Clunkers

[sandman67]

recent thread about bikes made me reminisce with a Cha Am mate this afternoon and we got onto real clunkers we have ridden or owned, or had mates with ones.....

ones I owned / rode / borrowed:

Enfield Bantam - old post office dispatch riders bike we bought, rebuilt and rode for fun. I hated the little swine...it hated me.

Enfield India something...hired it in Goa. Virtually new from the factory - the bloke had only ad it a short time....scariest bike award winner - useless brakes, worse lights......pig to start, sounded like a bag of spanners. And this was it virtually new? Hells teeth!

Panther 120 - made in Yorkshire by mad blokes....650 single that fired every lampost. Loved it to hell all the way to the day I forgot to take my foot off the kicker in time. It threw me in the air and fractured my shin....started tho...I still miss "Floyd".


Yamaha Virago 535.....lovely little custom style bike....all the way till it rained. See the makers forgot to insulate the loom properly so all of a sudden it would go from two pistons firing to one.....scary when bazzing down a motorway Ill tell you. Shitey carbs....hated cold weather. Chrome went all peely after a few winters. Fun tho.

Triumph Tiger...should have bought a proper old one not a crappy 70s one....loved to throw its chain, leak oil....it had an attitude. Stolen whilst on holiday....I just laughed and rang the insurance. Never again!

Had a mate who loved Dniepers.....then again he was a morris dancer too. Says it all really.....he even had one with a "zeppelin" sidecar..... oh how we chortled.

Had a mate who owned an old Jota..... rode it once and once only. He laughed when I came back shaking.....said most people reacted like that. Only for the real insane or masochistic...only went a few miles and my arms were aching from gear changes. Industrial clutch....Popeye would love one.

Scariest car award goes to an old Lagonda called "Henry" I used to go to Prescott Hill Climb weekends in....it used to develop a sort of mid speed front wheel wobble sometimes....even scared the bloke who owned and loved the beast. Looked like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Chris the owner looked like Dick Van Dyke....perfect!.....I loved it but would never drive him....that wheel wobble was just too scary. Great with the top down bazzing round Henners basking in reflected poshness.

My mates old Austin 7 racer also gets an honorable mention..... Asterix. J flogs the arse off it.....gone through three engines in two years. My favorite was him hitting a straw bale half way up Prescott and loosing a mudguard .... spilled our beer we were laughing so hard....he still finished tho. We said he'd cheated by dropping weight half way up. J has a grudge with a young lad who keep beating him in a car called the B&Q Special....its mostly plywood and gaffa tape.....he beat J again that year.

Drummer in the band used to swear by Citroen Diane's ..... we used to swear at it. What a shed.

So.....

come on folks ..... fess up..... whos owned an old clunker?

[lindosfan1]

1. An old ford popular windscreen wipers were air powered, going up a steep hill they would stop so the only way to drive in the rain was with your head out of the window b***** cold in winter.
2. An old Peugeot 403 about 1950 something, bought it second hand took me 3 weeks to find reverse. Drove like a pig.
3. Renault 4 best I had for fuel economy used to regularly get 80 to the gallon on a run but b***** uncomfortable
4.An old MGB GT wire wheels top speed 80 and a pig on wet roads but I loved it.
5 A humber snipe 1930/50 built like a tank handled like a pig.
The worst thing I have ever driven was an old Scammell recovery truck in the army you had to stand up to get the strength to go round corners top speed about 30 kph, drive that 20 miles and you would be knackered.
Best car I ever drove for an eyecatcher was an old Bentley soft top made about 1920 with a crash gate gear box but handled like a dream.
Most frightening car was a smart car going up the motorway fast but so small felt like you could have overtaked lorries by driving underthem.
Best driving experience racing a mini at Brands Hatch. Great fun

[sandman67]

know what you mean about Bentleys Lindos.... I had the chance to marshall at a Bentley Club rally at Goodwood one time.....lovely old things but by hell did the owners of the "blowers" used to love opening them up....Id just stand there thinking "that cars worth more than my house".

mate it sounds like you have had some of the same vehicular fun as me....gotta love clunkers tho....more fun

[richard]

BSA Goldie 10:1 Compression ratio. Forget the valve suppressor and see your bike 6ft below you

James 125. Mess with gearbox and end up up with 3 reverse and one forward gear

Velodrome stuff. Fixed wheel bike and going down a hill towards a crossroads and chain comes off. Instant 'chicken run'. Sure one front wheel brake. Wanna somersault?

Dragster funny car. After blast off front wheel puncture. Try and get that in a straight line hitting a ton!!

Did you ever read that incident in the UK where a guy driving a beamer up a motorway had his throttle stuck and could not switch off. Got a police escort for a few miles before he managed to ditch it?

[STEVE G]

I remember some of the garbage that was built in the UK during the seventies.

We were heading up the M1 in this ridiculously gutless 1300 Vauxhall Viva when the electrics burst into flames resulting in a firework display coming out the engine compartment.
Once on the hard shoulder I opened the bonnet and tried to beat the flames out with my friend’s jacket, but he stopped me saying the jacket was worth more than the Viva!
Luckily once the wiring and headlight mouldings had burnt out it went out by itself.

But I think even the Viva handled better than a Marina van that I borrowed for a while that went around corners like a barge in a hurricane.

On Fords of this generation, after the locks became worn you could use the keys on any of them by sliding it in and out of the lock quickly with a bit of pressure until it turned. We used to use this to move friend’s cars to different car-parks on the base where I was stationed, so that everybody was constantly confused as to where they had left them.

[sandman67]

has anyone ever owned a 2CV?

come on....fess up

[richard]

Yes Sandman

Used to bomb round London in the swinging sixties with the roof open and 2 or 3 long haired hippies waving their beads and colourful neckerchiefs out of the roof (they were usually stoned) shouting 'all coppers are basta**s)'

Ok in a straight line but round corners it was like being on an ocean going yacht leaning to keep on an even keel or two wheels in our case

Poor bloody driver (usually me!!!)

[STEVE G]

I never had a 2CV myself Sandman, but my brother used to have a colleague who was heavily into them, he was something like chairman of the UK owners club and had the oldest one in the country.
I think it was from the forties and was incredibly crude; the seats were canvas, like a garden chair and the speedometer looked like it came off a bicycle.
The windscreen wipers were driven by a small rubber wheel that you pushed against the speedo-cable so the wipers stopped whilst you were at traffic lights.

[Spitfire]

Well SM, I had an Enfield Bullet(250) when I was in India, it was OK but it was more bling than substance. Think the 350cc one is better, more sporty. The Bullet might be OK if in good nick, but the roads were not up to the job when I was there 17 years ago, might be different now.

[sandman67]

Spitfire

I think the one I hired was a bigger 350....the bloke had strapped on a bikini fairing to it.....god I still shiver with the flashbacks of putting on the brakes, then clamping harder....oh god please stop........

I remember a couple of afternoons in the Goa heat trying to kickstart the swine and nearly collapsing with exhaustion after the 20th go......

and at night the headlight was as much use as a candle.

Shame as they are lovely looking....I love old bikes....

The horror .... the horror

Yeah.....the roads were pretty rough in parts....a bit like Soi 102

It was the TaTa drivers that scared me most tho....might is right and a Hindu belief in pre-destiny dont make for good drivers....

[Spitfire]

A1 to that SM, and woe betide you if you broke down in the countryside. Won't say much more as it's off topic, but those that have been, know.

[lindosfan1]

I started on bikes only ever had 3 in those days all in the early 60s.
I learnt on a BSA bantam, then progressed to a tiger cub. My last bike was a pre unit construction Triton, fast and great fun had it about 2 and a half years saw 3 mates killed in 3 weeks and never rode a bike again.
The odd thing was I was in Brighton 3 years ago there was a bike rally there and I saw my old triton chatted to the bloke who owned it and he did let me ride it up and down the seafront brought back some memories.
Did go out with a girl two years ago with a chopped volkswagon trike that was fun. Which raises the question can you get them over here.
These days the modern bikes seem like modern cars no personality or individualism. If I did go back to bikes it would have to be a chopper.
Bring back the mods and rockers those were the days.
Station hotel Richmond used go there on the bike and watch the Rolling Stones bedore they were famous. Great days.

[PeteB]

Must be something about Tykes and Bikes Richard

All that remains of my DB34 Goldie (complete Taylor Dow conversion) - and I even had hair in those days:



Not much of that remains either

[Vital Spark]

My first car was a gorgeous black Triumph Spitfire MkIV. Unfortunately, after a couple of years, it needed a lot of money spent on it to get it through the MOT. I didn't have the dosh, so I sold it and bought a Mini.

I think that Mini knew that I hated her from day one. I was still mourning for my departed Spitfire. She got her revenge! Firstly, the hydro-elastic suspension decided that it didn't want to be hydro or elastic anymore, so this pathetic little car kind of limped down the road 'on the huh' (Suffolk expression meaning tilted to one side). I then set fire to the boot because I had bits and pieces in there, including a coat hanger which managed to (somehow) end up over the terminals of the battery . The smell of burning cloth (I had junk in the boot) alerted me. No real damage done. I swore at the car. It was its fault for having the stupid battery in the stupid boot. As well as the stupid spark plugs at the front, so that when it rained it coughed and splutted. God, I hated that car, and I think the feeling was mutual.

VS

[lomuamart]

I shared my first car with my brother. Mum's old 850cc mini. We wanted a 1275 engine put in it, but it was pointed out that 1000cc was going to be maximum as the brakes wouldn't work too well with a more powerful beast. We couldn't afford the money to get everything changed.
That was a great car. Four of us used to drive up the A1 to Scotland and over to Arran for a holiday.
I doubt the mini made it beyond the Robbin Hood roundabout (approx 50 miles north of departure) before it overheated. We always carried spare water for the radiator, but it did leak a bit. If the fan belt went, then we were in serious trouble.
The old banger always got us there and back, but we had some adventures along the way.