Tag: Car

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 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 . . .