Problems

The first drastic problem was the exhaust, after about six months it blew and I attempted several bodge jobs with kits from the local Halfords. In the end we got a new exhaust from Volkswagen - cost a bloody fortune (I think it was about 140 quid) - actually installed the thing myself (uh-hu, an apprentice toying with a car again) finally, it was very quiet again...so the god of automobiles must have been appeased.

The second drastic item to go was the windscreen wiper motor - cost a small fortune again, the wipers worked after that...all these drastic items wouldn't have seemed so drastic if I'd bought an affordable car, however, if I'd had any sense at all.......

Hit and Run. One day, while I was sleeping on the couch or something, someone must have tried to parallel park and drove across and through one side of the car. Thank you very much. Right in front of our council flat, one side of car rather bent and scraped. Mark helped me out on this one, we bodged it up at his dads garage in Enfield Street, Wigan - we never did match the paint up so I eventually had a "professional" job done (80 quid - July 25th 1977).

When I say professional I mean East End of London Magic fingers Murphy professional. I don't think the guy had that much experience working with clear coat or metallic paints...probably had trouble using Crayola crayons also. The car was finally all the right colour, it was just rather interesting in a certain light.