What car were you driving before?
Discussion
Graham, a poor mans Ferrari as they say well the engine is in the same place, great car looked quick in the ring video.
Viper straight out of a modern day professionals did you have the perm????
Me I had a 1970 MGC with a full race engine, triple webers, knock on minilites,etc god I loved that car.
That was my fun car. List is soooooo long for my road cars.
Viper straight out of a modern day professionals did you have the perm????
Me I had a 1970 MGC with a full race engine, triple webers, knock on minilites,etc god I loved that car.
That was my fun car. List is soooooo long for my road cars.
TVR CERBERA (Newish)............What a load of expensive,poorly finished,unreliable piece of junk.By far the worst and most stressful (TVR Factorys attitude) car i,ve ever owned.But to any would be VIPER owners remember that if my first is anything to go by you may well get the car of your dreams.....Oh..my first car?.......1975 Olive Green 1300L ALLEGRO!Still can,t believe it,but its true,it was also customised with "FULL FUR INTERIOR","COLOURED FLASHING INTERIOR LIGHTS"(these were wired to flash in time to the sub basses booms)...."P.A and C.B System"(used to love shouting out insults to old biddeys and cr*p drivers wearing cloth hats and cushons on the rear parcel shelf..)...Mirror glass(handy for when you brake down and don,t want to be spotted with the car!),cardboard spoiler and side skirts(all went soggy and fell of when it rained....funny thing that?),high flow air filter(ditched the original and covered the air intake with a pair of my mums tights!was worth an extra 2BHP!)Fairey lights on the grill with one of those rear ends of a cat(used to be all the rage in the 80,s honest!and made you look like you,d just runover the ginger cat at NO69! stick it on the Viper this summer for a laugh)stuck in the grill.Every gauge knowned to mankind stuck on the dash,red fog lamps under the car that were switched on at night to make the road glow!4 extra fog lamps on the rear,4 extra fogs lamps on the front,5 arials,one on each wing and the C.B arial on the roof....where was more but i won,t bore you anymore......What happened to it you may ask?..or not as the case maybe but i,m gonna tell you anyway,.............Sitting outside my parents house,music pumped up FULL,see some blokes walking down the road so me thinks a serious FullOn wheel spin off from the house it in order,so revs up to 6000RPM,drop the clutch and listen to all 65 BHP turn rubber into smoke!....err...well no....just a Bl@@dy loud bang as a piston launched its self through the side of the engine block!!!!!!Lots of smoke and oil,stereo turned off sharpish as the car coasts to a halt about 10 feet from where i started in the middle of the road(Was i glad i had mirror glass then!),followed by a load of blokes jeering and laughing....car was pushed away by a passer by for £50 and muttering something about opening up a car excessory shop and my car being perfect!!!...THE END
Tom, so I wasn't the only one that did that sort of thing at 17, very embarrising!(no carboard, tights, fur, or ginger cat for me though, but I did have painted flames and a chrome side pipe!) and my diff, prop and half shafts were always the first thing that broke, never launched any pistons! My first car was 1600 Capri (in a 'nice' beige colour) and was what I jumped outa into the Viper (!) that Capri still lives on now (think I should retire it this year though)!
Hey, I've even caught Joel looking at its engine bay (for all the cool power mods lurking in there) think he likes my home made strut brace best though, it always makes him smile, quickly made on the farriers anvil (while he shod the horse) and proudly painted in flourescent orange! Thankgoodness my knowledge and fabrication of things for the Viper has vastly improved! I think Neil likes it's shaking steering wheel feature best, and Venom it's battery and jump leads!
Prior the Viper 76 C3 Corvette everything tweaked and tuned looked nice sounded better but still needed three lanes of the M1 at any speed over a ton to keep it in a straight line and a set of b******s the size of an elephant if you had to hack it down the lanes at any speed.
Love the fur lined Allegro Venom glad to know I was not the only sick and twisted puppy, my 1969 Ford Cortina Mk2 Super white with green lotus stripes down the side fake hood scoops four cibies on the front musical Dixie air horns, pa system and yes fur lined dash (O the shame of it all) steering wheel the size of a yoghurt carton top.
One of the worst parts was the obligatory sun visor strip at the top of the screen with your name and that of your newly acquired girlfriend until you fell out with her then of course you used to rip it down and try to peel the name of ready for your next conquest.
Stereos were of course state of the ark tinny 4” 10 watt speakers the Harry Moss screw on ones along with the dirty great speaker acquired from grans phonograph and if you really wanted to cut with the big boys an 8 track stereo (wow).
With the letters painted on my tyres (didn’t mater that all four were different make)
And the back end of the Tina lifted with 6” extender plates (to improve handling of course) and to give it that Starsky and Hutch look along with the red fog light shining onto the rear axel painted silver for some reason.
No spoiler but 6 rear fog’s wired into the brake light system (with sellotape of course) just so that everyone would know when I was stopping in case they were blind, and the coupe de grass a 55watt rear facing halogen on a separate switch for reversing of course and the odd high beam in your mirror merchant.
Makes me cringe just to type it out if my kids turned up in there car looking like that I would go mad how times have changed.
Come on guys and gals confess your sins
Love the fur lined Allegro Venom glad to know I was not the only sick and twisted puppy, my 1969 Ford Cortina Mk2 Super white with green lotus stripes down the side fake hood scoops four cibies on the front musical Dixie air horns, pa system and yes fur lined dash (O the shame of it all) steering wheel the size of a yoghurt carton top.
One of the worst parts was the obligatory sun visor strip at the top of the screen with your name and that of your newly acquired girlfriend until you fell out with her then of course you used to rip it down and try to peel the name of ready for your next conquest.
Stereos were of course state of the ark tinny 4” 10 watt speakers the Harry Moss screw on ones along with the dirty great speaker acquired from grans phonograph and if you really wanted to cut with the big boys an 8 track stereo (wow).
With the letters painted on my tyres (didn’t mater that all four were different make)
And the back end of the Tina lifted with 6” extender plates (to improve handling of course) and to give it that Starsky and Hutch look along with the red fog light shining onto the rear axel painted silver for some reason.
No spoiler but 6 rear fog’s wired into the brake light system (with sellotape of course) just so that everyone would know when I was stopping in case they were blind, and the coupe de grass a 55watt rear facing halogen on a separate switch for reversing of course and the odd high beam in your mirror merchant.
Makes me cringe just to type it out if my kids turned up in there car looking like that I would go mad how times have changed.
Come on guys and gals confess your sins
You guys are making me embarrassed, reminding me of my first car.
It was a beige Fiesta MK1, bright yellow alloys, the fur interior, not just the dash but everywhere, the rear spotlight. Luckily I had just past the fashion for jacking up the rear, I cut all my springs. The car looked good scraping the ground but running on the bump stops wasn't the most clever idea. Then if you drove over a hump back bridge, the springs were so short the would fall out of their housings.
Next I customised a Triumph Herald, did a not too bad job of the body and interior, but the chassis!! I modified the suspension without any knowledge of how it worked. God i hate thinking of how badly that car drove
Who's idea was it to talk about this!!!!
Colin
It was a beige Fiesta MK1, bright yellow alloys, the fur interior, not just the dash but everywhere, the rear spotlight. Luckily I had just past the fashion for jacking up the rear, I cut all my springs. The car looked good scraping the ground but running on the bump stops wasn't the most clever idea. Then if you drove over a hump back bridge, the springs were so short the would fall out of their housings.
Next I customised a Triumph Herald, did a not too bad job of the body and interior, but the chassis!! I modified the suspension without any knowledge of how it worked. God i hate thinking of how badly that car drove
Who's idea was it to talk about this!!!!
Colin
1968 MGB in Black, it had the grey painted wire wheels which I had powder-coated white! 
Bugger to keep them clean. Had a red painted rear axle and rear drum brakes (looked good throught the white wire wheels). Had black hood with red piping.
Worst car I ever owned was a 1978 'T' reg yellow with black stripes (sound familiar?) 1275 GT Mini. The subframe rotted through, the diff/gearbox broke the headgasket blew and it was the most uncomfortable car I ever drove.
Bugger to keep them clean. Had a red painted rear axle and rear drum brakes (looked good throught the white wire wheels). Had black hood with red piping.
Worst car I ever owned was a 1978 'T' reg yellow with black stripes (sound familiar?) 1275 GT Mini. The subframe rotted through, the diff/gearbox broke the headgasket blew and it was the most uncomfortable car I ever drove.
Great to hear your stories,had me in stitches,and Nad "big"respect to your Capri as you rightly said it got us out of the "brown stuff" up a Avon Park last year.....!Now that were finding out everyones steep car meckanics learning curve at 17 how about understanding first hand about the weakness and strenghts of that first modded car.For me it happened the day after watching the RAC RALLY,the next day i felt that my ZOOOPED up Allagro and me was up for some serious off road rally action so off to a deserted unmade country lane about 2 miles in length.All polished and ready to go fog lamps blazing(all 4 of them)3...2....1.....6000rpm...off in a cloud of smoke and dust....2 miles further on as i turned back onto a "PROPER" road and parked up in a layby to inspect the car for that "RALLY LOOK" i noticed that a few things weren,t quite as they should be,i had been aware that i had found the full travel of "elastic suspension" many times but was gutted at the results of 5mins worth of rallying.The damage/missing in action list was as follows...3 flat tyres,missing rear exhaust section complete with twin chrome tail pipe,missing undercar fog lamp,2 missing rear fog lamps and 1 fog lamp shell,2 smashed front fogs,1 missing fog lamp complete with bracket,split radiator,bent track rod arm,holed engine/gearbox sump,missing sump plug(top sheared off),all chrome hub caps missing......after a tow home by "dad" and a great story about getting lost i had time to reflect.It taught me a very important lesson,that the Astra GTE flying through the air in a welsh forest may look "standard" but was in fact massively modded to be able to remain in one piece for more than 5 mins,but i have always wondered if my Allegro could infact have been the only one to attempt a "Rally" stage!Anymore stories out there?
sorry but that rally story is the best - i havn't laughed like that for a long time.
thankfully my first car was only a 1000cc 205 (i'm still quite young) and had a fair few fog lamps (in all fairness i did road rally it so they were half kinda legit - well no but, nevermind) - think that was about it.
after that went to a full road rally prepped 1.6 GTi - comp exhaust, stripped interior, was a demon on the road rallies but i think is scared the neighbours. Measured in at 100db, road rally limit is 98 but they said they had to let me in because the machines are only accurate to 2db either side. heheh
After that it was a battered 1.9gti, ntohing worked on that car, first night i brought it i was doing 120 thinking this dont handle too well....got it home and realised it had a cracked spring!! ooops!!!
Then i got a bike, then the FTO I'm in today!
Gassing Station | Vipers | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff