What amazes me is the number of times I see an enthusiast seek out an unmodified and carefully maintained example of a performance car. Then the mods start and things go crazy. The end result is just another modified example on Craigslist in a few years time.

Definitely worth it. The Aussie equivalent towed our broken charity rally car 3750km from Darwin on the north coast of Australia to Geelong on the southern coast. 2330miles of towing - free!

The cost of a 70 series new and the longevity/reliability means very high resale. Most of them are looked after pretty well as a result. Although you will see abused ones, well maintained ones are very common. If a diesel is not quick enough find a turbo diesel one. They still do 300,000 miles when looked after.

Better yet, finding a local farmer with a stick welder and welding it up.

I sympathize. My Beetle broke an accelerator cable on my first drive with a rebuilt engine. But there is aroadside solution that doesn’t over you in grime. Go to radio shack or whatever and grab some of these, pull the middle bit and crews out and use it to join the cable.

My first car was a white classic Mini with wider rims, Cooper S badging and front spot lights. Because Italian Job (1969).

That pretty much sums up the types that drive these in Australia.

The real story is because Dearborn wouldn’t let the Aussies engineer a LHD Falcon or Territory (Falcon based SUV). The economics would work, but the management have no balls to invest in it.

BMC weirdness I guess. Same reason a 4 door Mini never made it past the prototype stage.

Yes I know the pics I posted were alll internal tank cars from 1961. They were all I had in my phone at the time. I own a sad 1965 Morris Mini Traveller which is a long term project, also a Mk11 Morris Van, Mk1 Austin and a 71 Moke.

I can tell you exactly why they didn’t offer a hatch. The Traveller or Countryman wagon variant offered far more load space and practicality if you needed to carry loads. It featured double opening barn doors on the rear, folding rear seat, a wheelbase four inches longer and a petrol tank underneath to maximise load…

L plate in the rear window indicates a learner driver...!

Damn, I thought we lived in a free world where everyone is entitled to an opinion. Clarkson certainly doesn’t need to be censored because his opinion on the subject is perhaps not politically correct and may be different to yours. Clarkson has never been politically correct and I applaud him for that.

Dear FCA,

Yep. When the Viscious coupling is working they don’t cause a problem. When the coupling seizes, then what happens?

Maybe because that’s what 90% of first owners will use it as?

Even dyed-in-the-wool Land Rover nutters hate the early Freelander. What kind of idiots put two different diff ratios front to rear in an AWD car?? Then uses a Rover Metro engine famous for spitting head gaskets? It really was crap.

You could not pay me enough money to take one of those trucks. They have to be the ugliest things ever! The front looks like the face a shark would make during a particularly invasive body cavity search.

Or the phone number is spelled out in misspelled words and missing a digit. Oh for six eiht fayve....

I think the question here is why the insurer took his money and then changed their mind later. They should have refused to offer cover in the first place if they had an issue with it’s legal status.