Grand Thrift Auto

Just going to leave this here

This is a lovely thing, owned by a proper chap.

It's also red and clearly VERY sporty.

If you fancy a slice of rocking horse poo, and being mobbed by #weirdcarBS folk every time you arrive somewhere, then you really should buy it.

Yikes. I’d never really thought about that happening — and now I won’t he able to forget it 😬

A 2010-ish Triumph motorbike fuel cap

That’s a motorbike fuel cap, I would say.

It looks similar to the one on my old Triumph Street Triple (see pic), but is probably something generic or Japanese.

I was going to say “Must be a case of mistaken identity” but sadly the album is even more #forgotten80s than the single, so only about three people would get the reference.

A photo of a rear-view mirror with a view of a mk2 Ford Granada that’s WAY closer than you’d like. This one is on a trailer that I’m towing.

Here’s a familar sight to anyone who remembers driving on a UK motorway in the 1980s — a mirror full of Ford Granada that’s WAY closer than you’d like.

Excellent!

I stand corrected — must have had a senior moment.

Are all Guernsey plates black and silver though? I recall that being a popular choice (over UK-style white and yellow) but thought it was optional?

That looks highly entertaining.

Also it’s either a long way from home or Guernsey has changed a lot since my last visit.

That’s outstanding. I’ll have the gammon and pineapple with an Angel Delight float for afters please.

Ooohhh nice. Very nice.

Cheers man, that’s very kind of you 🤛

They’re really good to drive, too.

I’d like to say because I now have lots of motivation, time and money to sort the cars out…but really it’s only because I’m losing that storage spot 😬

A dusty mk2 Ford Granda estate on a trailer inside a shed.

BARN FIND.

I trailered up the Granada the other day in readiness for literally sending it to Coventry.

It’ll be heading there soon to have a replacement Cologne V6 2.8 fitted, and hopefully I can then put it back on the road.

WANT

As @billybragg.bsky.social so eloquently put it — if you’ve got a blacklist, I want to be on it.

Words to live by.

Er, I used to work near there too - East Horsley. I’m not stalking you, honest. Or were you stalking me? 🫣

Horseferry Road! A few years earlier I’d have been working in the building in the distance behind you.

Indeed, he messaged me afterwards!

Excellent!

That’s ace.

I don’t do soft-tops (too wet here) but I really fancy an early Panda to run around in.

A Seat Panda Terra pickup with a canvas tilt, parked in a stone-paved side street in a village in Mallorca.

May I encourage you further with this glorious Panda Terra I found in western Mallorca, back in the days when I could afford holidays?

Apologies, I really wasn’t having a pop at you personally at all — I very much share your frustration.

But why post a link to that video instead of a good one?

I used to put a lot of effort into researching and writing car history videos. Unlike this, they got literally zero support from other commentators (although they did from a notable couple of viewers).

I’ve given up now.

The only car to be named after two Pet Shop Boys albums.

Or a flag shagger who just pocketed £380,000 of undeclared grift

He appears to have extrapolated his personal experience of people not wanting to work for a drug-addled white suprematist c*** to thinking nobody wants to work at all.

A world with no professional satisfaction and no creative pride would/will be utter misery.

Aotearoa New Zealand seems to have run off and hidden somewhere, along with the UK and, er, Greenland.

Understandable under present circumstances.

Mmm, that concept car interior is especially lovely. But as you say, the production version is very close to it.

I very much like the SVX’s dash architecture, particularly given how many other cars of the mid-90s were of the ‘blobby bland’ school.