Retro quandary...

Stepson minor - the final one of our 5 kids to take the wheel - will be learning to drive at the end of the year when he turns 17.

Thanks to a legacy from his great-grandma, he will have a budget of around £2k to spend on his first car, with around £1k for insurance on top.

He is unequivocally NOT a petrolhead and has a style that is both distinctive and bold.

His firm favourite would be...

- a Lada 1200.

Now, I can't find enough Ladas to work out if he can realistically expect to buy (and insure) one for his budget.

He has reluctantly agreed that he will consider other options, with a strong preference for the 70's/80's 3-box saloon look.

We've tried a lot of cars (Cortina, Trevi, 131, Herald, Montego even Volvo 340!, etc) and a lot of websites, but my fear is that if it's within his budget, it'll be a shed/money-pit and if it's not, well, it's out of reach.

He has said that a Classic Mini would be acceptable at a pinch, which gives me hope at least of finding something.

Any suggestions, my FCCUK brethren?

An interesting period!

I’m way more au fait with the 80’s motors although anything from either period is risky in terms of overall condition.

Some suggestions which should be attainable for £2k if you can find them!

3 box
Cavalier
Sierra
Orion
A Saab of some description
309
Passat
Vento

2 box
Golf
Polo
306
Nova
205
Metro
Escort
Civic
Fiesta mk2

Pick up a copy of Modern Classics for cars from 80’s to end of 2000’s.

There is also a Facebook group called pre 1996 retro cars and parts for sale, all sorts of motors get advertised like this:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/39089661...122019477813665

The same rules as when we tried to insure these types of car as first time drivers I'd expect. The smaller engined the better. If it was me, I'd go French. Pick up a Peugeot.

You should easily pick up a nice 205 in budget, possibly a decent 309. But they do seem rarer.

The reason I say Peugeot (other than owning one) is that they were the masters of the part bin. In short if you get a small petrol engine (the TU series to be precise), you'll find many of the parts fitted to much newer cars.

For me, it'd be a pre 92 (emissions), TU engined 205. You get an 80s car with a little 90s refinement.

As a thought, has he considered actually living and driving an old car? It won't be anything like the learner car. While the 205 will keep up in modern traffic, you will be driving it at 6/10 to do it. You need to be very switched on as it can be dangerous.

Personally, I would say it is a foolhardy option for a daily driver. Some parts will be hard or near impossible to come by and reliability will be much worse than something newer. If it is not already rusty, using it daily in bad conditions will soon start to eat away at the iron-based parts.

You might have noticed me moaning about the level of rust now on my fairly well looked after `97 Coupe which has only ~57k miles and I have had it from new. To cut a long story short - wife wanted an SUV when son ruined her trusty Impreza. Now SUV is too big for town use so she wants small car. I will take the SUV and buy a small car and son wants the Coupe. We will have the rust mainly seen to but I doubt it will look good for many more years even after a tidy up if it is used very regularly. Now a car from a generation or two older is going to be much worse on the tin-worm front.

Having been a parent to teenagers for well over a decade, I should make it clear that I'm not condoning this course of action, I'm just too experienced to try and fight it. Mitigation is all!

I will suggest some of the above (very sensible) ideas and see what feedback I get!

My teenager keeps coming back to a 5.0 V8 Mustang. He is being sponsored by a company to do his degree and gets paid, wait for it ...



... about 500 Pounds a month net!!!


Where he thinks he is going to get 35K for a car by the time he graduates is beyond me. I'm starting to completely fail to understand modern teenagers In my day, just having a car was great.

For 2000 Pounds in the UK, one can get something a bit different like:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/...72pd&page=3

That would be about 5000€ where I am if it was LHD

Ladas are truly dreadful - I wasn’t expecting much and I was shocked about just how bad it was.

Anything you persuade him to buy is going to be better: 205, Fiesta, 106, even a 309

Have a look through the pages on here and see if anything jumps out. I am sure you could refine the search criteria further...

https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/classic_...15&S=Search

I would be sceptical about letting a new driver running an older car from a safety point of view, but I also admire the fact that he would like something retro.
I would probably go down the VW Polo route based on build quality from that era, but there are some interesting alternatives in the link, although granted he might struggle for insurance with the Trans Am on page 3!

There is good reason they are mostly extinct. While I really do admire his retro style they are going to fold like tin cans in an accident with a modern vehicle.
I'm an adult and I know that ill be in a bad way if I have a smash in the panda, but im old enough to understand the risk and reward, and limited liability is it goes out once a month or so.

I'm not a parent, but if i was I would want my inexperienced child in something that if harm were to come his or her way they would have a fighting chance of walking away with legs.

No offence, but were mostly a little bit risk happy at that age, Until they are adult enough and experienced enough, and not one's responsibility I would chuck something with a good Ncap rating and a black box in it and say they can buy a proper car with there own money in time.

There's a 1.3 Pug 309 on autotrader that might fit the bill?!

Plus...turn him into a petrol head and he can slap some GTI wheels on and lower it slightly and have a decent looking motor on his hands!

Thread resurrection! The search goes on, having recently lost the quest for a 1982 Triumph Acclaim with 46k miles for £1600. My attempts to explain the utter contempt my contemporaries would have had for anyone driving such a vehicle when new fell on deaf ears.

The one thing that amazed me though is that the insurance would have been £360 for the year. Now that makes retro driving make sense (though obviously you'll be spending the saving on repairs...)

Beware that Acclaim - it's almost unique in that the engine rotates backwards compared to about everything else on the road. And a rev counter driven by a cable, like a speedo...

Why is a cable-driven Rev counter a concern? All the Alfa 105-series cars (Spider, Coupe, Super etc) up to 70s have that. My race car still has it and it’s spot on so I’ve never changed it.

And also what's wrong with a "backwards" rotating engine? The engine in the old Fiat 850 saloons I used to have was developed from the similar 600 engine but with reverse rotation (to allow for a larger radiator/better cooling which meant the crank axis moved to the other side of the gearbox centereline, and engine rotation was reversed to avoid having 4 reverse and 1 forward gear) and then when the 127 came out with the same engine but in FWD, the engine rotation reverted back. Surely only a concern if you want to stick a different engine in, maybe Neil was secretly looking to stick a 20vt engine into an Acclaim?

DaveG, I fully understand what you are about, a good mate has recently fitted a 903cc 127 engine into his 1955 600 as he couldn't use the 903cc 850 Sport engine for the reasons you mentioned.

It is much better to drive on the open road now with that extra power!!

How about an old Volvo? Similar boxy appeal, and probably safer than contemporaries.

My first "big" car was a Volvo 340 (1.7 Renault engine) after my Austin Metro (1.0L) was stolen and used as a getaway car. Not sure how the thieves "got away" considering you had to change into first gear to get up any hills....

How about an older 3 series?
Rear wheel drive easy to work on and fairly cheap to insure.

https://goo.gl/images/rhYXe4

Neither the cable drive nor the retrorevolving engine are concerns, merely a 'watch out' if you're working on them.