Car "Quirks" Your Family Has/Had.

Talk about your cars etc here. Keep it sort of sensible and on topic please.
bub2006
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Re: Car "Quirks" Your Family Has/Had.

Post by bub2006 »

Growing up at home my dad bought whatever was cheap out the damage and capable of towing a caravan and I mean some proper nails too. My mum could only drive autos so my dad tended to have manuals because it usually meant on a miserable wet day he would find the car gone and my mums honda c90 sat on the garden instead.
Due to towing a caravan though it was usually large cars he had except for a handful of Austin maxi 1750. My dad also never owned a car very long which looking back now he probably didn't bother with insurance or tax back then. One nice car my grandparents bought my dad was a rover 3500 vitesse on a c plate,was sold though when my mum died in 1995 and went back to shonky nails for a few years.
Some of his little pearls were,in no particular order
1977 open commodore 2.8 with a knackered gearbox. 4th was noisy and 3rd didn't work.
Ford granada ghia 2.8 that caught fire when it backfired through the carb
Volvo 245 2.1 in cream colour with brown vinyl roof. On the way home from buying it it packed up,coil died I think and it was towed from Clipstone to Skegby with a 1.3 Talbot alpine.
Vauxhall carlton 2200 estate with taped up door edges,bitumen sills and a really bad fuel smell in the car.
Open rekord that someone broke into and nicked the stereo. Never ran right after that due to butchered wiring from failed hot wire
Vauxhall cavalier commander 1.6 with no ignition keys just an on/off switch and a push start.
Granada 2.3 lx yet again with no keys just an ignition barrel hanging down.
Cortina 1.6 that blew its engine
Cortina 2.3 that was a write off and the engine went in the carousel 1.6 above.
Many more but too many to list.

My grandad (dad's dad) only bought British until his last car which was a volvo 340 variomatic on a G plate. Bought at 2 years old and kept till he died in 1999. Before that though he had a few cars I can remember but are vague due to me being born in 1987. First memory was a very early mk2 granada ghia x and he towed a monza caravan with that. Grandma decided they were getting too old to tow so made him sell the granny and van and buy a commer camper. Had that a month before grandad sold it as he hated it. That was replaced by an A plate 2.0 GL Sierra automatic and a sprite caravan.
One of my earliest memories is of going on holiday to great Yarmouth with my dad,mum,mum's mum and sister in my dad's white ambassador and caravan,grandad following in the Sierra and caravan. Sierra blew its engine somewhere near Swaffham so my dad ended up towing his van and some family to vauxhall holiday site,coming back for grandads caravan then on the third return trip he towed in grandads car. They ended up swapping the engine on site the next day. Couldn't get away with that these days!

Not many folk on my mums side drove. My aunts boyfriend had a bmw 520i from new in 1984 till 1997 when it was chopped in against a Peugeot 306 on motability for his mum then he had motability cars till last year when he bought a tiguan. Another aunts boyfriend has only ever had vauxhalls. Started with a white chevette with tartan seats,then an E plate 1.6 mk2 cav,L plate 1.8 cav,V plate vectra 2.0 auto and he's now got a 1.9cdti vectra estate. Owned the last vectra nearly 10 years now and it's never been serviced,only gets fixed when it fails an mot too. God knows how it's still alive.
Another aunt,the only one who can drive, only had escorts for years. Started with a Y plate pale blue mk3 that was stolen,a red x plate mk3 replaced that,E plate mark 4 and L plate mk5 were the next ones. Replaced the mk5 with a 406 though but thought it too big,bought a rover 45 but hated it so bought a c max. Had that for years till last year it was replaced by a pug 207 1.6 hdi. On a 61 plate. I did say it won't be ideal for her being a dpf fitted car as she only does less than 2 mile to work a day and probably less than 3000 a year total.
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Re: Car "Quirks" Your Family Has/Had.

Post by eddyramrod »

I can remember my dad's first New car in 1963: an Anglia van in Goodwood Green. He followed that with three more new Ford cars (Corsair 1500, Zephyr 4 mk3 and Cortina 1500 mk2) all of which were used for caravan towing. Later, when cars were dictated by purchase price, he would buy whatever he could lay his hands on but still preferred a Ford. His last was his second Sierra, a post-facelift 2.0 GL with the DOHC engine. In between, and after a variety of Triumphs, BMCs and Vauxhalls, he discovered Ladas, which sat at a perfect height for his arthritis and had surprisingly comfy seats. And crucially, were available for pocket change. Those were the days! The only other "foreigner" I remember him with was a Peugeot 304 van in the early 80s.
My mum would never drive an automatic, as per someone else's post upthread; I think she'd read the same story. She professed not to like Jags, believing they were cramped for passengers; my dad never owned a Rover because he believed they were too expensive to run. Neither of them had issues with colour, although it seemed to my young eyes that they preferred the darker tones.
I inherited his mingebag attitude to buying and started with the British Big Four (BMC, Ford, Vauxhall and Rootes). Since then I've had a bewildering variety - there's a thread about it on the beige - and since the first auto I could drive on the road (a 1967 Arrow Minx 1725 in 1982) I've always tried to get the two-pedal option, whenever possible. Totally smitten. I had a BMW E28 once, a trade-in against my first Cadillac, but although the spec looked good on paper, and I still think it's a handsome car, it never fitted me. Add that in to extensive driving impressions of Mercedes and VAG, and you get a man who will never buy German again. My parents met in the RAF in 1942 so I suppose I should be grateful to Germany, but I can't bring myself to drive their cars; the products just aren't good enough.
I love American, as many of you know. Big, relatively simple but at the same time, over-engineered for what they are. I like a Jag too, but they're not as well-made as they should be. I also like a Volvo - I consider an injected 740 auto estate to be an ideal daily.
For many years I wouldn't have a car painted in any shade of brown or yellow because of a series of misfortunes with them. I think Huggy has more or less cured me of that. What I won't have now is black or grey, even though I've had some of each in the past. For why, Keats, for why? Because I believe there are just far too many monochrome cars about these days and their lack of brightwork means they suck the light and joy out of our streetscapes; white being the sole exception there. After several in recent years I'm also taking a dislike to dark blue. I like bright.
The one new car I've bought was a Suzuki, which came about 6 years after one of their Samurais, which was fun while we had it.... on a nice day anyway. We now have a Suzuki on Motability, and will be changing it in November for... another Suzuki.
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Re: Car "Quirks" Your Family Has/Had.

Post by SubPar »

After a particular C-reg Vauxhall Nova Merit 1.2 4-speed 4-door saloon, my parents never had another Vauxhall.

That car was an unmitigated pile of shit.

The Nova got replaced with a Peugeot 309 after it was written off by my eldest brother being a bit enthusiastic. Dad was annoyed, but the rest of us thanked him.

They seem to always have something from the PSA group on fleet, but in the early 2000s also had a bit of a Fiat phase.

In 2005 I learned to drive in a 2001 Xsara Picasso they just got, and they kept it until 2010, before trading it in.

At the moment, they're on their third Citroen C3 Picasso in a row. They bought a 2010 model brand new (using the aforementioned Xsara Picasso as a trade-in). A blue 1.6 HDi. In 2015 they traded it in for a 2015 model 1.6 HDi, but in purple.

That got written off in late '19 thanks to some arse going too fast round an icy corner and understeering into it. So the insurance payout was used to buy a 65 reg purple C3 Picasso, but this time with the 1.2 turbo petrol 3-pot. That engine is actually quite fun. It seems to deliver all the torque in one big lump, and makes that proper 3-pot buzz.



Due to them being on a farm, they've always had a tow vehicle of some sort. For years they had a 2005 Legacy Outback, but a couple of years back they decided it was too needy so replaced it with a 2012 Kia Sorento. I was dubious at first, then had a go of it. It still feels like a proper burly 4x4 and even has a centre diff lock, so it's got at least some off-road credentials. It tows a 6x10 flatbed trailer with a ton of mulch in it perfectly well, too.
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Re: Car "Quirks" Your Family Has/Had.

Post by mercrocker »

This thread has got me looking back over my parent's rather miserable motoring CV and I can find no discernible pattern that could be called a quirk although they do seem to like getting things from trusted relatives.

Hillman Minx V - bought from Mum's brother
Viva HB - bought from their friend (one of those not-real Uncles)
Victor 2000 - bought from a car dealer on a Sunday morning by my Mum. (My parents were devoutly religious and would never even consider buying a loaf of bread on a Sunday, never mind a used car from a sheepskin without Dad's involvement. Something must have been badly wrong with the Viva)
Opel Rekord Coupe - bought from my driveway-dealing mate up the road.

They then emigrated to Canada and I lost track of their various fleet changes but can remember -

Plymouth Reliant - Bought new on recommendation of an Uncle living there.
Dodge Caravan (or Plymouth Voyager - the square first gen. type) - Probably as above.

From that point all vehicles were acquired through my brother-in-law who was a Nissan mechanic and these included -

Nissan Sentra x 2 or 3
Plymouth Sunfire (I never saw that one)
Later Plymouth/Chrysler Voyager (I remember trying to replace a headlamp for him on this bastard)
Nissan Note (they still have this although Mum only drives to Tim Hortons in it)

BiL now works for Toronto Transit so any future vehicle replacement is presumably likely to involve a Detroit Diesel....Or a bus pass.

Poor old Dad - never did get the Jowett Javelin of his youthful dreams.
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Re: Car "Quirks" Your Family Has/Had.

Post by Warren t claim »

mercrocker wrote: Tue Sep 07, 2021 11:04 am

They then emigrated to Canada and I lost track of their various fleet changes but can remember -

Dodge Caravan (or Plymouth Voyager - the square first gen. type) - Probably as above.

I had one of those over here back in 2006.
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Re: Car "Quirks" Your Family Has/Had.

Post by Warren t claim »

I've just remembered another Mutha_Claim quirk.

She totally hated the idea of me owning a Capri of any description. To her they were hooligan death machines. Now, bearing in mind when I was 17/18 I ran auction fodder XJ6s and Dolly Sprints, not to mention reasonably powerful Cortina's, to her even a humble 1300 Capri was beyond the pale.

Being a good son I totally ignored her.
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Re: Car "Quirks" Your Family Has/Had.

Post by NorfolkNWeigh »

My Dad’s mother didn’t drive, or at least not since the war. My Dad was born in 1946 and he never tempers her driving.
But before and during the war she did, she shared a fabric bodied Rover 14 with her brother in the 30’s and was a volunteer WRVS driver using an SS Jaguar. Her main role was taking soldiers from Birmingham stations when their families had been bombed out or killed. She told stories of taking casualties to hospital during the Coventry Blitz and must have been pretty handy behind the wheel. But as soon as she met and married my Grandad she never drove again. The SS belonged to a rich family that lived near my Great Grandmas house and I think she was close to the son who never came back from Egypt.
My Grandad was a Standard then triumph man Flying9, 8, 10 , Herald. He had a brief dalliance with a Black Cherry 1200 Deluxe Cortina in 1963, which I just about remember then back to a 13/60 Herald, a 1300 then a brown 2000 auto. I don’t think he ever went over 60 mph in his life.
Grandma on the other hand loved speed, I remember just before she died in 1994 going down to pick her up from near Abergavenny to bring her to Milton Keynes for one of my kids birthdays, on the way home on the A40 somewhere near Monmouth an SRi Cavalier screeched away from the lights, leaving me for dead. “ Ha, he got you there, didn’t he.”she said ,obviously knowing what I’d do. I went past the Cavalier in a tunnel at about 130 with Grandma cheering and whooping. That was aJag too, a 4.0 manual XJ40.
The next day I got a phone call bollocking off my aunty , she’d told everybody that she’d been at 150, my defence that it just looked like that from the passenger seat didn’t really calm her down.
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Re: Car "Quirks" Your Family Has/Had.

Post by Hooli »

Liked for the mad granny & XJ40 story
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Re: Car "Quirks" Your Family Has/Had.

Post by Bigstraight6 »

I’ve been solely responsible for all my family related car quirks, from my first car just after I’d passed my driving test in 1985 being a MK3 Ford Zodiac that my late father was horrified with when I rolled up in it hoping I’d have a nice Mini or Escort as a first car. A few years later he was equally derisive of my newly acquired 1974 VW Beetle, until I lent it to him when his 1982 Ford XR3 was off the road for repairs and suddenly he loved the Beetle and borrowed it whenever he could..
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Re: Car "Quirks" Your Family Has/Had.

Post by eddyramrod »

eddyramrod wrote: Tue Sep 07, 2021 9:47 am The one new car I've bought was a Suzuki, which came about 6 years after one of their Samurais, which was fun while we had it.... on a nice day anyway. We now have a Suzuki on Motability, and will be changing it in November for... another Suzuki.
Incidentally... the Samurai was white. The Ignis we bought new was red. Our current Motability Suzi is white. The replacement we've ordered is.... red!
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