Obscure cars you have owned

[smurfomatic]

Still own this, though it was a daily driver for about 8 years it's now only used occasionally. Mini Marcos, built in 1980 and spent 20 years stored in a farm shed before I bought it in 2010.

 

[AlistairB1983]

Mine is a bit more recent than some of those on this list, but having looked at the 'how many left' website I think it now qualifies!

 

Nissan Pulsar -

 

Only produced from 2014-2018 in Europe and never had more than about 15,000 of them around. I personally loved mine, but the PCP was coming to an end and by that time they'd announced they'd discontinued the model, and I didn't fancy owning a car that obtaining spare parts for would become increasingly difficult, so I swapped in for a new Micra instead.

 

I think I only ever saw one other Pulsar during the 4 years I owned it - and that was owned by the Receptionist at the school I worked at otherwise not seen one before or since.

[Seb1780]

Had a Rover 827 Coupe late 90's - early 2000s.

 

According to How Many Left there were only around 600 at that time and now only a handful on the road. Written off after a scaffolding truck rearranged the offside (whilst it was parked!).

 

[Kitkatninja]

I had a Daewoo Espero (basically it had all the mod-cons but a generation or two behind the current tech at the time, it was a refurbished Vauxhall), "one of the main reasons the Espero became so rare was because of an ABS control module which was not only difficult to replace but also very expensive when it was faulty. This led to many MOT failures so many owners got rid of their Esperos. Plus, there were many electrical problems (central locking, wiper, radio, light faults)" [1]. And as of 2019, only 102 of those were left [2].

 

 

The second obscure car I've owned (for the UK), was the Dodge Calibre. The best part of the vehicle was the engine, it was a VW engine. The good thing about this vehicle was that it was one of the first Cross over vehicles, so it was slightly more upright seating position, however the viewability was not so great (compared to other cars at the time). Across the UK/Europe only 49,029 were sold over the 9 years that this car was manufactured, and only 1 car was sold in 2013 and 1 car sold in 2014 - the last two years. As of 2022, there are only 1789 of them left on the road [3].

 

[JATSO]

No photos you'll have to Google them but this has been my car life so far

 

My Car Life – 1979 to current date

Citroen DS23 Pallas (First ever car, my mate s called it the doctors car it was great ride with the hydraulic suspension and super comfy seats semi automatic but with a 2.3ltr petrol guzzling engine and being a rust bucket it didn't last long)

 

Ford Fiesta XR2 (bought New)

 

Alfa Romeo – Alfasud

 

Honda Civic Mk1

 

Honda Accord Mk1

 

Rover 213

 

Mini Mk2

 

Ford Orion

 

Ford Cortina Mk4

 

Rover 216 Vitesse (Bought New)

 

Renault 19

 

Citroen Xantia Estate

 

Ford Focus Mk1

 

Renault Megane 2 (Shake You’re A## advert)

 

Landrover Discovery TDI

 

Mitsubishi Shogun Sport

 

Alfa Romeo GT

 

Renault Megane 31.5dci (current car now 11 years old, I will let you know what comes next;)

[soapyfish]

I thought my Marcos would be the only Marcos to be in this thread !

 

My Martina, (the red one )

 

[Dos_Box]

I thought my Marcos would be the only Marcos to be in this thread !

 

My Martina, (the red one )

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]68647[/ATTACH]

 

I've never seen those before. So yes, they really are obscure!

[soapyfish]

They only made 80 almost all of them were kits, and were supposed to be a cheaper version of the also beautiful Marcos Mantula.

[Jaan]

They only made 80 almost all of them were kits, and were supposed to be a cheaper version of the also beautiful Marcos Mantula.

 

Was just going to say, aren't these kitcars? Ones a Q plate? but i don't know much about all that to be fair.

 

I thought this was a Marcos...

 

remember watching them race at oulton park back in the day

 

[soapyfish]

That is a Marcos Mantis, they did race them in the late 90's, there was also a bigger + badder Marcos LM based off the Mantara model.

 

[HarryMonkey]

I had a Renault 17 back in the mid 80s. It was fast and yellow and great to drive. Then I blew the head gasket and that was the end of that.

 

[Jaan]

That is a Marcos Mantis, they did race them in the late 90's, there was also a bigger + badder Marcos LM based off the Mantara model.

 

 

that's the one!

[smurfomatic]

That's a great looking car, the Mini Marcos is currently on axle stands while I try to free off the seized brake bleed nipples...

[soapyfish]

It was a nice car, it ended up bursting into flames on a back road and melted into the ground, :-(

[djm968]

I had a Renault 17 back in the mid 80s. It was fast and yellow and great to drive. Then I blew the head gasket and that was the end of that.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]68649[/ATTACH]

 

Love this. I had a Diecast Majorette Renault 17 similar to this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/266042361377?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=ypZY8iSgSAK&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

[3s-gtech]

Not mine, but dad had, amongst numerous others as we liked to buy interesting old bangers, a Fiat Croma i.e. turbo. One of my favourite out of the lot. Didn’t stick around long but handsome, fast and interesting!

[nwkeene]

Here's my first car, a 1978 Chrysler Sunbeam 1.0LS. Only made for about 3 years, but a Lotus version was used in rallying... The obscure bit is that my car, with my reg number was made as a Diecast model. I hadn't realised when i bought it that it used to be a Met Police panda car.

a link to the diecast version is here... I didn't want to 'steal' the photo and post it directly.

Edited April 21, 2023 by nwkeene
spelling

[Dos_Box]

Not mine, but dad had, amongst numerous others as we liked to buy interesting old bangers, a Fiat Croma i.e. turbo. One of my favourite out of the lot. Didn’t stick around long but handsome, fast and interesting!

 

My grandfather had one of these:

 

 

An FSO Polenz. Rather baffling as he wasn't short of a bob or two. He had to give it up when he lost his driving licence due to age related reasons in the early 90's. It was built like a tank and probably had the same fuel economy!

[Ditto]

In terms of obscureness, I think my some of my brother's will rank high. I will try to get exact details, but I think it was a Wartburg (but could be a Trabant). I do recall talk of reinforced Papier Mache and he could hang the back end out (can't really call it a power slide!) at about 10 - 12 mph on the local wet roundabout as there was no weight in the rear - and totally controllable.

[simonw]

Not really obscure, but memories of my Datsun Cherry 100A and Vauxhall Chevette Special had me trawling the internet. No bargains found tho', which would please MrsW!