Are you still a car enthusiast?

[JimH]

It depends what is meant by enthusiast. I could not give a flying fuck about the cars I drive every day and resent every second I am forced to spend on them. The last new car I bought was 21 years ago and since then I have driven around in whatever drifts across my transom. On the flip side I am prepared to spend a very significant proportion of my life into projects that go on for years fretting about the finest details and getting things right. More importantly, the finished object is of little concern and we have a history of getting things finished, getting bored of them and getting rid. It is more about an opportunity to learn stuff rather than end up with something to play with. Owning the finished object doesn't really float my boat.

I understand that what I do is of no interest to almost everyone so tend not to talk about these things to anyone. However, if someone gives the right masonic handshake I'm happy to discuss the development of Beetle washer bottles or the finer points of valve overlap for hours.

The person I never want to be is Mr Ihaveamitubishi3000gtitcostfiftythousandpoundswhenitwasnew. I was stuck with him at a table at a wedding and it taught me a very stiff lesson about not being a tedious cunt.

On one occasion Dearheart posed the question, "If you didn't have the workshops what would you do instead?" I haven't come up with an answer to that yet.

[JimH]

On the subject of Avengers the suspension designer was Jack Channer who joined from Bristol. He was no diddy when it came to springs and dampers.

Setright always wrote quite highly of the Avenger.

[mercrocker]

Some quite common themes throughout this thread which confirms to me that most of us are in the right place.....

[treehugger]

Tbh I never was. Like classic cars, in other words shows, and used to go to banger racing with mates. Couldn't care less about tech specifications and stuff, just want my car to do the job. Just can't generate enthusiasm for gadgets in any walk of life.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I had a good start 50 odd years ago with parents who were in a local car club and marshalled rallies, sprints etc so there were events. On a weekend my Dad would spanner, doing engine swaps etc so there was always an extra Mini, Escort or Imp around. He always had a nice new/ish car but it was a 1275GT, Mexico etc when they were a year old or so.

My Mum's first car was a wanked out 1961 Mini, monotone white, shagged engine and box but it was £30 in 1972. They were mates with an American guy called Bill Mathers who was a mechanic at the local BLMC dealer in Yeovil. He would buy up the shitty p/x cars including this Mini and an MOT failed 1100 that donated its engine. Aged about 4 or 5 my tiny hands would hold the 1/2" spanner for the engine mount bolts.

Bill resprayed it BL flame red from the roof gutters down - I can still smell the cellulose.

Then there were scrapyard trips with Dad. Clambering inside various Mark 2 Jags and other now valuable old cars. That's what fired me up then and now. I have car books and mags I bought 40+ years ago.

Folk talk about 'modern classics'. Vectra B's, early Mondeos, Mark 4 Golfs etc - they're just secondhand cars to me, sorry. I think my next old car will be a really old one. I don't regard my 1994 318Ti as being particularly old. The '89 730i would have been sold but it's not worth enough to offset not having it for so long. I've had it 20 years in July.

[AutoshiteBoy]

I never spend more than £1500 to buy one and stopped getting attached to them which means it's easy to move one on.

That doesn't apply to me. Excluding this Mercedes and the previous Mercedes, I was running about in a £300.01 Rover 620 SLi auto. I utterly loved it and became way too precious. The MOT tester slapped sense into me. But its not the cost, but the admiration for a car that gets me.

Another theme here which I alluded in is having friends interested in cars. Thanks to the internet I now do, but growing up, even into my 20s, nobody was remotely interested in cars, and I had a canny varied and active social life. Nobody was interested in cars.

[mercrocker]

On the contrary, all my childhood and early adult friends were car enthusiasts - probably more in the sense of the word we understand than in Clarkson/Jamiroquaihisnameis sense. Just trainspotters at first - car numbers, different trim levels/ Marks and then progressing into running £15 scrappers as was the norm with spotty yoof back then.

I had no interest in football, cowboy films, stamps or any of the more usual Junior school shenanigans, expressing any interest in popular music was likely to incur being shunned as a poof and although I appreciated the opposite sex there was little point in pursuing that at 9 years old either.

Therefore I tended to herd with other nippers who collected car brochures, laughed at what each other's Dad drove or swapped Corgi Toys. Eventually, pussy and rock and roll carved out a different set of mates.....

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I can still identify an old sixties or seventies car just by the sound. Cars used to be very tuneful.

A Mini 850 does not sound the same as a 998 Cooper and Escorts, Vivas, Marinas and Avengers all sound quite different.

Now all you hear is the harsh drone of some generic 2.0 diesel.

[mercrocker]

Or those fucking stupid acoustically-tuned modern "sports" exhausts that sound like they are dropping 3 gears at the Nurburgring instead of waiting for the lights to change on the Great West Road.

[JimH]

I come from a garage background. Both grandfathers ran garages in Nottingham with one running a reasonably large Vauxhall dealership. The old man supplemented his income turning over VWs (mostly air cooled but the odd water cooled one which I despised because they weren't Beetles). Even worse every now and then there was the odd non-VW which I hated even more. I read Car and "got" Setright. I couldn't wait to drive, got excited about driving, got excited about buying my first car, enjoyed running a fifty quid Mini for fuck all for four years, got more excited about buying my first new car, got very excited about buying the VX. Knew about cars, could sort them out, read Vizard's books, planned posh A series engines, get better at doing things. The usual sort of thing.

Then it mostly hit the buffers.

One car I can point the finger at is the Peugeot 406. I never owned a 405 but had driven them and been in them and thought they were splendid things (and still do) and then the 406 came out and it just seemed the most dreary, disappointing pile of shit. It had nothing that made the 405 a rather special thing. I wasn't that into Pugs or 'owt like that but this was the first time that I was aware of things turning dreary. Yes, these things had happened before but it was the first time I'd noticed it. Gradually you become aware of things getting crap. The Fiat Coupe wasn't replaced and nor was the Calibra (yes I know they were shit but they looked pretty). The long list of cars you wanted dwindled to close to nothing. The Porker 996 was pretty much the tin lid for me. It was grim to see this pile of Korean tat with that badge on it. If Porsche had turned shit then there was no hope left.

I would also have to point the finger at the Old Man who in 1985 bought his first steam roller and that was the start of doing things that were a bit more light to medium engineering. After the roller and not being able to find a suitable steam waggon he decided to build one which I scoffed at originally but after a few months started to see that this sort of stuff was way more interesting than fannying around with cars. Finishing the first Sentinel meshed up with me having more money and buying cars and motorbikes but sitting welding and grinding and turning just seemed much more interesting.

Then between that and houses and family you realise that you haven't bought a car mag in more than a decade and the one you leafed through in the dentist had none of the old names in and was childish drivel. Then you see something new on the road and genuinely don't know what it is.

I still get excited about some cars. The 944 and X1-9 sitting in the pending file will get done at some point as long as the XI doesn't get done first but I doubt that I would drive them much once they are done. Either that or another steamer will come along and that will be them sitting in the barn for another six years. The only thing I defitely will do is drag the VX back into use when I no longer need some sort of rear seats.

Out of interest my current list of new cars I want to own is:

- Transit
- Pursang T35B
- Mog 3