I see they're promoting a new Mondeo car here, and I'm intrigued as to how anyone could have driven the old company cars I used to have back in the seventies!
My first was a Mini van, because, as a lowly quantity surveyor, with a small building firm, they used it during the day, (usually after a fight with me), for doing the rounds of the sites when I was stuck in the office.
My first real company car appeared in 1975. It was a Navy Blue Ford Cortina Series 3, luckily a 1600 (I was carefully advised as such by a chum at my garage). This Dagenham Dustbin held sway for several years, until the inevitable change of jobs gave me - worryingly - an even older one in metallic brown, then a purple one, then a duck-egg blue one!
So, without boring the pants of everyone, including me, I reckon anyone getting something like this as his or her work horse is getting a billy-bargain, and let's hope he or she won't ever vote for Tony Bliar again...
11 comments:
Hi Scrobs, In the late 1990s I had a bright red, top of the range 2 litre automatic Telstar, [bought with my own hard earned!] . It was the last model of that genre, but there are still lots of them around. It was a cross between a Mondeo and a Mazda 626. Beautiful comfortable car that took me many thousands of African miles on some pretty awful roads, especially north of the Victoria Falls, between Cape Town and northern Zambia a few times completely trouble free apart from the odd sump shield scrape as it had quite a low ground clearance for that part of the world....
...until the night before I sold it when the battery went flat! (I'm sure they know you know!!).
So I had it on charge all night hoping that it would start ok - it did - the following morning when the buyer came to collect, leaving me with a large envelope full of lovely crispy spondoolix. Can't find an appropriate enough piccy to post, but it was one of the best cars I ever owned.
Like this one Reevers?
http://nzhondas.com/vehicle-exchange/107304-1992-ford-telstar-2l-1500-6month-wof-reg.html
Love the flat battery comment - all been there...
Actually Reevers, I have to admit that the best company car I ever had was - wait for it - a white MG Maestro!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8165854@N08/6019372660/
It was a demo car, with G666 on the plate which gave it some notoriety - in fact Mrs S eventually said I couldn't keep it because we may go through some godforsaken place, and be accused of witchcraft...
I did over 185,000 miles in it, and it sailed though right until the end! It was so fast, and never, ever left the road though careless mistakes! I was heartbroken to see it languishing in the yard for £600!
I've had two or three Mondeos from new and they are excellent cars. My choice in the Ford range. I haven't seen the new one but the pedigree is good.
A chap at work describes Jags as looking like Mondeos.
That's to say that Fords have got better.
I run an 03 plate and got it on a pre-registered deal with £4k off list and interest free.
Problems up to 70k miles ?
The bearing race fell apart around the top of the front shock causing the spring to snap.
The front gator perished requiring a ball-joint strip down.
The front discs warped (twice).
The idler tensioner started to rattle.
The paintwork scratches through to primer really easily.
A good car over all though. But I may go for a Honda or a Skoda next time.
Hi Scrobs, thanks for that pic - exactly right except mine was the colour of the rear light on that mauve thing on the left of the pic - and automatic, with a push buttom 'overdrive' on the stick. I regretted parting with that car but I had to leave it behind when my time wasup in Africa.
In my extremely humble opinion, the Meastro was one of the first 'pocket rockets'. Never owned one, but have driven a few on hire from time to time.
Sounds like our train driving friend got a real Friday afternoon job!
A purple cortina?...flash.
Thud, if that remark was addressed to me, see above where I described my car as bright red (bit like the old telephone boxes on the corner).
And en passant, the Telstar was ten times better than any Cortina ever produced, even that sporty version. IMHO of course!
Thud, apologies, I have just re-read the original post again. Cortinas were painted purple to distract from the rattles... My brother had one of the dirty dark brown colour - and you could hear it coming from 300 yards away.
The Mark Ones did have a bit of charisma though, especially the Lotus ones with the green stripe...
Why not something like Mrs S's Ferrari-Maserati-Punto Elecs?
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