Good taste in cars...I think my ex may be a gypsy!

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StuartB

Member
Joined
Jun 26, 2003
Messages
31
Location
Surrey
Car
Mercedes C43 AMG/Aston Martin V8 Volante/Aston Martin DB7/ Mercedes S-Class
Dropped off my daughter at my ex-wife's house yesterday and her new boyfriend was there. He seems a nice bloke, but then I saw his car........................well both his cars actually, as his previous vehicle (a Cavalier SRi with a number of tasteful mods) was sat on the drive looking forlorn with all four wheels pointing in different directions. It looked like it had been dragged through a hedge backwards, which after a brief conversation I found it had been (after the accident).

However, my eyes then fell on its replacement which he bought four months ago....I wish I had a picture, but words will have to do. It is a red Vauxhall Astra GTE from 1990 in particularly poor condition with the bonnet hand-painted white and an England flag and the word England hand-painted over it. Stuck to the passenger window was a furry dice and the stereo looked like it had been fitted by a horse....no really, no human could have fitted it that badly. The interior looked like he was preparing it Tracey Emin style for the Tate Modern with a thick layer of nicotine covering the inside of the windows and with empty fag packets, Burger King wrappers etc. all over the dusty and filthy interior.

Now I have to stress that this bloke is alright, he looks after my ex and my kids like him. He also loves his car and spoke enthusiastically about the stuff that was going to be done to it (he and my ex live on the Welsh borders and as anyone who has lived there knows, motorsport is in the blood there and they treat the un-policed and brilliant roads like a race track). My point is this, to quote a line from the film Christine, "you can't polish a t*rd". With cars so cheap now, why spend time and money making a worthless car look more worthless? He seemed oblivious to the fact that the car simply made him look like a gypsy. The irony that he wanted to do this, that and the other to the vehicle, when a simple clean would have improved it massively was lost on him.

A few of you guys know what cars I have, but what you don't know is that my everyday car, which I love, is a VW Golf GTi from 1991. It cost me £1000 and is immaculate with a FSH but highish miles(114K). It is unmodded and clean. Equally, I could have a chosen an old Merc 190 or similar in good condition. I know there is no accounting for taste, but getting down to brass tacks, from a practical, getting from A to B point of view, surely anyone with half a brain would realise a clean well looked after car is preferable to a vehicle like I have described ? From a financial point of view the costs are similar (possibly less for the well-looked after car as running costs will hopefully be lower). I just don't get it.

Finally, at least it is not as bad as a car that used to be in the road next to me.....imagine a beige Ford Sierra 1.3L 3 dr with front and rear Cosworth bumpers and Cosworth whale tale. This whole ensemble was finished off with standard 1.3 wheels covered with imitation wire wheel wheel trims.....nice. To think that a proper Cossie probably gave up its life for this abortion always made me sad.:(
 
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I used to think it was a London thing, but having moved away I realise it is country wide, although not as intense.

I've seen the hand painted England flag on the bonnet and RARE 1.3 Sierra with Whale Tail myself (not the exact same cars obviously!) and know where you are coming from.

I have wondered, that without being confrontational if I should ever speak to these owners and try and understand where they are coming from with their idea, but I think it would be lost on me.

The other element we must all realise is this is not a hobby for those on low income. No, we are not discriminating here. I have seen thousands ploughed into complete heaps of distastfull rust, not restoration, but addition of new tacky parts onto a lost cause.

I just think we have to have these cars on the road to make us laugh while getting from A to B.
 
I completely agree. I was not being snobby and part of my point was that this guy is on a low income and whatever he did to the Astra, it would never be any good. Yet for similar money he could have bought an infinately better car that would have cost him a lot less in the long run. One of the guys at my work has recently bought a Scirocco for £500 that has a FSH and no rust. It has taken him all over the country for minimal cost. I would not like to do that in the Astra I described, yet it cannot have cost much less than £500.

I simply don't understand why people do what they do sometimes.

PS:A client of mine recently pulled up outside the office in his new Range Rover that has cost him just shy of £100K. Again I wish I had a picture of the car but here goes....Bright Red Interior, black bottom half off car and silver above the door handles...bloody thing looked like an old Wolseley
 
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Not just the low income guys.

Hi.
A neighbour has just purchased an ML for 18 grand.
The interior looks like a stable, and every corner has a scrape. There are enough dings and scrapes on the body keep Dentmaster busy for weeks and it only does 18MPG rural. He could have bought a brand new Sangyong Rexton 4x4 with all the bells and whistles and Leather interior, 3 years unlimited mileage warranty, etc. for a couple of grand less. Admittedly, not a merc, but then most of the one he's got is carrying someone else's paintwork.
"Not many around at that price" was his comment.
Still it's his money.
 

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