Those we have loved (I want another Alfa)

Just the other day I had an epiphany. A strange feeling came over me and I felt slightly weird and distinctly at odds with conventional wisdom. Don’t worry, I’m not mad (my Mother had me tested) and I’m not ill. I realised what it was. I badly want - I need - another Alfa Romeo. 

Avid readers will know something of my misfortunes with this brand as they have been recently regaled to you right here on Speedmonkey. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that two Alfa Romeo’s in one’s life - like two doses of the clap - would probably be enough, yet it is not so.

Let me explain. Consider if you will many of the cars that people can actually afford to own and run that are available to buy today. Euro-boxes the lot of them. Safe, conventional, won’t frighten the horses, compliant to the rules of EU dullards whose only motives are those of politically expedience, silver grey, gadget encrusted nonentities. Even those at the classier end of the market are the same - just posher and more expensive.

Where are the cars with soul and flair? Where are the cars we once loved to love? It’s rarely the case these days that a car owner will say ‘I love my car’. If he or she does, it is likely that it is an older model that goes wrong on occasion but has become part of the family. It might be a cheap car or a slow car but it has in its metal DNA qualities that we would more normally ascribe to humans.

This is thing with Alfa's. Whatever happens and how ever much you want rid of the wretched thing, as soon as it has gone the regrets flood in. I had a Cayman a while back. It was great but I don’t miss it nearly as much as the gorgeous black Alfa Romeo 159 saloon that followed it.

I blame for my plight an adequate television detective drama called Case Histories where the hero drives a pristine 2002 Alfa 156. I have a sneaking feeling that the older 156 is even more of a good-looking motor than the 159 although it was prone to all sorts of built-in Italian automotive defects. The problem with cars made in Italy is that the workers are all too busy thinking about sex and that new Moncler hooded parka to worry about things like panel gaps and loose screws.

So that’s it. I am going to have to find a good used Alfa as soon as possible. It is like having an itch you can’t scratch. It won’t be a Mito or a Giulietta but it could be a 159 or a 156, a Brera or a GT. Obviously I’ll keep my Citroen because it has become part of the family but it needs the company of a bigger badder brother. I know I’m going to regret this but I need it. End of. I wonder how many people there are out in the world who have owned three Alfa Romeo’s and remained sane. Like me.

Article by Geoff Maxted. Geoff is a freelance writer and photographer whose works have been published in various print and online sources

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Cruising For Burgers - Why having fun in your car is discouraged in the UK

The annual Riviera Run sees Mini fans driving down to Cornwall for a mini festival, a show and shine and, of course, the chance to cruise the streets of Newquay and elsewhere in a display of automotive passion. It’s a friendly occasion; there’s rarely any trouble and all the owners help and appreciate each other. In short, this is what driving for pleasure should be about.

Americans have known this almost from the inception of the automobile. Cruising the streets in Daddy’s car has always been part of the rites of growing up and, despite or indeed because of all the pressures on modern youth, it still is. What a shame then that in the UK the practice is frowned upon by the dark denizens of bureaucracy.

Needless to say, British youth don’t really help themselves. They’ve never really got to grips with the concept of cruising. For a minority, the idea of fun is to tear up and terrorise the neighbourhood or supermarket car parks inciting the inevitable challenges to The Bill. If they are not doing that they are tear-arsing about the place in a manner likely to kill themselves or at the very least encourage the insurance companies to grossly inflate their premiums.

Meanwhile, across the pond from Kissimmee to Surf City, Americans of all ages need no encouragement to head off in their prized wheels to events both organised and disorganised all over the USA or for just a night out on the town. Some sounds on the stereo, a nonchalant elbow on the doorsill and their best girl/boy by their side, they will slowly cruise the strips buying burgers and beer and being seen. With a V8 under the hood, they have no need to show off.

Perhaps this isn’t really being fair to British car fans. It’s probably hard to look really cool in a knackered Citroen Saxo but as our overseas cousins have shown it isn’t so much the motor as the manner in which it is done. Around the UK in the Spring and Summer there are plenty of car shows of one description or another. The Goodwood Festival of Speed is perhaps the best example but the attendees are by and large spectators and not participants.

It is one thing to descend on a field in some bosky glade to see and be seen but it isn’t the same as a gathering of likeminded motor nuts on public streets getting together for the sheer joy of driving. The Riviera Run is a fairly rare event. It could be argued that, unlike the USA, our climate isn’t conducive to fun outdoors but they seem to manage at Glastonbury.

It’s a well known fact that fun is generally discouraged in this country. The authorities would much prefer us to sit indoors and watch brain-numbing television but it is worth a shot. Turn up and support your local car events; Classic, Show and Shine, whatever. It doesn’t matter what you drive as long as you drive.

‘Cruising For Burgers’ is a melodic interlude by Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention.

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In praise of small cars

When the Up! was first introduced to the world the good folk at Volkswagen decided it would be fun to cram fifteen women and, bizarrely, one man into one of these diminutive cars. It seems a bit of an extreme thing to do - although one suspects the bloke enjoyed it - just to get the message across that the Up! was roomy for its size.

However, the exercise does show that car manufacturers are taking the design of modern cars seriously given the generally parlous ecological and financial state of the world. They believe there is a growing demand for stylish city cars that are, like the Tardis, compact on the outside and spacious on the inside.

Avid readers will recall that I recently extolled the virtues of my own Citroen C1. It is a very good car for the money although it is beginning to lag behind some of the newer competition. The Up! was Volkswagen’s answer to the small car clamour. Yet small and inexpensive does not mean these cars are poorly featured. Many of the usual bells and whistles are available as optional extras although customers keen to save a few bob are opting for the base models. This is amply demonstrated by the Dacia Sandero which is beginning to make its presence felt on the high street.

Engines don’t differ much in these mini-marvels. Usually of three cylinders and displacing around 1 or 1.2 litres with or without turbo-charged assistance they offer peppy performance around town and can hold their own on the motorways of Britain. The seats inside may not be the stuff of a good armchair but they are adequate for the task. So city cars are better than you think but they don’t suit everybody which is why the next step up will likely be the crowded supermini sector with the Fiesta, the Audi A1 or the Skoda Fabia as examples.

Car makers understand their customers and are continually working towards ever cleaner cars. Certainly, they are sometimes poked with a very big stick by interfering bureaucrats but the resulting cars are something both we and the planet can comfortably live with. So consider one of these functional, economical and trendy cars for your next vehicle or as a second car. Small, green cars can sit comfortably alongside their bigger brethren which are also recipients of ever more efficient engines and technology. Everybody wins.

Those with longer memories will remember the golden days of motoring which were, basically, most of the 20th Century but those days are gone forever, alas; but don’t despair. There is still fun to be had on the smooth bits of what’s left of our roads, we just have to do it differently. Get on the small car bandwagon. Less bhp is balanced by less weight and light cars mean driving pleasure. Ask any owner of an original mini and rejoice.

Article by Geoff Maxted. Geoff is a freelance writer and photographer whose works have been published in various print and online sources

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Formula 1 - Is it, in fact, any good?

Geoff Maxted dares to think the unthinkable… 

 
Once upon a time barbers would ask their gentlemen customers if they needed ‘something for the weekend’. As a result a whole generation of blokes grew up thinking they could only have sex on a Saturday or Sunday. Now, of course, we all know it’s Friday night after the pub, because weekends must be kept free for Formula One, or so it seems these days.

Before we consider the question of F1 we must first pay due deference to The Dear Leader (of Speedmonkey obviously; not the bomb-toting mad Michael McIntyre look-alike from the East) who is known to have viewed the odd Grand Prix in his time and seems to be a fan. That done, we can finally pose the important question that has been on the lips of nations ever since Eddie Jordan first started wearing shirts with really, really massive collars: Is Formula One any good or is it just a waste of petrol?

Honestly, this isn’t sour grapes or a case of unrequited love; I have accepted that my previously strong chances with Nicole Scherzinger have melted faster than last year’s snow since that Hamilton geezer came along. I’ve moved on, seriously - just waiting for that call from Jessica any day now. And it isn’t even because the BBC are too cheap to spend our money on sports, preferring instead to spend it on salaries and golden goodbyes. (Note to Beeb: Snooker and darts are great games but they are not sports! You only call them ‘sports’ because they are cheap to broadcast!). These days if you want to watch all of the F1 coverage live - fronted by the turncoat Brundle - you have to give all your money and your house to an Antipodean media baron.

Sorry, I digress. Got a bit carried away there. Right: This is a money making machine run by a short bloke with celebrity pretensions, surely? It features overpaid prima donnas driving cars that virtually drive themselves, who spend most of their time trying to ‘save their tyres’ and avoiding any of that nasty close racing business with the car nearest to them. Except for that pushy German fella.

That’s a point. There’s everyone thinking what a nice boy that Sebastian ‘The Finger’ Vettel is when suddenly he shows his true colours! I mean; who knew? If you can get up the nostrils of a laid-back Aussie then you must have a problem with your attitude. Whatever happened to the gentleman racer? Whither Schumacher? That’s what we want to know.

Formula One then is a procession of very expensive cars driving around some serious dull tracks in far away places that most of us will never visit, isn‘t it? Most of the drivers have no chance yet persist in turning up to make up the numbers. On the TV presenter front, Mr Coulthard models some seriously suspect strides whilst commentating and the Irish gentleman with the Harry Hill shirts… what exactly is he for? Fortunately, the fragrant Suzi can do no wrong. She could stand there reading a Thomson Local out loud and still grip the audience. Even Christian Horner says that F1 is a soap opera because it is not just about the racing.

It’s about money, right? A marketing exercise for energy drinks. The grid is littered with brands of all descriptions. The trouble is - it appears to work. For example, just a scant couple of years ago Nissan were seriously considering scrapping their posh Infiniti badge. Linking up with Red Bull has given the brand a new lease of life. They’ve even let that pushy German kid design his own version, the Infiniti FX Vettel.

It is also seems to be about research and safety. Some of the high-tech stuff used on Formula One cars does filter down to the cars we drive today. KERS-like systems are beginning to appear in the showrooms and so on. This top echelon of motor sport also brings a little glamour and fun into our daily lives; dominated as they are by grey weather, grey financial prospects and grey government.

Thinking about it, I suppose the new rules do seem to have made the racing more closely contested. Then there’s all the razzmatazz and colour and grid girls and gossip and Suzi P and noise and petulant argument and…oh! I seem to have answered my own original question.

Geoff Maxted is a freelance writer and photographer whose works have been published in various print and online sources

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Swindon - Gateway To The West

The once great metropolis of Swindon, nestling within the rural delights of Wiltshire, has fallen upon hard times. Even mighty Honda is having to lay off workers because of the general European malaise in new car sales. Travellers moving west and heading for the far distant holiday counties of Cornwall and Devon now pass by on the new-fangled M4 with scarcely a glance at the once mighty town.

What’s to be done to return Swindon to its former glory? Well the first step is to buy more Civics obviously, but there are also ways by which the town can be enhanced through tourism. Nearby Oxford may have its dreaming spires but it also has some the ugliest buildings in the land. Swindon has much more to offer the passing motorist than you may have first thought.

Not for nothing is it known as the town of traffic lights and roundabouts. Attention all driving enthusiasts who hanker for the joys of stop/start motoring - this is the ideal vacation destination. Swindon is also the first town in the land to switch off the notorious speed cameras thanks to a super-hero councillor - a man known to regularly wear his red pants outside his trousers, sometimes intentionally - and there was nothing that the hapless minions of the Department for Transport could do about it. Unfortunately the cameras have been replaced by irritating electronic warnings that, in the way of state sponsored signage, still manage to exude an holier-than-thou aura.

The best, however, is yet to come because Swindon has a secret attraction known only to locals. Washington DC has its Lincoln Memorial, Agra its Taj Mahal, but they pale into insignificance against - the Magic Roundabout! This is a convoluted system of mini-roundabouts connecting five incoming roads and configured in such a way that whatever you try to do you will always be launched down entirely the wrong exit road. Alton Towers has nothing to touch it. Stephen Hawking visited once but couldn’t work it out and went home in a huff.

Night-time ghost hunters will have a ball trying to spot the revenants of ancient motorists who never got off and were doomed forever to remain, turning and turning as they try to make it to Halfords. Set up your picnic apparatus on a handy verge and chuckle as red-faced shoppers trying to reach the malls of Greenbridge are thwarted at the last minute and find themselves halfway to Cirencester. How you’ll laugh when it happens to you.

The answer of course is to hire a native guide for a small fee. You can tell them because they wear a lot of Burberry and sniff more than is usual. He or she will know which direction to take and which mini-lane to get in, thus avoiding the dangerous, penalty earning bus lane. Later they will nick your alloys but, frankly, it’s a small price to pay to escape the melee on the Magic Roundabout.

So pack your bags and your kids and get yourself down to Swindon. Visit the Orbital Centre and gaze at the ancient ruins of an early Comet and a long lost Blockbuster encampment. Watch small herds of browsing locals grazing on pizza or texting whilst trying to park their Civics. Hours of fun and, of course, it’s all free. Don’t be a stranger! Have a happy holiday in Swindon - Gateway To The West. Just one word of caution though; when it is time to go always make sure you check for stowaways.

Geoff Maxted is a freelance writer and photographer whose works have been published in various print and online sources

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Living With - The Great And The Indifferent

Geoff Maxted used to own both a Porsche Cayman and a Seat Leon Cupra.  He loved one but not the other...

The 2007 Porsche Cayman pictured was mine until a couple of years ago when I took this holiday snap in the wilds of Yorkshire. It was a basic 2.7L and all the better for it. For a start it had the standard wheels wearing fat rubber that nicely cushioned the ride. Big wheels look great but would have added nothing but a little more discomfort. Handling? This car is so good that your own personal bravery will run out long before the grip on this car ever will.

This is why there are two cars in this article - because the Cayman is so good I simply can’t think of anything to bleat about. It looked good, was acceptably economical (not that I even gave that a passing thought in my joy), insurance wasn’t too rough and, well, just get one. It doesn’t matter how old; these cars are bombproof. I now and forever bitterly regret selling it just to buy a car with more room. Sometimes my wife kicks me as she walks past, muttering darkly.

You will have read on Speedmonkey about my trials with the subsequent Alfa; ‘nuff said. In due course I ordered a new SEAT Ibiza Cupra on the basis that after the hefty Italian car I wanted something nimble.

The Cupra, in many ways, is a very good car. The 2013 model is better looking than the one I owned and it is, in reality, a Volkswagen Polo in a flamenco skirt and none the worse for that. Powered by the excellent 1.4L engine with both turbo and supercharged support, this 177bhp pocket rocket can really shift. The seven speed ‘box can be used in full auto mode, or by flicking the lever back and forth or, indeed, by using the well placed floppy paddles. A trick electronic diff helps to keep everything in order. ‘What then,’ I hear you ask, ‘is your problem?’

Well, it’s the handling. Under hard acceleration the front would lift and go light. On winding roads there was always the sense that the car was about to leave the road and go hurtling into a field, scaring cows and the like. The steering is dead and transmits nothing of the road beneath. Mrs M did not like it one bit. Maybe the new car has been fettled a little better.

Yet the real problem - and not one usually read about in car reviews - is the overall feel. The only word that I can think of to describe the car is ‘sterile’. Remember the joy I mentioned in the Cayman section? Non- existent. It simply wasn’t a car you could grow to love. It’s like a snappy dog or that surly bloke at work who smelled a bit - you tolerate them but you wouldn’t want to spend quality time with them.

SEAT was originally supposed to represent the sporting side of the VW empire but the Spanish flair is dominated by the sensible German side - reliable but not terribly exciting. Sorry Hans.

Geoff Maxted is a freelance writer and photographer whose works have been published in various print and online sources

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Living With - An Alfa Romeo 159 Ti

Geoff Maxted reviews his Alfa Romeo 159 Ti - a loveable, pretty car that ate tyres for breakfast

It is said that a man cannot be a true petrol head until he has owned an Alfa Romeo. I have had two. Don’t ask me why. Oh all right then, but it’s not a pretty story. It culminated in my wife suggesting that ‘petrol’ was not quite the right word to precede ‘head’.

I once owned an Alfa that, when the mood took me, I could watch rust away in real time, It was true love - whilst it lasted; but love is a fleeting thing and my head was turned by a shiny harlot beckoning to me from a car showroom. That’s all in the past now. Best forgotten.

Moving on, I actually sold a Porsche Cayman to get the Alfa 159. That’s how crazy and mixed up I was. I thought I needed a motorway express to tote stuff around the country although that’s not how things worked out as it happens. There is no doubt however that the recently defunct 159 is a seriously beautiful car. Even the door handles are sculptural delights. More ardent admirers have been known to experience - how to put this delicately - strong emotions in the trousering department.

I selected a Ti because it had lowered suspension and 19” wheels - more on that later - and a 2.4L diesel for economy. The colour was flecked ‘Carbonio Black’. It changed with the light. For leather fetishists the interior was like their favourite club. Black leather throughout embellished with brushed aluminium trim. That’s it in the picture. The number plate is obscured to protect the new owner, poor bloke.

Best of all was starting the thing. It had a slot-in key and a real, actual, genuine start button with ‘Start’ engraved on it. It just doesn’t get any better than that. The pleasure I got from saying “Gentlemen, starrrrt yurrrrr engines” in what, I felt, was a very accurate American drawl was beyond measure and remained so until my wife said, “For heaven’s sake will you stop doing that!”. She didn’t say “for heaven’s sake”.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that Alfa, at that point at least, had not really sorted the reliability issues that plagued the brand: they just thought they had. Electrical gremlins began creeping in within the year. Batteries were exchanged and excuses were made but the worse thing was the aforementioned wheels. Nineteen inch wheels need big tyres. Big tyres are expensive; especially when the Alfa did for a set of front hoops in just over six thousand miles.

The car was delivered with an amount of negative camber to make the driver believe he was better at cornering than he really was. This was adjusted. Zero camber did not solve the issue. The fact is, a stonking great diesel engine suspended over the front driving wheels of what is a heavy, powerful car equals tyre wear and that’s all there is to it.

The problems became too much. The Alfa had to go. Since a mile-muncher was no longer required I selected a hot hatch. Boy, what a mistake that was….

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Because they can - Why car manufacturers give us too much choice

Geoff Maxted believes car manufacturers are giving us too much of everything, and we don't need it

Once, in far-off days, people were satisfied with what they had when it came to material things. They expected things to last. They purchased a car and kept it pretty much until it had reverted to its original organic state. The thought never occurred to those thrifty folk of yore to even consider buying one of those bright baubles of the automotive future. Even the weak of will who may have been swayed to the dark side soon realised that selling a car just for the sake of getting another one was akin to buying a novelty sweater. It seems like a good idea at the time.

These days however there is simply too much stuff. The temptations are too great. Man cannot live by 3G alone, apparently. A fellow who insists that the pair of Noddy Holder flares he bought in 1973 still have plenty of wear left in them would be looked at askance. The driver battling to keep a Triumph Dolomite on the road in the 21st Century would be thought mad. After all, a new car is announced by car makers almost on a daily basis. The mantra now is ‘change is good for you’; whether you want it or not.

Once there was just The Motor Show at Earl’s Court where serious looking men with pipes and leather patches on the elbows of their jackets would discuss cars in a serious manner. There may have been motor shows elsewhere in the world but they were of no consequence to our stoic British buyers.

Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, manufacturers flaunt their wares at shows around the world. A day cannot pass without some new development or other. Speedmonkey pointed out recently that the cars on show at Shanghai were, in some cases, beautiful, but mostly they were mad, crazy or daft. There’s a reason for this.

In terms of manufacture, when companies see a bandwagon these days they feel obliged to jump on it. Thus the car has become a lifestyle accessory to be changed as often as individuals change their smart phones. Take the Citroen DS3 or the Vauxhall Adam. Unlike a Ford Model-T you can have these in any colour combination that takes your fancy. The car as trinket. The car as personal ornament.

To have a choice is fine, to have too much choice is dangerous. What is going to happen when these cars come onto the used car market? What is a delicious beef lasagne to one person is just an old nag to another. Mark these words - if a car is too heavily personalised it will lose value not gain it. In the same way that magnolia paint is supposed to give maximum appeal to the majority of house buyers precisely because it is so neutral, so a silver car will always have the most mass appeal when it comes to resale time.

Manufacturers do these things because they can and consumers of the world are falling for it left, right and centre. The ideal car for this humble scribe has rear-wheel drive, a V8 engine and the desirability of Uma Thurman (but with lower running costs obviously). When I’m driving I really don’t need to be connected to the world. I just need to be connected to the road.

Geoff Maxted is a freelance writer and photographer whose works have been published in various print and online sources

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Living With - The Extraordinary Adventures Of A Citroen C1

Geoff Maxted reviews his Citroen C1, a city car for petrolheads?

France has given the world many wonderful things; great art, magnificent cuisine, Juliette Binoche and many iconic automobiles of which the Citroen C1 is definitely not one. It’s a city car for goodness sake; a hockey puck on wheels. City cars are weedy environmental goodie-goodies for green town dwelling types who eat a lot of quiche and spend their holidays in a yurt. Aren’t they?

Well, yes, they can be that way and no, they are much more than they appear to be. Certainly, cars like the C1 are ideal for the town, being cheap to run and easy to park yet I, a driving enthusiast and all-round red-blooded male, have one. I bought it new. No aberration this; I knew what I was doing.

For a start, there are some cracking deals around as retailers desperately try to shift product in a stagnant market. Those cash-starved motorists with a mind for economy in these desperate financial times are buying into the small car market to save money. In short, there are times when common sense must prevail.

So how has the C1 been? In a word - brilliant. It was built at a factory in the Czech Republic alongside its siblings, the Peugeot 107 and the posh Toyota Aygo. Apart from some identifying bodywork and trim differences they are the same. Build quality has never been an issue - it’s very well screwed together.

Reader - I have put this car through hell. I have even taken it to North Yorkshire. You would think that this would have a tiny car with a tiny engine reaching for the diazepam and having a bit of a lie-down, but it is not so. When asked to deliver it has shrugged its Gallic shoulders, said merde, and got on with the job.

Amazingly, this car is a fun drive. I don’t think it is meant to do this, but if you really wind up the elastic band and hustle it along it can be hugely entertaining. If you think back to olden times, cars were basic with none of the bells and whistles of today’s automotive extravagances and, it can be argued, all the better for it. The C1 has a five-speed ‘box and a one litre three cylinder engine. It shouldn’t go, but it does.

My car has basic air-con, alloys, a halfway decent stereo and electric front windows and that’s it. I have produced this mathematical equation where C + L + S = F. In other words - car, lightness and simplicity equals FUN.

Because the car is so light it makes the most of the tiny engine, especially now that it is fully run-in. It can hold its own on the motorway at 70-80 all day and will track anything on four wheels through the twisting lanes and byways of Britain. Its skinny little wheels and tyres have terrific grip and - although many reviewers didn’t like it - the rather stiff suspension makes for much better handling.

This car has been driven all over the country, up steep hills, through muddy fords and along country tracks and all without objection. It has carried loads and served as a car boot platform. It has performed faultlessly. If a parent is looking for a first time car for their kids they could do worse than one of these. The Citroen C1 is the cheapest, smallest car I’ve owned. Other cars will come and go, all of them bigger and more powerful, but this one’s a keeper.

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Funboy 3 - The holy triumverate of hot hatches

Geoff Maxted takes a look at how modern hot hatches compare to the original 80s icons

The good name of boy racers everywhere has today been besmirched by a veneer of respectability. Car manufacturers have given scant regard to historical accuracy by allowing their GTi’s to grow up and get, well, just a bit lardy. A tad suburban in appeal, perhaps. When was the last time you saw what passes for a hot hatch these days being driven by a spotty youth in a ska trilby? The prosecution rests.

So what are the cars of 2013 that could bring out the inner rascal lying dormant in 21st Century man? The Vauxhall Astra has always had a bit of a bad boy image, so how about a nice VXR? It certainly has a wild-boy look about it with great pace and sharp handling and, because it’s a Vauxhall, it is a bit mad. The same can’t be said about the Renaultsport Mégane which is an extremely focussed hot hatch, especially in ‘Cup’ form.

Best, however, to stick with what we know and that means driving behind the sign of the blue oval. The Ford Escort may no longer be with us but the brilliant ST certainly is and ought really to be the auto du jour of the boy racer. We shall discount the Golf GTi because, although it is arguably the best of the bunch, your Dad’s probably got one which immediately rules it out.

Civilisation has ruined driving. Proper men will want to hark back to the golden years and search the classic car listings for the real thing. The perfect funboy threesome. Recapture those halcyon days by seeking out a nice Peugeot 205 GTi which can still be found in good nick for somewhere between £1500 - £2000. Or what about the French relation, the Renault Five GT Turbo? Surprisingly, these are holding their price and the keen boy racer will need to find around £3500 for a decent example.

But there can only really be one car; the pinnacle, the absolute apogee of boy racing pleasure. The car that will bring a derisive curl (and a rather coarse joke) to the lips of the uninitiated - the Escort XR3. Is it just a fantasy, a legend like the unicorn, or are they truly still out there? Let’s trawl the small ads. Yes, there they are in all their glory. There’s a do-up-able rust bucket for £900 or a really classy, rust free example for £5k.

Some readers will of course be too young to truly remember these automotive icons of yore but you can always ask your Father. Be understanding if he becomes a little misty eyed; after all, it’s probably how he met your Mother. The trail may even lead to your point of conception - expect parents to be a little reticent on this subject.

Go on. You know you want to. Think of the fun of searching car boot sales for drive shafts and all the 80’s hits on cassette tapes. The dedicated collector may even think 8-Track. Dust off your cap, get on the road and pretty soon you’ll have the neighbours complaining - just like the good old days.

Geoff Maxted is a freelance writer and photographer whose works have been published in various print and online sources

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