Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Dunno about the XM as a good choice as they’re pretty complex but I’ve had a couple of BX’s. One was £350, this one was £400. Welded up a hole in the boot, ran it on veg oil @.70p a litre.

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Pretty much a Cybercar tbf

Friend of mine had a citroen like that, it simply fell to bits week by week but strangely kept on going. Trying to remember the model.... Basnaltu, Basnnattu, Basnulti, Bassnalti something like that, going to have to Google.

You literally proved my point while acting like you weren't.

You moved out of London to get space, an expensive luxury that people who need to consider ULEZ don't have.
You have time to treat owning classic cars as a hobby.

As someone who used to drive 20k miles a year in a non fuel injected mini, I know what it takes to keep a car going, I've got the full Imperial tool set still in my garage to prove it.

Again, the point is, the average car owner isn't the sort of person to be able to do this instead of buying a ULEZ compliant car.

I’m going to say when you thought your mate was saying some fancy long forrin word what they were actually saying was BX19.

Found it, the Basalte..... God awful stripey thing!

http://www.citroenet.org.uk/publicity-brochures/gs-gsa/basalte/basalte.html

Worth a lot of dosh these days

Dude you seem kinda combative and you’re making the mistake of thinking that I was addressing your point in general which I wasn’t.

I was relaying my experience whilst specifically addressing the points that “classic cars are expensive and unreliable”, stating that they needn’t be if you’re prepared to get your hands dirty treat them as a hobby.

I would have thought that treating transport as a hobby, pouring in needless hours of finessing and thought is a fairly safe thing to discuss on a cycling forum but maybe we should just all give up and go to Halfords or whatever.

Also, thanks for passing comment on my living situation of which you know precisely zero about. For clarity, I’ve run old cars in cities for 20 years and only had a garage for the last 3 months so I can take it to the next level and do some restoration as a side hustle.

You rang?

One of the lads who works for me runs a late 90's diesel A3 on chip fat. Some fairly simple mods and he was up and running.

He's from a seaside town, so pays about 20p a litre to a series of local chip shops. Cleans everything out every couple of thousand of miles.

He conceded that it was a bit of a faff at first, but when he worked out the savings, he said it was worth it. Apparently anything later than late 90's VAG cars are just too technical - something to do with the injectors being significantly more complex etc

Dude chill, its only people opinions.

@Jackytwoshoes even said it wasn't for everyone, but I know he was the best person to ask as he's a good guy who has been doing it a fair while now. It can be done by most people but you have to want to do it and be prepared. IMO even with the potential for having repairs done I still think you can make big savings as well and you get to own a bitchin car at the same time.

I still like @Soul idea for Kei only car in cities. Imagine if they banned all cars in cities and people could only drive Ami's that would be ace.

Your experience seems pretty similar to mine. I ran bangers for many years, started with an Austin A40. That era was a pleasure to work on aside from the rust.

Seems like a lot of the discussion here is circulating around older cars but not one's old enough to be classic just yet. I ran a G Wagon 460 and 2 R4's repairing them in the street for about 20 years they still wouldn't be classic for a few years.

I think the point that a lot of people would struggle to do the school run in a morris minor is fair enough. I did when I went to school, one day one of the kids in the back lent on the door handle, door opened and they fell out. Fortunately no one was hurt!

I do still run a 43 year old motorbike.

so we all want road usage based charging not emission based charging? And then perhaps size based tiers for storage (parking) on public land.

Amey for president.

“You moved out of London to get space, an expensive luxury that people who need to consider ULEZ don't have.
You have time to treat owning classic cars as a hobby”

Living in the outskirts of London and being under the threat of ULEZ is your choice.
My point of suggesting 40 plus year old cars as an alternative to a boring as shit ulez compliant car was just a different perspective not a personal dig.
It’s great to have a hobby, makes you less angry.

I think it is still too radical and requires huge political will that Sadiq doesent have but there have been noises about road charging lead up to last budget and this Autumn statement.

Sadiq is plainly 'giving' this to make Silvertown without a lot of opposition.

All of these charges need to be priced in and things just need to be more expensive in general so people consume less and more consciously.

I personally know perfectly abled people who drive to supermarket thats less than 1.5 mi away still. They need to be penalised more.

#WarOnCars

I’ve never heard “perfectly abled” before. I just use the term lazy.

Old cars are harder work. I used to drive them out of necessity, then by choice.

Drive what you like. The church is broad. More car discussion please, less trying to read subtext into posts on the Internet.

sure be lazy, its fine, it just needs to cost because on the other side there is higher cost to be paid (in congestion and AQ), the equation needs to be balanced.

i drove to my kids nursery once, its 2 miles, I was severely ill and it was pissing down, took me 3 times more than usual but when I started driving I knew it would take longer. I did not go on local FB/Nextdoor and started whinging about ULEZ or LTNs.

It is a cost of living in a city. Sure you hate living in London but you still gotta pay so the rest of non-drivers pay a little less.

The church is broad.

yes this.

Drive what you like

Not a Tesla though. That would be objectively bad.

Yeah an old motorbike is a great way to enjoy ancient transport- can I guess from your username it’s a Beemer? I’m currently half looking for an old R100Rt or similar to use and improve

I have to say, I do not like the aesthetic of the new electric cars. A central London office gives me ample opportunity to see them in person.

Blah. So boring. Boxy. Uninspiring. With no identity. The new VW looks little different from the Leaf which looks little different from the BMW.... Etc

If I wanted square and boxy I would have bought the ex-forum Volvo

You're the first person to guess in 10+ years. Maybe people have figured it out on the motorbike thread but yes, that is the reason for my username.

They are great but it took me a long time to tune it for my riding style and I always have something that needs doing. At the moment it's the charging system. I've done pretty much every other job on it once.

People who say you can fix them with a couple of spanners need to take a look at my R80 specific toolbox!

They remind me of Canary Wharf, really vanilla.