Marvin's miserable miniature motors

[marvinsmom]

and finally, Saturday we took Cocopop over to Ushaw college near Durham, the only down side tot he day was (apart from really catching the sun again) was the exit out of the site, a majical mystery tour though the fields and then getting stuck on the gravel placed at the gate. even with new cones and exhaust hangers on the car, Cocopop like all MPi mini's has an exhaust system which is made up of 3 bits, and always hangs low, especially compared to a modern car. still it didn't do any damage, but was kinda funny, one small car ploughing a furrow as it left the car park, next time i will have to remember to take all that gold bullion out of the boot first.....

[marvinsmom]

this weekend has been a memorable one.

i have bought and paid for a replacement for the Rover.

and not only that, i have sold the Rover. seriously, sold it, for CASH!!

so introducing this Fiat 500 "Vintage 57", which, is now forever in my mind as a Heinz 57.

it has to be the gayest car i have ever owned. even more so than the Suzi Vitara we had a few years ago, and that was blue too....

so WHY have i bought this? well the Rover was pretty much beat. after all those years of neglect from ne, and 221,000 miles it won't go though another MOT without a load of work. which don't make any sense really. BUT the guy who's bought it already has 2 Rover 75 diesel estates, he originally was going to break mine up to put one of his right, only to find that mine is actually in better condition, soooooooo that means that there is good chance that my old car will live on, at least for a bit. which is nice. that old car really does deserve a chance to last a while yet on the road!

but back to the Fiat, well, its £30 a year to tax (the Rover is £300+) the fiat will do lots of miles to the gallon (book reccons on 60+ MPG where as the Rover is the low 40's) and i really iike how the Fiat looks and drive (as i do the Rover) and this car is a gorgeous colour with a beautiful interior.

so there you go, a proper "gaylord" of a car, still, i like it.

today we were going to bring the Harley Davidson Softail home and put it in the garage, well that didn't go so well. even though the battery is flat, more worrying is the stream of grotty petrol that it squirted out of the crank case breather when it did turn over. some investigation on the bike owners forum would indicate that the float in the carburettor is probably stuck open which has allowed petrol to wash into the bores, so we are going to have to get it the carb off and to bits, and change the oil before we take the bike back to the garage.

great.

get an old bike, they said, it'll be fun they said........

[FhakeConcern]

Thanks for keeping this thread updated.
Every time I catch up on it I think I really have to get Mini Cooper Sports Pack... Also yesterday I saw a mate I haven't seen since 2020 and in the mean time he bought a Mini Sports LE, he went to the dealer to buy a Morris Minor. I didn't even know he liked Minis, he tels me he's an A Series fan!

I can see why you like the FIAT, but if I had a 500 it would have to be an Abarth...

[marvinsmom]

bye bye Rover...... after more than 8 years i no longer own a 75.

it has been a great servant, and hopefully it'll serve its new owner as well as it has done for me!

the fiat? well the first day has gone well, looks like 50+ mpg , which is nice. less so the radio not picking much up, but since i never really bothered with the radio in the Rover, i'll make sure i've got at least a couple of cd's with me tomorrow.

also i see that the car has the dopy tire pressure things on it, it threw up a warning on the way into town this evening. i'm hoping that is just a thing that the rough roads has caused. it has gone off when i reset it when i got home, so i'll have to see if that is something that will become an on going thing. i'm hoping that it won't!!

[marvinsmom]

so i have now spent over a week with Heinz 57, and what do we know?

well its doing 55mpg. thats nice.

the reception on the radio isn't too great, so we are left with "smooth" and "capitol" and i think "tfm". which isn't very nice.

oddly the sound quality on the cd player is really good though, and me mam says that the reception on her nissan micra/renault cleo is crap too. so its a modern small car thing, i guess.

another plus is that there is a button on the dash which turns the start/stop bollocks off, so now i don't have that to deal with. having spent years in crappy cars, the bloody thing stopping when i pull up to a junction or similar just gives me stress, that stress been will the damn thing start back up again!

and i have also changed the back wiper too cos it was shagged, its cost me £6-odd from halfrauds, which is nice too.

after 600 miles (yup, we have managed 600 miles in just over a week) and you know what? i'm really loving the little thing! i dunno if its the cheery bright blue paint, or cheery good looks which ape the look of the original car, or just that its bright and airy inside. i did have a K13 micra at one point which i hated, though that was a black, dreary, miserable thing that was like been in a dungeon when i was driving it, and i was glad to see the back off when i swapped it for the Rover.

[LynehamHerc]

There's a guy in the village who has stuff like a Healey 3000 who has a Pistachio Green one of these as his local car. It's a nice car in a nice colour.

I think that he's also got an original 500 but it might be one of his neighbours.

[marvinsmom]

There's a guy in the village who has stuff like a Healey 3000 who has a Pistachio Green one of these as his local car. It's a nice car in a nice colour.

I think that he's also got an original 500 but it might be one of his neighbours.

its a car that i think must b e in a good colour, the brighter and more cheerful the better.

so there is this blue, a proper egg yolk yellow, the minty/pistachio green and even the beige colour all work really well on the modern car.

silver/grey/black all in my eyes look terrible.

i think that these colours work well on this car because it looks so close to the original one, and also it has a happy smiley sort of look to it, unlike anything from the land of the wicked Hun all of which look like they are angry. frowny bland looking things, usually driven in an angry, cuntish and twat like manner.

mind if i had to drive one of them things, i wold most likely drive it in a twattish way just so i don't have to sit in it any longer than i need to!

[Eddie Honda]

I think that he's also got an original 500 but it might be one of his neighbours.

A topolino?

5731412574_15a6eb1d58_b.jpg (128.95 KiB) Viewed 531 times

[LynehamHerc]

No, what a philistine like me classes as an original one.

1970_Fiat_500_L_--_2011_DC_1.jpg (374.8 KiB) Viewed 529 times

[Eddie Honda]

Hateful things!