Car History 3 – Bread Delivery Service

Previously I had just ruined my second Seat Cordoba, but during the time I had my Seat’s I had a growing fascination with VW and the whole ‘scene’ around it. While I was waiting for recovery of my now hole punched second Cordoba, I went for a walk around a second hand dealership the other side of the street, and what a mistake that was. Sat there was a 1989 Mk2 VW Polo Breadvan and I wanted it. I saw it as the perfect base vehicle to get started in the VW scene and all the crap I could slap on it.

They must have seen me coming and the sparkle in my eye at how many ‘Dub’ related stickers I could now buy, as what I got was a low mileage car that barely ran, was taxed only for disabled drivers and had plenty of loose trim pieces.

Some paperwork later and I was let loose on it, chequerboard roof, stickers on the windows and painted steel wheels, I thought I had the modified on a budget look down. The pièce de résistance was some Austin mini indicators and removal of the front bumper, which I’d like to say was a style choice, but the truth is it had fell off on a country road and preceded to go under the wheels and was now unsalvageable.

It did not last long before I was over the 1.3L carb fed engine and breadvan square looks, plus the unreliability was very frustrating, but it succeeded in lighting a fire for German cars and tweaking them, for better or worse!

Car History 2 – The only way is sort of up

Welcome back to my car history, currently in the story my license is three weeks off the printer and barely dry, my saloon car is now a hatchback and insurance companies everywhere are giving it a big ‘I told you so’ justifying my massive insurance premium.

So as a 17 year old, what was I to do with a fresh license, a big wakeup call on my driving talent and a need for more wheels. I bought another Seat Cordoba, the same colour, trim and took all the ‘boy racer’ parts off my first car and moved them over. There was however, one major change, the engine was bigger. Now a 1.6 and clearly a more refined unit for the sensible driver I was going to be from now on.

The appeal of the Cordoba was a simple one, the name Ibiza or Polo carried the price tag of the ‘starter’ car that the Cordoba didn’t have, probably due to looking like something only the Spaniard who’d been on the Sangrias sine 10am before his evening shift at the factory could love. That and the boot space on this car was huge and perfect for all the things I planned to do. The boot was so big in fact that when I wrote off my first one, and as the lamppost kindly decided to only hit the rear, I was left with a drivable now Ibiza shaped hatchback, as the extended rear had parted company and decided to be one with the surrounding field.

This car was an absolute workhorse, the 1.6L engine racking up the miles. However, it too came to an early end, some three years later, when in a slow moving traffic jam during summer break, my attention may have slightly been elsewhere (read girl minding her own business on pavement) and I proceeded to go into the back of a Mercedes ML at about 5mph. One small scratch on the Merc and my car crumbled like breadsticks and that was that. Onto something not completely different.

Car History 1 – A Shaky Start

To get to know someone, it can take years to truly see who they are but there are two other ways to fast-forward this process. One would be to look through their internet search history (not recommended) and the other is to look at something that can be equally as shameful, their car history. So to know me, let us do that . . .

I was fortunate to get a car as soon as I passed my test at the ripe old age of 17 years and 5 months. A car my Dad had bought off a mate, who in turn had bought it as his son’s first car. His son realising that now he was 18, just having a car was not enough for the girls in the village, instead it had to be something that oozed cool, and a Seat Cordoba is not the one.

It had the finest aftermarket wheels Halfords could sell you, an exhaust the size of a can of baked beans and a 1.4 16v (very important the valves at that age) that at the time might as well have been a rocket. Being 17 and now a self-appointed driving god, I would like to say my first car had a good life and we had many adventures but sadly, three weeks after collecting the keys it had found its way to make friends with a lamppost in a moment of some very teenage over ambitious driving.

To Be Continued . . .

Hey all you cool catalytic converters and kit cars

Welcome to Shifting Thoughts

It seems I have spent large chunks of my life daydreaming about all things automotive, and so far I have been fortunate enough to find myself working in this industry, not that it’s the dream every day.

As an opinionated arsehole I’m told that I’m perfect then for the step to automotive journalism, but since the day job won’t wait why not start a blog.

Hopefully this will amuse a few people, not piss off too many others and generally start some good natured debate that us petroleum heads are in no way capable of when it comes to our cars!

Thanks for being here,

Cal