I've bought tonnes of cars over the years, Lots of good and bad memories,

Nothing quite like when I found a 1991 Nossan 200sx in my local yellow paper back in 2003,

The guy asked me to meet him at a giant disused electronics factory in S Wales at 8 at night, Pitch dark there he was in an Astramax van at the gates, He pulled out a giant set of keys on a hoop to open them,

We drove in down an overgrown track to the foot of the giant factory, confused as I was, he opened the roller shutters to expose the inside of the factory, all flood lit at this point by the flick of a switch with a shiny Nissan parked in the middle.... Jump in he said, Pop up lights up.... Magnex burble... Check! 8000rpm clutch up! And off we go sideways for about 10mins of rally spec driving indoors!!

I bought the car and loved it, probablya £5000 car now, not the £900 I paid, but what a event that was!

The guy had just bought the factory, For what business I can't remember.

My Westfield was purchased from Ebay, unseen, from a guy in Inverness. I'm in Essex.

Some 2 weeks passed as we wrangled on method and dates for getting the car to me.

Eventually , the Mrs and myself found ourselves on the sleeper train to Edinburgh. Arrived in the early hours of Saturday morning, some breakfast and a short taxi ride and we found ourselves in a random petrol station on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

Met up with the guy who had trailered it down from Inverness and we decamped to a garden centre just outside the city limits.

The handover was made and we set off for home, top down, in the crispness of a cold but bright march morning.

I never thought to check at the time but when I hit the buy button I didn't know if it had a heater in it. Thankfully it did.

When we got to Leeds the heavens opened and that's when you find out it really doesn't make much difference in an early Westfield whether the top is on or off. The rain poured in from everywhere. Even when it stopped outside, it was still raining inside for a bit.

Without that heater it would have been the most miserable journey ever, but it was really rather efficient and dried us out quite well.

We arrived back home, safe and sound some 8 hours later. (we had to stop every 100 miles for fuel, 4 gallon tank)

It was completely and utterly the wrong way to buy a car in every respect and yet, it all worked out ok and we had an unforgettable adventure along the way.

Not as exciting. Back in the early 80's was looking for a car for the Mrs & the one we decided on was a wee escort. Went for a look & test drive. Noticed it had a very desirable number plate, XJS suitable for a Jag. Purchased the car immediately later selling the plate for four figures.

It certainly was memorable for me...

I bought an Alfetta GTV and got a bit carried away on the way home and burned out a valve. I had been warned that the car needed a thorough service. The air filter was like a Hoover bag!

I bought an Alfa 164 V6 and the engine seized on the way home. Fortunately it hadn't long been replaced so the supplier stumped up the parts for repair.

Hearing the Inverness story reminds me of the guy who bought my Scooby. He drove up from Manchester with a mate clearly having no idea how far away Inverness is!

I bought my X1/9 without having driven it but was utterly utterly delighted with it at the tender age of 21.

I also bought my Bertone X1/9 without driving it, but it was recommended by my mechanic.

When I bought my Coupe, I flew to Sydney with a mechanic mate to "do the deal" and drive the 1000km back home. The seller, known to my mate, had just imported the Coupe from UK where he had lived and worked for several years. We left Sydney late in the afternoon for the drive north with my mate driving as he was a former resident of the City. Going up a hill with an 80km speed limit my mate commented that the other cars were a bit slow, then we realised that the speedo was in MPH!!!

Good trip up the highway until after midnight when a loud ticking noise started to come from the engine. Pull over, phone the Auto Club and wait for the breakdown tilt tray who took us back to the nearest town, a sleep in the Coupe and await for the place to open. Arranged for my mate's father to come with a car trailer to take the Coupe home.

About 6 months later, finally had the Coupe back on road with a rebuilt engine. Apparently, as we found out later, the engine was seized when it arrived in Australia and a dodgy repair was done. A big end (no 3) was replaced without machining the crank and it then was "hammered" by the out of round crank. The big ends looked like a muffin with the sides being pushed out. The ticking sound was the piston kissing the valves in No 3.

It has now been back on the road for over 10 years now with no major issues.

I have to say that buying my coupe was rather memorable as it was my first 'new' new car... although the delay between signing on the dotted line in July and getting the damn thing in October was a bit annoying.

The only thing that spoiled the trip home from the Baker Street garage when I collected it was pulling up at the lights where the A1 meets the north circ and having a brand new Ferrari pull up alongside, grinning at me

Have to admit, driving a brand spanking new Coop must have been a great feeling at the time.

Buying my Coupe was a blind ebay purchase!

My philosophy being, it was cheap enough to take a punt and if its as bad as the horror stories you hear oh well!!

I didn't receive a reply till late friday evening saying he was happy to accept my offer!
Drove down on saturday to Sevenoaks from Kettering that was an easy sell to the Mrs as she moved up from Tunbridge wells and was up for any excuse to visit!

Got to the car all seemed ok and very exciting arranged the insurance over the phone whilst there, then took the documents to try to get some road tax, System was down in the local one so we end up driving into Tonbridge town centre with me panicking thinking the post office shuts at 12 made it just in the nick of time sweating from running! only to find it was open all day!

Go back collect the car then spend the rest of the day shopping in Tunbridge wells when all i could think about was driving it home up the motorway

Love the car it has just grown and grown on me and turned out to be a pretty decent one too!

Buying the coop was quite memorable for me.
We were on the way to buy a Stilo from some dealer that was advertising the best prices around.
En route we passed a garage with a Sprint Blue 20vt coupe for sale. Things didn't work out with the Stilo as the dealer was a nutter, reminded me of beetle juice, and he kept shouting and swearing in front of my wife. Turned out he didn't have any Stilos - "tell him what we want and he'll order it".

My wife actually said why don't you go and have a look at that Coupe! That was it.......sold! On the way to pick it up a few days later the clutch went on my Brava and we had to park it and walk the last half a kilometre. Should have seen the guys face when we arrived on foot. He honoured the deal though - good on him

Buying a new £60K car from Audi was memorable for all the wrong reasons.
On the day we placed the order, we sat there for an hour selecting the spec, we didn't get offered a drink from our little Welsh car salesman.

When the car turned up 4 months after the order was placed, I receied a call from my salesman saying there had been a little accident with the car. The Audi valet parking guy put a dent in the side of it, the subsequent repair was so poor I could see where they had tried to blend in the paint from 5m across the room.
Car rejected and new order placed.

4 months later, 8 months from the initial order the car arrived.

Went to Stornoway 3 years ago to buy an Alfa 33 P4. Train from Huntingdon to Edinburgh, Flight to Stornoway, ferry back, stop in Edinburgh at little sisters place (after running on fumes for 30 miles as no petrol stations open), then drive down to Huntingdon.

Similar with a black 155 V6 a couple of years before, Stanstead to Belfast, bought the car, drove to Dublin, ferry back to Anglesey, then drive back to Stanstead to pick up brother-in-law's car, then home to Huntingdon.

Similarly, train to Dundee from Huntingdon to buy a 33 16v SW, then drive back, all in one day.

I do like my road trips to collect cars!!!

I have had the pleasure of buying and driving a brand new Coupe. One of the first broomie 20v cars in the country. Ordered it using one of the first online discount car sellers. Black leather with A/C. I had to go collect the car from a local dealership, and on arrival it had a football size dent in the roof. Luckily no creases and I think they popped it out. Had one issue with it in the 5 years I kept it, it threw the aux belt but luckily did not take out the cam belt. New aux, cam, and balancer belts all under warrantee.

I like the OPs story, what a mad experience. Amazing. The SX would have probaly been a better investment choice than the coupe long term.
My most memorable purchase is still the Coupe, it was quite an ordeal back in winter 2004. I'll try to keep it brief in bullet form.
Accidental eBay purchase (after being on the original FCCUK forum) on a fri night whilst i should have been revising for my final exams.
Drove to Milton keynes station early am saturday parked car and boarded train to somewhere north or nottingham agreeing to be there by mid day.
Chatted to pretty girl that got on at Birmingham, Fell asleep on train woke up in some snowy peaks thinking it was the peak district when it was the lake district, totally missed my changeover in Manchester. Got off train at termination in carlilse. Boarded train back to crewe phoned the vendor and told him i may be a few hours late.
Boarded train to Sheffield, got off then boarded train to nottingham. Got off at the village the car was in.
Ran through the village as it was raining out of the train and arrived at destination several hours late as it was getting dark.
Looked quickly at the car, noticed minimal oil on dipstick but bought it anyway with wad of cash in pocket started to drive car away and had a very exciting 100 miles or so until a distinct lack of power and knocking noise was noted just north of luton on the M1. Came to a halt within 30 secs on the hard shoulder right outside a services.
Pushed car into services sat in it in the rain pondering next move, it wouldn't even turn over.
Looked for wallet- couldn't find it, realised my bag had been open when i was running through the village before buying the car and my wallet must have dropped out.
Mobile phone had no credit and with no cards i couldn't recharge it so had to go into the services ask to borrow money off people until i could phone Pops (my go to guy for all things auto) at home in somerset who had no knowledge of where I was or that i had bought a car.
My day had gone from one of new car joy to the feeling of being a sodden beggar outside a service station.
Anyway, call made, RAC arrived (Thanks pops!), engine seized, tow trucked home to (family home) South Somerset where I arrived in the RAC truck with the coupe on the back at about 0330 the sun morn. A long day with almost a full lap of england.

The outcome of my impulse accidental purchase on eBay was:
-A friend left at Luton airport I had agreed to pick up and then totally forgotten about
-A bill for 100 GBP or so to replace all of the lost cards IDs and security passes in my bag
-A fine for 60GBP to remove a wheel clamp on my van left at Milton keynes train station past its ticket time
-A coupe that had dropped an exhaust valve on #3 and destroyed its oil pump, piston (#3) cylinder head, crank bearings, main bearings, turbine blade of its turbo and my confidence in the cars reliability.
-An excess recovery bill from the RAC
-A tired start to the next week in lectures
-Extra Railway tickets of some cost that I don't remember, but I didn't have the money to spare at the time.

And so my love for the coupe began.

Excellent Hoops!

Legendary LOL

ha ha that story will take some beating

I bought my Coupé from a bloke living a couple of hours west of me in Brittany. The deal went completely smoothly and I was loving the drive home on empty dual carriageways and country roads. Then I turned on the radio and heard the news. The date? 11/09/2001...

SO is it not meant to blow up on a first drive? I thought we had all been through the same together. Solidarity in Coupe ownership.
All part of the fun. I still have the cylinder head which I intended to make a coffee table out of. The cams were all scratched up from the metal shavings also so I had to replace them and the bearings. The 16VT pump is amazingly efficient at distributing metal fragments around the entire engine in a very short period of time.

I was in an airport watching it as it happened, unforgettable

I bought a car off a woman who got it as part of a rather nasty divorce, She was selling it to spite her husband, rather cheeply. It was a very none nice situation when it came to light at collection point. I was in two minds to buy or walk away.

I bought a bravo HGT 155, chap seemed nice no alarm bells ringing. Did the deal and drove the 150 miles home. I got to with in 10 miles of my house and the bottom end let go in a rather nice fashion. Chap wanted nothing more to do with the car and I ended up with a rather expensive paperweight till I could replace the engine.

The best one has to be the Mr2 I bought many many years ago. Again it all checked out fine. Got to about a mile away and it just died, less and less power till nothing.
Had to get a tow home.

On inspection the altinater was dead, it had a spanking new battery in it... and the LED for the charging circute removed from the dash. Not the bigest issue in the world but if you have ever done a mr2 alt change you know pain.

The best one's I don't really recall some of the easiest ones envolve members off here, I bought TbirdX's 16vt coupe, couldn't hope to have meet a nicer couple, I think that has to be about the time you got the kit car!

Agree about Mr & Mrs TbirdX - had the very great pleasure of meeting them a couple of years ago.

Coupé was a memorable one for me. Flying back to Heathrow from Geneva where the car was in the car park (having been left by the former owner) ready for me to hop in and drive home. Slight sting in the tail was getting home and spotting he had kindly left it for me untaxed! Forum member and all - just goes to show.

Christ Emjay, the nails I've been sold over the years, I wish I just had the lack of tax to worry about!

It was quite an experience when I bought my X1/9.

I had known the car from new as it was originally my mother's. I had last seen it on Malaga plates in southern Spain back in 1997 shortly before she sold it to an Irish couple.

Fast forward to March 2014 when I saw a thumbnail photo in an advert for one in Northern Ireland in Practical Classics. I showed it to my wife saying that it was probably mum's old car and was told that I already had enough cars so leave it there.

However I phoned the seller and it turned out to be the same car so a few days later I was on a morning AerLingus flight to Belfast where I had arranged to meet the chap.

The car was in the City Airport parking looking pretty good so I decided it was worth test driving and eventually agreed a price over lunch.

Obviously, as I hadn't been to NI since the 1970s, there were things to see and do so Tony (the seller) and I did some sight seeing including visiting the Titanic Experience then booked it onto that nights ferry to Liverpool.

An expensive £150 or so later, I drove off the ferry in Liverpool early the next morning and set off for Hampshire in a car which had only done about 100 miles since an MOT six months earlier.

It went well enough, needless to say being driven very gently, and I got home around midday.

I don't recall whether I had told my wife before I left Belfast but I knew she wouldn't be very impressed when I got it home and right enough, she wasn't.

I had phoned Bockers from the ferry as he knew I was going to look, his comment was that I was mad.

It was an interesting couple of days, not least the Airbus A319's braking after landing at Belfast city airport. serious stuff that. The car was like being in a time warp: late 1970s technology and handling, no servo assisted brakes or anything.

If you look up X1/9 in "How many are left?" you will see it showing as a new registration in 2014 as until October they treated NI imports as though they were from outside the UK.

The DVLA actually ignored the NI owners when I got the new V5C, showing it as a 1 previous owner car which I had bought from my mum 14 years after she had died and 30 years after she had moved from the UK address.