and gave me no trouble, but was costing too much to own, so it had to go and I got Cassy, my Xantia estate that has brought me so much luck.
Along with Cassy, I've had Dex, a white 2.1TD estate that I bought when Cassy was off the road, and Jim took off my hands when times were tough between contracts. There is also Jenny, another 1.9TD that I bought for a friend who then instead pumped over a grand into an old Megane only to have it die 6 months later. Juliet the Activa because everyone should own an Activa at some point. (Jenny and Juliet will be sold this year). I also bought another estate with the view to doing it up for a neighbour but it was in too much of a sorry state so I stripped and scrapped it. Nigel's got the engine from it now.
1.9TD+ SX Xantia Estate (Cassy) running on 100% veg
1.9TD SX Xantia Hatchback (Jenny) running on 100% veg for sale
Laguna II 2.0dCi Privilege (Monty)

DIY sphere tool
User avatar
BW
Posts: 124
Joined: 21 Apr 2006, 23:51
Location: Nr Glasgow
My Cars: Xantia V6
2cv Special
x 2

Re: Nostalgia-car tales and pictures-first cars.....

Post by BW »

Going back to the GT550, it had something in common with the NSU Quickly and was very troublesome - Anyone remember? It was a problem unique to the 550 - neither the Kettle nor the little sister GT380 triple suffered from...
That rings a bell, but I can't remember what it was. Possibly seizures due to centre cylinder overheating, or maybe misfiring due to water on the plug caps (which my 400 suffered from initially).

NSU certainly had a sense of humour in their naming department!

I never rode a kettle, but rode with one and remember how badly it handled. The 500 twins and 400/4 handled ok, so I think that it was just that the frames of the day couldn't cope with the extra power of the bigger bikes. A friend of mine raced one of the early Kawasaki 900s in road trim quite successfully but watching it wallowing about was a sight to behold.

The big twin shoe drum brakes were better than the early discs I think, especially when wet.
1985 2cv
2000 Xantia V6
User avatar
NewcastleFalcon
Posts: 24563
Joined: 25 Feb 2009, 10:40
Location:
My Cars:
x 6866

Re: Nostalgia-car tales and pictures-first cars.....

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

citronut wrote:many many moons ago i purchased a blue Hillman imp for £25 quid taxed and tested,
In tribute to Malcolm's funny story of six people in a Hillman Imp, and its unfortnate failure and catching fire, its probably appropriate to allow one of Paisley's finest exports to be shown in its full glory.

Image

regards Neil

PS.....so what exactly was this called then?
Only One AA Box left
687 Trinity, Jersey
User avatar
CitroJim
A very naughty boy
Posts: 49526
Joined: 30 Apr 2005, 23:33
Location: Paggers
My Cars: Bluebell the AX, Polly the C3 Picasso, Pix the Nissan Pixo, Propel the duathlon bike, TCR Pro the road bike and Fuji the TT bike...
x 6160
Contact:

Re: Nostalgia-car tales and pictures-first cars.....

Post by CitroJim »

Xac, an excellent read :-D
BW wrote: The big twin shoe drum brakes were better than the early discs I think, especially when wet.
They were excellent when kept in adjustment BW. Much, much better than a disc but then just putting your feet down Flitstone-style was better then the disc...
NewcastleFalcon wrote: PS.....so what exactly was this called then?
Hillman Husky... Although there was another bigger Husky based on the Minx before the Imp version. 'Husky' was in some ways the Hillman name for an estate... The Imp based Husky did not arrive until 1967, just after the end of Minx-based Husky production.

There were several other Imp variants too. One was very attractive indeed.

I like Imps a lot. The engine was based on the Coventry Climax 'Featherweight' fire pump engine...
Jim

Runner, cyclist, time triallist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
User avatar
NewcastleFalcon
Posts: 24563
Joined: 25 Feb 2009, 10:40
Location:
My Cars:
x 6866

Re: Nostalgia-car tales and pictures-first cars.....

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

CitroJim wrote:Xac, an excellent read :-D
Seconded, Thanks Xac, just wonder how the buying transaction went when the cavalier was new......"yeah red's alright but do you have one in "mushroom"? :)
CitroJim wrote: 'Husky' was in some ways the Hillman name for an estate... The Imp based Husky did not arrive until 1967, just after the end of Minx-based Husky production.
This nice little minx, was probably pre-husky naming

Image

so I think these are the the Minx versions of the Husky

Image

Image
CitroJim wrote: I like Imps a lot. The engine was based on the Coventry Climax 'Featherweight' fire pump engine...
For those of you interested, particularly in Coventry, this may be an interesting read

Image

regards Neil
Only One AA Box left
687 Trinity, Jersey
User avatar
NewcastleFalcon
Posts: 24563
Joined: 25 Feb 2009, 10:40
Location:
My Cars:
x 6866

Re: Nostalgia-car tales and pictures-first cars.....

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

A very very easy "Whatsthisthen?"

and the Hillman Imp coupe was known as the........................

Image

regards Neil
Only One AA Box left
687 Trinity, Jersey
User avatar
CitroJim
A very naughty boy
Posts: 49526
Joined: 30 Apr 2005, 23:33
Location: Paggers
My Cars: Bluebell the AX, Polly the C3 Picasso, Pix the Nissan Pixo, Propel the duathlon bike, TCR Pro the road bike and Fuji the TT bike...
x 6160
Contact:

Re: Nostalgia-car tales and pictures-first cars.....

Post by CitroJim »

NewcastleFalcon wrote:and the Hillman Imp coupe was known as the........................
Imp Californian, Singer Chamios or Sunbeam Stiletto :) Take your pick!!

BW, forgot to say on the GT550. You're close but no coconut, it was certainly related to a cylindedr issue but not directly the ones you mentioned. Cooling was never a problem due to the Suzuki 'Ram Air' system but all three cylinders had a tendency to 'nip up' if the bile was well thrashed or oil ran low. This caused severe cylinger danage because they were hard chromed alloy just as in the NSU Quickly - That was the connection between the two... Both the Kettle and GT380 had conventional steel linered cylinders.
Jim

Runner, cyclist, time triallist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
Post Reply