Mine was a 1961 FORD Sunliner. The Sunliner model was the convertable. Someone told me that on all the convertables they added extra weight to the frame. I don't know if that's true or not, but I can tell you that the dang thing was SO HEAVY that when I had a flat and had to jack up the car using the standard jack, which fitted the bumper, that THE BUMPER FELL OFF!!! 😳
DRIVING THE CAR IN SNOW was like RIDING A COW ON ICE! Yeah, it would get stuck and not be able to move in just 1" of snow! 🙁
And finally, it had a 350 cu. in. engine which was 'supposed' to put out 300 HP. But it was one of the doggiest cars I've ever raced.
Let's hear about your beasts... 🙂
Originally posted by arrakisAmazing the things you learn people have done.
Mine was a 1961 FORD Sunliner. The Sunliner model was the convertable. Someone told me that on all the convertables they added extra weight to the frame. I don't know if that's true or not, but I can tell you that the dang thing was SO HEAVY that when I had a flat and had to jack up the car using the standard jack, which fitted the bumper, that THE BUMPER ...[text shortened]... . But it was one of the doggiest cars I've ever raced.
Let's hear about your beasts... 🙂
I would never have thought about riding a cow on ice.
Easy !
A 1981 Morris Ital 1.3 HLE.
It cost me £300 which included one year's tax (£100) and a nice stereo worth around £150 - so really the car was £50
I had it for 18 months, during which time I called out the RAC man 14 times, one 8 occasions it was the same guy, who I got to know quite well.
On 4 trips the dashboard caught fire and I had tosrop to put it our and wait for the fumes to clear.
It was painted in purple exterior house paint, so was very good in wet weather !
I blew the engine up trying to get to Cardiff for New Year in 1991, and had to spend £150 to get a new engine just to get me home, which them blew up at Keele services, about 50 miles from Manchester.
I traded it in and got £100 back! At this point it had two gears left, 2nd and reverse and had just passed 138,000 miles.
It was my first car, and I loved it, but would like to think that those days are long behind me !!!!
My worst car was a 95 VW Polo.
It failed to start the first time I got into it. It started about 80% of the time. The 20% was always when u were in a rush somewhere, or in the middle of nowhere. U'd just have to sit there for 20-30 minutes and then it'd be fine again.
The ignition went on fire about 5-6 times. (a couple of quick puffs and away we go. Swear to god. Looking back at it, I think I may have been trying to win a Darwin Award.)
The left door handle fell off.
It had trouble getting over 60mph, so I couldn't pass out.
It got 3 punctures.
It cornered like a cow on ice. Anything over 40 on a medium bend and the back wheels slipped out a bit. Must have been too much power. 😛
I had it for a total time of 4 months. Do I win?
I remember the day I sold it, I was sitting going for a test ride, thinking 'Please start, please don't go on fire. Please start, please don't go on fire. Please start, please don't go on fire'. 😉 They don't call me Honest Don for nothing u know.
: D
Originally posted by arrakisA 1990 Cougar
Mine was a 1961 FORD Sunliner. The Sunliner model was the convertable. Someone told me that on all the convertables they added extra weight to the frame. I don't know if that's true or not, but I can tell you that the dang thing was SO HEAVY that when I had a flat and had to jack up the car using the standard jack, which fitted the bumper, that THE BUMPER ...[text shortened]... . But it was one of the doggiest cars I've ever raced.
Let's hear about your beasts... 🙂
1980 Dodge Colt, reddish orange with 90% tint windows, and about 90% of body rust.
Somebody actually had the gaul to turbocharge it so the gas line blew with in the first month I had it. I would have been bummed if I hadn't paid a whooping 350$ for it.
Did I mention it was the brightest Reddish-orange you have ever seen?
Originally posted by adramforall>I would never have thought about riding a cow on ice.
Amazing the things you learn people have done.
I would never have thought about riding a cow on ice.
Heheheh. Well... I think the idea of a cow on ice is about the best description that I can think of to match the traction the Ford had on snow. 🙂
I used to race motocross and enduros more than cars though. Alot more fun. 🙂
Probably an early-80s Buick Skylark. Numerous front-wheel drive/steering problems, bad handling (terrible understeer), gutless passing power, in winter it would flood the engine and NOT start ( the carb required drilling thru to get at the adjustment screws to fix that, wtf were they thinking?) and it rusted fast. Brakes were barely adequate, crappy radio, flakey paint etc etc.
Brace yourself for a true, but horrific story:
When I was 14 I made a deal with my dad. We had a 73 Dodge truck that had broken down and been left to rust for atleast 8 years on our property. Our deal: if I could get it to run by the time I was 16 I could have it.
Well, I did and I got the truck. It had a 318, an 8-track player, no A/C (and I lived in Phoenix!), no heat, no seatbelts, no windshield wipers.
All the needles to the guages had dry-rotted and fallen off. Gas tank had rusted and had a slow leak. Floorboards had rusted and the road was clearly visable through several holes. Passenger door wouldn't latch, but driver door wouldn't lock (never bothered locking it anyhow). The rear rims were bent, so it looked like they were going to fall off and got a nasty vibration above 35 mph.
And my favorite: The choke always stuck. So, I put a screwdriver through the butterfly valve to keep it open when I started it. Then I figured out that I could just use another screwdriver across the sileniod so I didn't have to get back in the cab. This was before the hood had to be released from inside. So, after awhile I quit carrying the keys around and just carried two screwdrivers in my backpack. Just interesting looks in parking lots.
My fondest memories:
1. I was rear-ended by a late 80's Monte Carlo. Totalled the Monte Carlo. "No visable damage" to the Dodge as the police report noted.
2. Got a parking ticket and the model block was filled in with "unknown".
3. Pulled in to a gas station and the engine died as I turned in. I coasted up to the pump. The guy next to me says "That was lucky" as I get out of the truck. I responded, "I have plenty of fuel, that's just what it usually does when let off the gas".
4. None of my friends ever asked for a ride in the "soon-to-be coffin that I attempted to pass off as a motor vehicle".
Drove it for a year, sold it for $2,000 and bought a new truck.
Well, my dad "sold" it. Looking back I think he sold it to a junkyard for much less and pitched in some of his own money out of pity.
for some reason i'll never quite understand i once bought a canary yellow Mazda 929 station wagon. man, what a clunker. there was something wrong with the windscreen wipers that no-one seemed able to fix, so i had to drive 20 km every day to work in winter, usually in pouring rain with no wipers. became very good at using the brake lights of the car in front to tell me when to brake, accelerate and so on. it also had a HUGE turning circle - it was like steering a tank. on the day i decided to sell it i went down only to discover it had two flat tires, just to spite me! i hated that car!
Originally posted by dfm65Correct me if I am wrong, but can't a tank turn on the spot, and therefore have no turning circle at all? Or have I been playing too many video games all my life....
it also had a HUGE turning circle - it was like steering a tank.
A Rover 400 for me. ( Luckily a company car that I was rid of within a year.) If it rained and I drove through a largish puddle, it would just stall. I have driven my (wife’s) Ford Mondeo through floods without any problem.
-Russ
Originally posted by pendejoLOL - my missus had a Maestro. They were all difficult to control, basically because they handled like a bag of potatoes. Our Maestro originally belonged to a mate, it had been nicked and abandoned in Leeds, so we were told we could keep it if we went to pick it up (from London).
maestro 1.3
man was i cool.
i owned a 1.6 as well. funnily enough i went from a 1.6 rto the 1.3.....
maybe the 1.6 was too much for a young me to control.
Not being ones to turn down a free car up the M1 we went. It had no ignition when we got to it and you basically had to hotwire it everytime you wanted to start the damn thing. We also had to break the steering lock so we could turn the wheel. I can remember being slightly apprehensive when driving it back to London and hoping to god that I was not going to get pulled over. Car not registered to me, missing a window, no insurance, interior covered in broken glass, no paperwork, clearly had been hotwired.....hmmm, doesn't look good!
I remember that when it cornered it was kind of like they had taken a normal car and put the wheels on each corner so they were at right angles to the front. It definitely felt like you were driving sideways.
Funniest moment was when my missus drove it through a fence after saying, and I quote "Roundabout, what roundabout?" then immediately braking as hard as she could to avoid hitting a roundabout. Unfortunately the Maestro lurched violently to the left when you slammed the anchors on and she had forgotten to put the usual full right lock on the steering wheel - you needed to do that to stop the bugger in a straight line! Needless to say we didn't bother fixing it, just kept on driving bits of hedge and all.
What a gem of a car. 😉
At one point I also had an old XR3i that leaked water through the dash every time it rained such that the front seat passenger would travel with their feet in a puddle. 😀
My missus with her lurching Maestro and me with my puddlesome Ford - glorious days they were! 🙂