Remember these.? All our yesterdays

[Peter.N.]

They were to far ahead of lithium ion.

Peter

[Gibbo2286]

The LDV van factory had an all electric van nearly ready for market before Tata walked away and left them begging for a government £5 million loan for a management buy out, Mr Mandelson (now Lord Mandelson) said "no" the Chinese bought the company name and probably the plans.

[Peter.N.]

A blast from the '70s.

I bought this PC Cresta in Bromley for £25 with a burnt out clutch, I towed it back to Dorset, with a rope! A friend of mine sat in it and as it was a cold day had the engine running to keep warm and supply some vacuum to the brakes, it was a very nice car for the money. I ran a phone wire along the tow rope with a phone each end so we could communicate with each other About half way we lost communication because every time the tow rope dragged along the ground it wore a bit of the wire away and it eventually broke.

We had quite an uneventful journey until we turned into the road to our house from the village, as I slowed for the corner there was a loud 'thump' as he hit me in the back - I braked of course and he hit me again! He had been braking all the way down the long hill into Charmouth and I guess that the fluid had boiled, as the brakes were fine when we got home. Fortunately didn't do much damage.

I fitted a Perkins 4/108 engine with an overdrive gearbox which was quite successful until I towed the caravan with it, with only 52 HP available it was a bit slow to say the least, about 30 mph into a headwind.

We set off for Scotland with the caravan a while later and had quite a good journey until we reached Lochernhead, not to far from Dr Finlay country where we were headed, we rounded a corner on to a steep hill and the engine died, no fuel reaching it, fuel gauge was showing just under a 1/4 full so called the AA, no mobile phones in those days of course so had to walk until we found a house and used their phone. Waited for an hour or more, no one came, phoned again and apparently a tanker had turned over somewhere so the garage they dispatched was a bit busy.

They eventually arrived after a couple of hours or so and decided the tank was empty, contrary to what the gauge showed. They turned up in a very large American looking recovery truck, our son who was only about 6 or 7 then was absolutely made up with this truck, I think it was the highlight of his holiday. We all climbed in and he took us back to his garage which was only actually about half a mile away, if I had know that I could have walked it - several times, it was a lovely sunny day I seem to remember.

We had a nice holiday, stayed at Killin, also a good journey home until we got to the bottom of the fairly new M5, not all that far from home. The car was fine but I noticed in my mirror that a piece of aluminium trim on the side of the caravan had come loose and was flapping about, I had visions of the side coming off the caravan so stopped to investigate.

I had a box of tools and miscellaneous nuts, bolts and screws but they didn't help a lot as the corner post of the caravan had gone rotten and a I couldn't get a screw to stay in it. We tried all sorts of things and my wife eventually came up with a packet of Elastoplast's, I stuck two of them on the corner securing the side to the front, not only did we get home OK but they were still on there when we sold the caravan sometime later. Take note if you tow a caravan!

I eventually had a look under the car and found a large dent in the underside of the fuel tank, hence the false reading. I managed to remove it by applying compressed air via the filler cap.

We ran the car for 5 years and eventually sold it for £50.00 not a bad deal.

Peter

[NewcastleFalcon]

Top Quality Tale Peter!

Many say you should start a blog with your tales Peter, but if you don't want to do that, this thread is as good a home as any to lob up them as you recall them.

I was ferreting around on some other matter, yesterday I think, and what should appear but a very large I presume Citroen CX estate "Logoed up" with the Peter Nutkins Business details . If I can find it again I'll lob it up here.

Regards Neil

[CitroJim]

Peter, that's absolutely great Loved reading it and how you fixed the 'van with Elastoplast Magical!

I've dealt with a rotten caravan - I completely rebuilt the rotten wooden front-end frame... That was an adventure... Wish I'd have taken some pictures of it...

It worked and you could barely tell I'd been there... The whole front-end needed unskinning, both inside and out...

[white exec]

Gosh, Peter, what a lovely story.
Now, a PC Cresta converted to modest diesel . . . there must have been some fuel savings there!
My memories of a deep green friend's PC was 3.3L coupled to a two-speed Powerglide box. A tad thirsty, but impressive comfort. Had forgotten how modest the track width was on some of those cars - lots of side overhang of that cavernous body!

Fond memories of Killin and Tayside, too. First done in an 1100cc Mini, with a tent, around 1973. Falls of Dochart, and a lovely pub (The Salmon Lie?) next to the bridge serving fresh salmon rolls - but only awful Tennants beer, iirc. Also remembering wandering through Killin market, and picking up a £20 note... Stayed at Tayside camping ground, more than once, and later with a BX and caravan.

[NewcastleFalcon]

David Niven was there in 1966/67 driving a Bentley in Casino Royale



Regards Neil

[Peter.N.]

Thank you for all your kind comments, I still have a few more tales in reserve, in fact practically every car I have had has a tale to it - that's about 60 or 70 or possibly more.

Neil

If its a CX estate covered in snow, that was taken when we were visiting friends in Holland.

Peter

[NewcastleFalcon]

Neil

If its a CX estate covered in snow, that was taken when we were visiting friends in Holland.

Peter

That helped me find it you Posted it on POTD in November 2020

Came across this today while rummaging. Visiting friends in Hoogvliet near Rotterdam - some time back!

Regards Neil

[CitroJim]

Came across this today while rummaging. Visiting friends in Hoogvliet near Rotterdam - some time back!

The perfect vehicle for ferrying poorly TVs around Peter

Much nicer than the ubiquitous Escort van our mob used!

[Peter.N.]

It was indeed Jim, over 6' long from the tailgate to the back of the front seats and reasonably high as well. Best car I have ever owned - for the time period a quantum leap forward from anything I had before. When I drove my first CX25DTR Safari I gave up diesel conversions, but that's a subject for another day.

Peter

[Peter.N.]

Just a little addition to the Cresta story. I still have a memento from the car, it had a large bench seat as most cars of the time did, but I found that the back was broken, across the back of the seat between the door pillars someone had fitted a length of metal electrical conduit with a length of threaded rod slid into one end, when this was secured it made a very effective job of keeping the seat upright, but of course if you moved the seat forward the top would move back and you had difficulty in reaching the steering wheel.

I managed to get the seat out and with the removal of a little of the upholstery managed to weld it up so I removed the tube/rod and have used it ever since to track my front wheels up.

[CitroJim]

It was indeed Jim, over 6' long from the tailgate to the back of the front seats and reasonably high as well.

Could you squeeze a dual-standard Philips G6 colour console set into it though?

I have many memories of two of us struggling them into the back of our firm's Escort van - after removing the legs...

Had to be hugely careful as all owners of those sets were very precious about them.. A gorgeous piece of furniture in its own right! Woe betide you scratched it...

[mickthemaverick]

Are you referring to one of these Jim?

BFTW

[CitroJim]

Are you referring to one of these Jim?

That's a single standard G6 and tiny compared to the original dual-standard 405/625 line model!

That one was an easy(ish) one-man lift

I can't find a picture of one but they had doors on them and a large drawer below the screen that contained all the convergence controls... One set for each line standard!

They were a good hefty two-man lift and carry...

I used to love setting up the convergence on them. Do it once on 405, switch over to 625 lines and do it all over again... A job that took a good few hours to do properly...

Then do purity and grey-scale... I used to love it and took great pride in getting it right...

One's eyes were square at the end of the day from staring for so long at a crosshatch pattern!