time in a bottle

There's enough bastardry and mayhem and surrealism around to keep an "I'm so sad" theme going for ages. But that would be very soul destroying for me and pretty flamin' unenlightening for youse, so instead let's resuscitate the stories that go with the various cars I've owned over the years. Not really political so maybe that'll be enough to get VVB dropped from the blogfeed.

Rather than start with an individual story, I'll lay out a timeline of ownership so all the stories will eventually hang together.

As you'll recall...ha ha...I have been collecting 1/43 scale models of all the types of cars I've owned, and here - time in a bottle indeed - is the assembled collection of models gathered to date. Only a few to go, but they'll take a few years as none of them are available commercially at the moment.

Well, the reason VVB isn't as rich as he might have been is because of the untold amounts of dosh outlayed on buying and maintaining all these cars over the years. Roughly, the list goes thusly, by year of purchase as near as I can remember (and the model year as near as I can remember):

1968 1956 Austin A30

1968 1956 Morris Isis

1969 1964 Morris Cooper

1970 1964 Austin Freeway station waggon

1970 1966 Datsun 1600 sports

1971 1968 Triumph 2000 Mk1

1971 1966 Austin 1800

1972 1970 Triumph 2500 Pi

1972 1964 Wolseley 24/80

1975 1969 Morris Mini K

1975 1964 Austin Freeway

1976 1966 Morris 1100

1977 197? Morris Mini

1979 1976 Holden Torana SL/R

1980 197? Datsun 1200

1981 1970 Mercedes 200

1982 197? Triumph Dolomite

1982 197? Datsun 200B

1983 1980 Mazda 323

1984 197? Toyota Crown

1985 197? VW Passat

1988 1974 Triumph 2500TC

1989 1974 Triumph 2500 Pi

1991 1972 Leyland P76

1992 1974 Triumph 2500TC

1996 1988 Toyota Corolla

1998 1989 Peugeot 405 Mi16

2003 1999 Saab 9-3 Monte Carlo

The apparently quick turnover of cars in many cases was due to having one off the road and buying another to keep mobile: both the first two Triumphs suffered major catastrophes and the Austin 1800 and Wolseley24/80 were both interim transport.

Next up: the three Minis.