Cars with 'character'

[bam_bam]

You know, a car that you or a mate owned that wasn't exactly a lemon but it had:
- foibles
- imperfections
- idiosyncrasies
- life-threatening defects

I'll start; when we were 17, a mate had a Holden Torana LC 3.0L that he'd ploughed into his girlfriend's front yard, much to her mum's horror. Anyway, this little gardening excursion caused the tracking to pull right, constantly. I drove it 30Kms on a McDonald's run once and it near killed us at every left-hander. Turning right? No worries, just let go of the wheel, just a little bit, letting go all together would put you off the road. Turning left, a little bit tricky, anything requiring more than a quarter lock needed extra persuasion from the handbrake. After driving it like for year, let's just say that left-turn handbrakes were a bread 'n' butter manoeuvre. That said, it was still so much fun to belt around in, admittedly it was a lot more fun before he took it gardening but it still had a load of character.

Next.

[Eddie555]

1984 when I was 18 I had a mk1 golf gti. My god that car was like a go kart compared to the mk2 RS2000 I had been previous. I was driving the golf everywhere like I'd stolen it until one day I took an island a little bit too quick and clipped the rear wheel on the exit. The car crabbed like a son b1tch after that so I got rid. Those were the days lol.

[Rw@@dy]

My mk1 golf gti, had it coming up to 2 years now. I love it's character and the fact it's nearly as old as me lol. Only I can start it or drive it, no one else has been able to get in and do the same. It sits in the garage for 6 months of the year and will do the same as long as I can own it

[HYFR]

It wants to kill you with every prod of the throttle but it puts a huge smile on your face !

[Surrey Sam]

RWD, low gearing, weighed nothing and a zippy 1300cc engine = huge fun

Bought it out the local paper, 1 owner and only 1500 miles from new! It was used by an older guy to take his garden waste to the tip, instead of getting the car dirty. I used it as a run around for a year and sold it on for over 3k more than I paid. It was a really handy car to have around and I actually miss it

[HYFR]

^ is that a car ?!

[Surrey Sam]

^ is that a car ?!

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of a 'Car' is:

A road vehicle, typically with four wheels, powered by an internal combustion engine and able to carry a small number of people

So I can be applicable to the topic with that definition and considering mine had three seats and yours only two. More so

[HYFR]

RWD, low gearing, weighed nothing and a zippy 1300cc engine = huge fun

Bought it out the local paper, 1 owner and only 1500 miles from new! It was used by an older guy to take his garden waste to the tip, instead of getting the car dirty. I used it as a run around for a year and sold it on for over 3k more than I paid. It was a really handy car to have around and I actually miss it

[Surrey Sam]

You saying my Kei truck was half ass'ed

It was the Porsche Cayman of the commercial car world

[HYFR]

no, I love it .. just think it looks odd !

like a dog with a horses head !

[Surrey Sam]

Damn..they say dogs look like their owners

[MikeFish]

^ is that a car ?!

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of a 'Car' is:

A road vehicle, typically with four wheels, powered by an internal combustion engine and able to carry a small number of people

So I can be applicable to the topic with that definition and considering mine had three seats and yours only two. More so

So according to the Oxford Dictionary is the Tesla Model S not a car?

[Ian_C]

So I can be applicable to the topic with that definition and considering mine had three seats and yours only two. More so

No way does that thing have three front seats?!

Does it have a 'half' middle front seat like say some Landrover Defenders used to? Where you straddle the gearstick haha

[Surrey Sam]

^ is that a car ?!

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of a 'Car' is:

A road vehicle, typically with four wheels, powered by an internal combustion engine and able to carry a small number of people

So I can be applicable to the topic with that definition and considering mine had three seats and yours only two. More so

So according to the Oxford Dictionary is the Tesla Model S not a car?

It would seem that the devils spawn is defined as an Electric Vehicle and not a Car. Then one of those half way jobs is called a Hybrid Car.

No way does that thing have three front seats?! Does it have a 'half' middle front seat like say some Landrover Defenders used to? Where you straddle the gearstick haha

Yes, one of those seats where as a man, you really don't want another man to be driving you.

[IanH755]

I have a routine, after selling a "nice" car (R34, 740i, RS6 etc) I always replace it with a variety of crappy French diesels which have to last until I decide to buy a nice car again. The following is a true list (not exaggerated for comedy effect) of the faults of just one these, a L-Reg 5 door Citreon ZX 1.9D aka L344KKY (or L334KKY) aka The Mighty Leaky which I owned for 9 months in 2004 -

• No air filter or air filter housing fitted. It sounded better but would also suck leafs/twigs/hedgehogs etc into the engine.
  
  A 2ft long 10-5mm wide crack across the rear passenger floor from left to right.
  
  A holed exhaust directly below the crack, so the car would fill with exhaust fumes as you drove (nearly gassed my friends wife to death).
  
  A flammable picnic throw jammed into the crack and used to block the exhaust gas which "melted" into a plasticy plug which filled the worst of the crack unless you opened a front window, which dragged the fumes back into the car.
  
  Front CV joints that sounded like I had door gunners fitted whenever I turned the wheel, sounded awesome.
  
  Front door locks which froze in the Open position during winter when the door was opened so they wouldn't shut. I had to bungy cord the internal door handles together to stop the door opening when cornering.
  
  A boot with no lock held shut with ty-wraps and a Kellogg's Cornflakes box rear window. I broke the boot lid and replaced it with a lockless one from a scrappy and then days later broke the glass in the new boot because I accidentally smashed the window with a screwdriver in a rage because a braided hose I was making had just slipped a single sliver under my thumbnail.
  
  The engine wouldn't turn off so you had to drive it forward into a kerb, put it in 5th and stall it to stop the engine. It would still drive without the key fitted.
  
  No bonnet release cable so a hole cut into the grill and some paracord run through to the drivers seat.
  
  No stereo so I could only listen to the random rattles/squeaks/groans of the car.
  
  French electrics which meant that when it rained the headlights would randomly flash in time with the wipers.
  
  Heading to Silverstone to watch a Drift day I sold the spare wheel at a services on the M1 to a drift competitor with a flat. About 5hrs later I realised my front tyre had delaminated and I was now stuck.

I eventually killed it in a retarded way! I drove to a supermarket in winter at 8.55pm and it had just started to snow. At 9.30pm I came out and a thick layer of snow covered everything. As I drove out (following the same route I drove in by) I was concentrating heavily on the ground as the 4-6in snow covered the markings. It was at this point, travelling at 20mph that I caught a quick flash of red right infront of me, however I wasn't able to stop before smashing into the snow covered carpark pole-style barrier which was dropped at 9pm to split the car-park in two. I stopped with the barrier bent over the roof of my car destroying the barrier, a smashed windscreen, bent A-Pillars and a Trolley boy who ran over to say "Why'd you do that?" like it was deliberate! My issue now was how was going to drive back the 5 miles to my home? Simples, I "Ace Ventura'd" it back, in a blizzard, in the freezing cold with ice forming on my face, genius! I scrapped it the next day and that was the end of Leaky, gone but not forgotten!