Trade up.

I had a new mindset, or it was a more deranged mindset from the previous one, so the cut and shut car did not quite fit in with my new attitude. It had been reliable, yes, but it had that one major factor that potentially it was of German original where it had been written off, shipped to the UK and then stitched onto another.

I was a bit concerned about what an MOT station would make of it, so with six months left on the ticket I decided to trade it in for a brand new car and discard all the irritants.

I took it to Skelmerdale Motors, a Ford dealership, they put it up on the hoist and decided against a trade in for me, the guy came out and asked me to follow him into the shop where he pointed out a few dubious joins on the undercarriage. His advice was to try another dealership as Skelmersdale had a high "Scally" population and they had been burned before.

I then took it to the Wigan Ford dealership and had a stroke of luck, it was the salesmans last week there and he agreed to part exchange the car after only a brief walk around. The trade in value was very good and I basically did the deal there and then.

If I fast forward six months, I receive a letter from a consumer agency, requesting my history of the car, where I purchased it and what I knew about it, there was obviously a future investigation of the cut and shut, but for me, on the 6th of August 1986, the XR3i was gone for good.