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DDolfelin

By DDolfelin
in Wheeltappers

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uax6

uax6

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Well I'm now back to being the owner of three moggy thous, after being gifted another ex-GPO telephones van. Its recovery was somewhat interesting, as it was trapped in a concrete garage by a boundary dispute. The access lane it got to the garage had disappeared in the 20 years it had been sat in the garage, effectively holding it hostage.

So armed with some spanners and hammers etc a luton van and two willing helpers, we travelled to Glossop from Norfolk to try and extraction.

Fortunately the sectional garage unbolted easily and after taking out the side door and two panels we had enough space to pass the van through. As the van had been part way through a restoration when the hostage situation started, so was already divided into cab, chassis and back. lifting out of the side of the garage was easy, but getting her to the van was more challenging, as the only exit was a path that narrowed down, to what turns out to be about an inch wider than the van back. This terminated in a 5 foot high gate with stone pillars.

The cab was moved out on its side, and got through the gateway easily, but the back had to be lifted above head-height so that it cleared the posts..we are very grateful that the day was dry and still, in wind it would have been a nightmare....

Sadly we didn't have a spare person to take any photos of the event, so heres what has turned up on my drive back in Norfolk....

 

msg-8375-0-75714900-1538142368.jpg

 

Any one fancy some MG metro seats?

 

Andy G

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uax6

uax6

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The first ones were, but it was soon stopped and the normal wings fitted. Infact there are only about 10 vans that still exist that have rubber wings, and if you see them they all have flat spots in the wings which we believe were caused when they were stacked after making!

 

Andy G

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uax6

uax6

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They are not too bad, a few small rips low down on one, and a small tear near the shoulder on the other. The plastic adjuster wheel has broken up on both though... They are mainly dirty.

 

Andy G

Edited by uax6
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Rugd1022

Rugd1022

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Is it a Lada or is it a Polski Fiat? Looks more like the latter to me.

 

You might be right there John - the James May 'Cars Of The People' series is being repeated, I watched the relevant one a couple of weeks ago where he covered the Fiat 124 / Lada crossover, might be worth another shuftie.

 

The naughty cupboard (aka 'the library') has been augmented this week by three new arrivals from that nice Mr.Amazon chappie, her indoors bought me a couple of Brooklands road test volumes on '50s and '60s Alfas for my birthday and finally managed to get a new copy of the one on the Citroen SM - the original order from months ago turned sour when the vendor took her money but then let slip that the book wasn't actually in stock, and never was. All sorted now, he refunded the money and herself then bought a new reprinted version direct from Amazon. The rest of this weekend will be a blur, I'm on call tomorrow so can sit down in my favourite armchair and peruse said books at my considerable leisure, lots of sighing will no doubt follow!

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alastairq

alastairq

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The 'mystery' car could in fact be a genuine FIAT 125?  According to wikitiki, the 125 shared the same doors and passenger section as the 124...but had the chassis [longer wheelbase] and frame from the earlier 1500. The longer wheelbase gave more rear seat room.

 

I find it odd that with this model, folk always assume it's a Polski FIAT.....shows just how much of an impact the Polish car industry has made on us?

 

 

[i have a 126 Bis on the front driveway...a bit of a wreck at present, but always gets attention from Polish parcels guys...]

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johnlambert

johnlambert

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The 'mystery' car could in fact be a genuine FIAT 125?  According to wikitiki, the 125 shared the same doors and passenger section as the 124...but had the chassis [longer wheelbase] and frame from the earlier 1500. The longer wheelbase gave more rear seat room.

 

I find it odd that with this model, folk always assume it's a Polski FIAT.....shows just how much of an impact the Polish car industry has made on us?

 

 

[i have a 126 Bis on the front driveway...a bit of a wreck at present, but always gets attention from Polish parcels guys...]

It's probably because the Polski version seemed more numerous (no-doubt helped by staying in production long after the original FIAT had been replaced).

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russ p

russ p

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They are not too bad, a few small rips low down on one, and a small tear near the shoulder on the other. The plastic adjuster wheel has broken up on both though... They are mainly dirty.

 

Andy G

Cheers Andy, mine are pretty good apart from a missing diagonal stripe, the car has only done 20 k so still nice and firm Edited by russ p
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PhilJ W

PhilJ W

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On our way home this afternoon we were followed by a Rover SD1 - looked like a Vitesse or other top model, late version.  It was in very good condition from what I could see.  First one I've seen for years.  

Thats because many have lost their V8 engines to other projects.

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Killybegs

Killybegs

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The 'mystery' car could in fact be a genuine FIAT 125?  According to wikitiki, the 125 shared the same doors and passenger section as the 124...but had the chassis [longer wheelbase] and frame from the earlier 1500. The longer wheelbase gave more rear seat room.

 

 

  I had a 124 estate for a while. It was a surprisingly good car. Sadly it got run over by a truck while parked outside the house. However, I did use the insurance money to buy the BMW 2000 Touring I mentioned in an earlier post.

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