What fact about your car would make people say 'YOU WHAT?!'

[MkX]

Oct 18, 2016 18:46:55 GMT bstardchild said:

So what's my car build number - it's 0000

In the late 70's my Dad bought my Mum a Bond Bug, for some reason he decided to respray it in JPS colours.
He commented on the car while working on it that it had a 'odd' chassis number, ending in 0001. He also commented that car books had the production dates on the Bug wrong as they specified production as 1970 to 1974 but our car was 1969.
Anyway my Mum skidded on black ice & refused to drive the car again so it was sold.
A year or two later I spotted an article in a car mag about the Bond Bug, it had one of the original publicity photos with a scantily clad busty model next to the car, I showed the photo to my Dad saying "It's like Mum's car." he looked at the photo, clocked the registration & replied, "It's not like Mum's car, it IS Mum's car." We'd unknowingly owned & sold the Bug prototype.
It was stood on bricks in Kenfig Hill for years after that. 

[vader]

That my Stag doesn't overheat! And hasn't done so in my 10 year ownership

[richr]

Oct 16, 2016 15:14:12 GMT saabsled said:

No-one ever believes it's a Capri!

I do I had one

Consul Capri around 17000 made of which two thirds were exported.

[Vintage75]

No!
It's NOT a Manta!
FFS!

[bstardchild]

Oct 21, 2016 19:35:15 GMT Vintage75 said:

No!
It's NOT a Manta!
FFS!

Sorry but that's never going to stop happening - I've owned a Monza for 16 years and if I had pound for every time I've been told it's a Manta I would have 153 dollars at current exchange rates

[dikkehemaworst]

The engine in my classic fiat 500 is original an prototype engine from Moto guzzi. It is essential a motorbike engine with a giant snailshouse on the side for cooling purposes.

[s1105117]

X1/9 wise, most people who know what it is are surprised when I tell them that it starts, and is still around! Otherwise they are surprised its not a tr7 or a kit car! Philistines.... mondeo wise, most people are surprised that there are non left, or that it's 22 years old!

[marinanut]

Oct 16, 2016 8:34:02 GMT NudgerSS said:

The man who designed the mk2 Cortina went on to design the clubman fronted Mini which when you know and look at them both is pretty obvious...not that my Mini is a clubbie...and my old Ford isn't a Cortina so I'll fetch my coat...

..And he 'designed' the Maxi (which is why it looks like a Clubbie) and then went on to develop the Morris Marina as a multi-platform chassis - just like VW do with Audi/SEAT/Skoda/VW etc. The Richard Craniums in BL dropped that part of the idea and gave the Marina to Triumph to 'develop' alongside the Dolomite... say no more.

[scrapheapchallenge]

that she's the only one of her kind in the world.

She was a one-off custom build by saab in 1984. An Omani sheikh flush with oil money in the newly booming country placed a special order for a saab 900 turbo to his exact specifications, which meant that Saab had to pull a shell off the production line and hand finish it to exatly his requirements. This took time however, and he grew impatient and by the time it was on the ship from Sweden he got bored and walked out of the showroom with a lamborghini countach instead (the saab dealer also sold Fiats, Kenworth trucks and Lamborghinis, as there weren't many car dealerships in the country at the time many of them worked for a few marques).

When the 900 arrived at the showroom she no longer had an owner waiting as planned, so my dad bought her new and we've had her ever since. The differences are subtle and only a real saab geek would be able to piece together exactly why she's so different, it's mainly the spec and trim combinations, the options omitted and added, and little touches like instead of the leather sports seats, they took the sport seat pattern and copied them in cashmere velour instead of leather - other velour seats use a different pattern.

The spec was probably loosely based on the Saudi spec at the time then tinkered with to customise the finish. The colour wasn't very common (although I've seen a few with it, not many), the side stripes were an option only for certain countries, but rarely chosen, I've seen them only as a diagram in a copy of an old options catalogue, never on an another actual car.

I got excited the other week when someone shared a photo of their 900 sedan with similar shaped (but different coloured) stripes, until he said they weren't original, but he'd seen our car years ago, found the catalogue and had a friend draw up replicas using CAD to copy my original ones, so I still haven't seen another car wearing the genuine saab stripes yet.

She's got a mashup of lux and sports trim, no sunroof (as the spec should have had, hence them using a different shell to start with), power steering, APC, air conditioning, cruise control, electric windows front AND back (in the 1980s this was unusual), electric wingmirrors, electric aerial, central locking, sump guard, sports suspension, inca alloys (which she isn't currently wearing as my dad changed them in the 1990s, I need to source a replacement set), and the optional side stripes. For the options she has she should have also had the "lux" exterior trim which was chromed detail stripes around the windscreen, the grille etc, but instead he had ordered the matte black sports finish with a dull metallic grey grille (which again, she isn't wearing at the moment as I need to fix the attaching clips, she's wearing the wrong grille).



The only problem with her being a unique one-off build is it makes her irreplaceable and insurers are generally confused as to how to value her.