Three Litre
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Oscar 24
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Post by Three Litre on Oct 23, 2019 20:36:37 GMT
The DVLA has it registered as a 2997cc so it has avoided the Rover conversion (not that that was a bad thing!) and remains with a stock engine. I remember them having one on Wheeler Dealers where they sorted the cooling with a few mods. However the market sees it, the stock engine makes it worth more in my opinion. Sam. Think I remember that episode. Didn't the Dolly Sprint suffer from a similar problem?
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DI Alex Drake
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Post by DI Alex Drake on Oct 24, 2019 10:04:58 GMT
Another great spot today from Bollykecks. This time a nice yellow Triumph Stag with the owner making the most of the pleasant spell of weather by having the roof off. Triumph Stag Registered 13th January 1976 (43 Years Old) on 97,000 miles. MOT till January 2020. Thanks for leaving the photo on me desk Bols Stupid question time. Were they the sort of car people could afford when they were new or were they a bit special even then? I just wondered if it's more likely that the chap in this car has owned it for a considerable amount of time or bought it much more recently because he'd finally reached a point where buying a classic car was feasible!
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Post by Sam Tyler on Oct 24, 2019 11:57:48 GMT
Stupid question time. Were they the sort of car people could afford when they were new or were they a bit special even then? I just wondered if it's more likely that the chap in this car has owned it for a considerable amount of time or bought it much more recently because he'd finally reached a point where buying a classic car was feasible! Not a stupid question at all Bolly, quite an interesting one in fact!
A quick search shows that a 1976 model like that would have been over £5500 on the road whereas the national average wage was £72 per week (£3744 pa). Bringing that relative to today where the national average wage is £499 per week (£25948 pa) then an equivalent outlay would be over £38k today - around the same price you would expect to pay for a 3.0 litre BMW Z4.
So I would guess they'd be the sort of car that those on above average salaries could afford but a long way short of being anything particularly exclusive.
Sam.
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Oct 24, 2019 16:50:48 GMT
The Stag is a nice car, I drove one once and it was quite a goer. The engines developed a bad reputation for overheating which could distort the cylinder heads. This was due to incorrect anti freeze being used, which used to partly dissolve the aluminum in the block and cause a build up of sludge. As a result some were converted to use the 3.5 litre Rover V8.
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DI Alex Drake
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Post by DI Alex Drake on Oct 24, 2019 21:59:17 GMT
Stupid question time. Were they the sort of car people could afford when they were new or were they a bit special even then? I just wondered if it's more likely that the chap in this car has owned it for a considerable amount of time or bought it much more recently because he'd finally reached a point where buying a classic car was feasible! Not a stupid question at all Bolly, quite an interesting one in fact!
A quick search shows that a 1976 model like that would have been over £5500 on the road whereas the national average wage was £72 per week (£3744 pa). Bringing that relative to today where the national average wage is £499 per week (£25948 pa) then an equivalent outlay would be over £38k today - around the same price you would expect to pay for a 3.0 litre BMW Z4.
So I would guess they'd be the sort of car that those on above average salaries could afford but a long way short of being anything particularly exclusive.
Sam. Interesting. Thanks Sam! Is the whole leasing thing a new idea? I get the impression it is but don't really have anything to back that up with. I mean I presume not many people go and literally pay £38,000 for said car; they pay it off in installments. But I could be wrong! I'm a long way from being able to do either of those things so I couldn't really be sure.
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Post by Gene Hunt on Oct 28, 2019 13:24:41 GMT
Another spot today from DI Alex Drake. This time a 64 year old Ford F100 pickup. With a 3.9 under the bonnet I bet it sounded nice! Thanks for sending over the photo Bolly
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Villain
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Nine Elms, 1970, looking for the loot...
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Post by Villain on Oct 28, 2019 19:27:52 GMT
Another problem with the Stags was that the castings of the engine block and head wasn't quite up to spec leaving rough surfaces inside the water jacket, in many cases they left the factory at Canley with casting sand in the engine which silted up in the radiators, causing head gasket failure. Owners would then send their cars back to have new head gaskets fitted but before too long the same problem occurred with nobody being the wiser. It was really only in the late '70s and '80s when they became classics that restorers stripped down the engines and found out what the real problem was. About 25,000 Stags were built in total and it's thought that around 9,000 survive world wide, quite staggering (!) really when you think about it. Most have been restored by now and have decent cooling systems making them much more reliable than they were when new. I'd love one some day... Villain
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DI Alex Drake
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Post by DI Alex Drake on Oct 28, 2019 23:34:36 GMT
Oh you could certainly hear it, Guv! That’s how I spotted it. It wasn’t going anywhere, mind you, as the whole town was in gridlock. A daily occurrence but in this instance exacerbated by the hanging of ... Christmas Lights! They got all the way down the Main Street. No mean feat given that it involved taking two cherry pickers the wrong way through the one way system very slowly.
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Post by Sam Tyler on Oct 29, 2019 20:03:25 GMT
Another good spot Bolly There's a bloke around the corner from me has also got a '55 V8 F100 Ford albeit in yellow. He'd narrowed the rear axle down so that he could get wider wheels on the rear, the tyres are around 18" wide! It is certainly not a quiet car. Not my choice of vehicle and very spartan inside with no creature comforts such as heating but still good to see a motor of that age on the road. Sam.
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DI Alex Drake
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Post by DI Alex Drake on Oct 29, 2019 22:16:37 GMT
You’ll have to get a snap for us, Sam! (If there isn’t already one on here somewhere, I guess!). If you can find a camera in 1973
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