The Ford’s twin-cam engine had been strong to the end, but eventually we got tired of the annual tradition of “welding come MoT-time”. We sold it at the same time as the Rover V8.
Meanwhile, our son had passed his test. We bought him an AX. He pranged it at a roundabout, making a typical beginner’s mistake. He bought a sporty-looking but actually pudding-engined Saxo. When that wasn’t good enough, he bought a Mini City E and sneakily lumbered us with a Citroen we didn’t really want.
When the lad wanted money to upgrade from the 998cc Mini runabout to a bonkers 1380cc minivan, we saw an opportunity to ditch the Saxo.
The van went like a rocket (between head gasket changes), the City E merely plodded along nicely (until recently). It even managed to get round Castle Combe. We’ve still got our BL/Rover baby. He got rid of his.
The Mini’s now been uprated with a 1275 Metro engine, but needs more work. On the one hand, it’s a car I know how to fix. It’s got a carburettor, a distributor you can turn to get the timing right by ear, and doesn’t need any tools I wouldn’t have picked up along the way when working on my old bangers. On the other hand, I’d really rather prefer to fart around on a car forum than to skin my knuckles in the cold and/or wet. You can’t have it all, can you?
Car 61 was one of Hungary’s finest. It was another one Jan had owned before us. He’d used the low-power, minimum-slip 4WD to its best effect, pulling cars out of trouble in the snows and doing ridiculous things on Salisbury Plain. Its last hurrah was a 1000 mile continental trip. Every home should have one.
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