The white twin turbo

My great aunt had died recently and I was left a sum of money, most of which we spent wiselyish. I did treat my slef though. A fellow forum member on the old XROC site was selling the car that he and some friends built for track days.

£600 bought this 2.9 XR4x4 with TurboTechnics 225BHP conversion. It had Cossy recaros ( + striped out rear ) Spax shox on puma racing springs. Mitsubishi Rally ( Enki ) Alloys and the RS kit. and Ashley exhaust.

I had it transported from Berkshire back to Carlisle. The intention was always to strip it for the engine to use in the Project Sapphire. During the stripdown extensive rust was found in the sills and rear hatch apature so good job realy!!

Eventually plans changed and the engine and virtualy everything else was sold on bar the steering wheel, oil gauge and power cut off.

The black 2.9 Car 7

CRL was an ebay special. I won it for about £250 from memory and it was located in Sterling. We decided to take the train up there and then drive up to Dundee to visit my brother in law.

I don't do public transport and felt ill for most of the journey.. When we got there the vendor met us at the station, a few details changed hands and we were off..

First impressions were not bad, it looked solid enugh, ran very well and drove ok. There was a throb from the transmission at speed though.
I took stock when I got to dundee and found that the front and rear tyres were different sizes. So next day a new pair were on and I was £50 lighter!!!

I also discoverd no Air filter!

We did a few shows over the summer, and did some mileage! She was a good comftble car. She did steam up lots but the 4x4 was fantastic.

At MOT time she failed on corroded floorpans, that took a few days of welding to sort but eventualy she passed :)

But as winter drew in funny noises were comming from the front end on motorways and I eventualy sold it on. The new owner replaced the wheel bearings which fixed that!!!

I did get to see her again when another club member brought her back to collect a turbo kit.

She looks quite good in the photo above and I realy did quite like her.

Car 6 the Blue 2.9

I was looking for a powerplant and drivetrain for the project sapphire... Not hard but just keeping an eye out...

Then out of the blue I got a phonecall from my m8 Neil in Glasgow, there was a G Reg 2.9 4x4 with short tax and test up his way..

He gave me the number, I gave the guy a call and we aranged to go up and see it one evening..

The trip up was not uneventful, my m8 Mark was driving his MK2 16V golf and arround Beatock we hit something on the road, as did about 6 other cars. We were all pulled up on the hard shoulder, Hazzards on, inspecting for damage. All we could see on marks car was that the front splitter was more split than it had been.. We think it was a Tyre or something else relativly soft.

Anyway, we made our way up the rest of the way unhindered. We met up with Neil ( our guide and protector ) and went to find the car.

It was on a Dark foggy road near the Clyde, deserted and quite scary. The guy turned up through the gloom... If it was not for Neil ( BIG BLOKE ) we would have been a little worried by the situation.

A quick test drive up and down the road confirmed everythig worked ok, i handed over £120 and set off in tho the night. I had a coffe and a sandwich at Neils mums and then made the 100 mile Trip back home, parked up and had a nice bottle of wine.. My first trip in a 2.9 XR 4x4 COOOL!!!

That was the last time the car would ever see the road ( well as a complet car that is.. )

After a few weeks it was drivven into the garage, it was stripped out and then cut up.

The cutting up was a little difficult, I was using a cheap reciprocating saw from B&Q.. Which kept on breaking, so I kept on exchanging it.. Eventualy the mettal work was all in bite size chunks, loaded onto a trailer and taken to the scrap man.

The engine eventualy went in the Blue twincam car, the wheels were sold for £80 tax returned for £13, metal made £2 and other odds and sods totted up to well over the £120 spent.

The only bits still in my posetion is the drive train and brakeing system...

So that was that. It serverd it's purpose sort of.... And cost nothing.

Luxury is a Carlton CD

In 2000 I decided I fancied moving up from cheap motoring ( the last sapph having cost a couple of hundred..) I decided to go looking. So me and my brother in law scoured every second hand dealership for 50 miles.. I most liked a 2.0 20V Volvo 850 Saloon but it was a bit steep for my budget.

The only other thing that caught my eye was a 92 J plate Carlton CDi. It was in burgundy with velour grey upholstery and was in very straight condition.

To be honest, I felt gr8. It was an executive saloon and I was driving it at 26..

The 2.0 8v was a bit underpowered but I realy liked the car. then she started loosing water. I tried some stopleak but that did not help. A head gasketechange did not seem to work as the head did not torque down. I was dis hartend and ready for a change.

Sadly she went to auction and made pittance..

I did see her on the road again though which gave me a smile.

The seccond Sapphy

Erika the Blue Sapphire was comming of the road for a bit of work, I decided to find another sapphire to fill in the time she was off the road, and to eventualy provide useful spare pannels.

A trip to the car auctions was in order again!

Only a few sierras were there but on caught my eye, it looked solid, straight and genrealy clean. It had a Sapphire Cosworth rear spoiler. A 1989 1.8LX Sierra Sapphire.

It came into the ring and sounded sweet, it had MOT for quite a few months too!

Bidding was not firece, I ended up spending £200 which was not bad for the day.

As I drove out of the auction house I was quite chuffed, it was driving fine. Then I hit 2.5K RPM and a rattle was evident.. :( Bumma!

It was a 1.8CVH which we had cut our teeth on with my brother in law Ian's 1st car. It's not an engine I particularly like...

So I had a top end rattle...

1st Port of call was a new set of cam followers £80. Still had a rattle.
2nd Port of call was a head gasket £30
3rd Port of call was a cracked exhaust manifold £10
4th Port of call was the valve springs £20 + head gasket £30
OOPS... Snapped a head bolt..
£30 for another head gasket.

Now I was just about to get married and the thought of taking the wifes MK1 golf on honeymoon was not enthralling me....

5th port of call was going to be a CAM Shaft £95 which sat on the shelf...

Whilst on honeymoon the brother in laws sierra drasticaly failed it's mot..

6th port of call was to swap Bro's engine into my car... YAHE!!! Rattle gone.


The car soliderd on, doing reasonable service until I got bored and decided it was time to move from povertyline motoring to something that cost a few quid more...

This car got PXed to get my brother in law his BMW E30 325i Sport, a real WEAPON!

Never ever seen this car again!

This was Erika back in 1995, wow Areal blast from the past image!

Erika the Sierra Sapphire

Driving a Nissan suny was not generaly what I had in mind, the plan was for a Sierra Sapphie. So I started hunting in November, waiting for the student loan to finance a new(er) car.

quite a lot of hunting was done, looking at cars that were either too expensive or heaps.

Me an Ian Till decided a trip into the big smoke ( London) was called for to look at a few cars.

First on the list was a Galaxy Blue 1.8GL ( 1987 ). The car looked ok, drove reasonably well, looked like it had done more miles than it said but overall it was not bad for the money... We took it for a test drive leaving Ian's car, keys and most importantly my money under the seat!!!!

After that we took a trip across town and looked at a 1.8LX in a light metalik blue. It was quit smart looking, but ahd had an accident repair. Unfortunatly it drove like crap and the vendor looked a bit shifty....

Then it was a trip further across town, we were going to see a Red 2.0LX. It looked reasonable although it had had a partial respray and the kids had scrawled on the door cards. But it was the one to have..... Untill we found that the V5 was in the post!!!

So it was back across town to haggle for Erika, the Galaxy Blue Sapphy.... £1400 later she was mine...

The car was in use from Nov 94 Till early 1999 when it was taken off the road and subjected to 7yrs restoration and modification.

Over the years on the road it got various upgrades ( 14" wheels then alloys ) Electric windows, better seats, colour bumpers with fogs, etc..

The Jap Shed Sunny

Ok, I had just sold the Lada Samara to my sister and my Student loan had not come through to buy my ideal car, a Ford Sierra Sapphire. I needed some wheels to fill the gap..

Me and My m8 Ian abz-zero Till went to the Maidstone car auctions to find a CHEAP set of wheels. Lot's of crud went past with no MOT. I bought a pice of Crud with a fairly long MOT (8 months)..

Somehow I decided to bid on a Nissan Sunny, A reg in RED. The bidding started at £50, and went up dramaticaly with me putting in the final bid at £50... Add sales charges and I was £62.50 lighter!! It ran prety well, and appart from the front and rear valances it was bodily not too bad.

The brakes felt a bit dodgy..

A week or so later the starter motor started to play up. but I had made a half decent job of sorting the valance.

The breaks were BAD! I ended up slewing sideways on the motorway under heavy breaking, and then later the friction surface departed from one of the front pads. new pads were fitted and I tried to repair the rear wheel cylinder that was leaking. That was a bad idea as I lost all pedal preasure during the test run, down a steep hill!! I managed to pump the pedal and make it back to base. A new wheel cylinder was purchased to fix the problem.

The car lasted about 2 months and 1200k.

It was then put in the garage and left ( I was to own 2 cars!! ) Ian put it in the garage for me, but managed to totaly miss seeing the HUGE capstan lathe into which he reversed, smashing the tail light.

The car languished in the garage for a few months before being towed away be and engine rebuilding company..

And she was gone.

I have one crappy picture somwhere which I will find at a later date.

In the begining there was the Lada.

Summer 1992 saw me pass my A-Levels, it was fully my intention to get a Job and start earning real money. In early August I pursueded my Dad to lend me som money to buy a car ( It would help finding and going to a Job...

So we trotted of to look at some cars, I quite liked a MK1 Astra estate, hated an FSO Polenez, decided a Type 2 VW camper was too dangerous.. and Eventulay we went to look at some Ladas..

The family had had 3 Ladas ( Old 1600, a 1300 and a Riva 1600 SLX!!! ) But I wanted something a little less dated.... ( the RWD ladas were great fun to drive mind!! )

Eventual we found a cheap Samara 1300L ( F923 EDS ) In off white ( I can't remember the exact name.. )

It was quite a revelation from the old Riva, quite modern in many respects. It was a good little car for the money. Plenty of space, resonably economical, resonably nippy and sort of handled!!

I had it for two years, the clutch failed which was a nightmare tyring to go up Honister pass with virtualy no grip left in the clutch!! and the Clutch center forgot to put a bolt in so the gearbox mount came loos a couple of weeks later!!!

Then it had a ignition box fault, I thought it was the carb so had that stripped at least 3 times..

Eventual it was sold to my sister...