So what is the BEST vehicle you've owned or driven?

[#1]

From reading the various threads there seems to be a lot of people who enjoy their cars and have memories of them both good and bad.

So what is the best vehicle you've owned or driven. For me the best one I owned was my Range Rover it was like driving around in a couch, but the best, fun one I drove was a 7.2 litre Jensen Interceptor and was serious fun.

[#2]

For excitement my ‘69 Escort 1600 GT.

For fun my ‘78 MGB.

For motorway cruising a ‘93 Granada Scorpio, Company car.

For nipping round town the Wife’s ‘88 Mini Mayfair

Current car is a ‘05 Skoda something-or-other, it’s cheap to run....

[#3]

Granada

[#4]

@Mook Like you owned Range Rover. Most fun a bosses Mercedes SLsomething Gullwing  sports car!!

Checked 300sl gullwing.

[#5]

A friend of mine has a Mercedes SL(K I think, an open top jobby) AMG and the noise is just ... well the noise, what can I say.

[#6]

Fastest car --------------- Triumph Vitesse 2 ltr with overdrive. Worked it up to 110, and got scared ! ! ! .so backed off a bit ! ..

Most economical.... Skoda Fabia...1.8 Diesel

Most comfortable and also economical Skoda Fabia 1.6tdi 105 bhp.  ( top of the range when new) .

[#7]

Best fun car? I had a Nissan Sunny Coupe that I got shot of with over 225K miles on the clock. original clutch and the engine was bullet proof. I sold it for £100 and the new owner was still driving around in it a year later.

The Seat Alhambra, while not a get up and go fast car certainly carried all the camping stuff and 4 people. Many happy memories travelling across France, Germany, Italy, list is endless really. Very comfortable to drive with so much leg room.

But nothing really beats my Suzuki SV1000SZ. Over 70mph in first gear with 5 others to go up through. Loved going along the autobahns. Totally rock solid handling at high speed. 0-60 in 3.08 seconds. And the growl in 3rd gear. Awesome! What more would you want. I still regret getting rid of it.

[#8]

For fun and handling my Saab 99 Turbo, for cruising and comfort on long journeys including towing a caravan all over the continent a Saab 9000 Turbo though it was thirsty with the caravan on, now on my third recently bought Honda Civic.

[#9]

Head turner: Lotus Eclat fast too, but also enjoyed my Lancia Beta Spider & VW Mk1 Scirocco, couldn't say which was favourite.

The Spider was lovely to drive and mechanically sound but the bodywork was rubbish.

[#10]

Volvo 144

Started first time in all weathers, plenty of room around the engine bay for easy servicing.

Top car for safety and comfort.

Sadly Volvo sold out to some other company and they are now like any other car otherwise I would still be driving one.

Had a number of cars during my lifetime, all second hand but nothing beats that Volvo.

[#11]

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@gleneagles wrote:

Sadly Volvo sold out to some other company and they are now like any other car otherwise I would still be driving one.

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They nearly sold out to Renault in the 90s hence some of their cars have renault engines (tuned to volvo reliability specs) and some renaults have volvo lumps (also reliable but with some renault perculiarities added).

Favourite was the renault safrane 2.5 with the volvo lump. Had more than one of them they were so great! Scrap man loved collecting those as they were seriously heavy. 

I'm currently driving a CRV. It's been completely neglected by it's previous owners, knocks, rattles, used to stall when starting from cold (bodged some instant gasket around the ICAV which dealt with that - old gasket was half missing!). It's literally the most knackered car i've ever driven but it's grown on me - a lot! It's absolutely brilliant but I don't see it having a long lifespan though.

Best for indestructibility was the Honda Civic. Unfortunately that vs a lamp post, the lamp post won putting a large dent in the drivers wing. Other than that, it was bullet proof. At the time the dent and other cosmetic woes made it unwantable so it went to a banger racer i know - the next time i saw it mud was all over the poor thing. I've often wondered if we should have kept it instead.

[#12]

Technically speaking, the best car I've ever owned was the same manual-box Citroen BX diesel Estate with a snapped timing belt that I "drove" on tow, cos it's the only car I've owned to date... 🤣

Was a right wreck though, "just needs a bit of welding", yeah, doors hanging by a rusty thread, tailgate lock broken & window smashed, steering lock busted (failed attempt at theft when it was parked after the belt had gone, criminals eh??), and of course the timing belt, shame really as it was the BX 1.9TGD Meteor Estate with a nice metallic charcoal paintjob, which is a rare model now, and did look pretty good when squinting, but back in 2002, I had no idea how to fix such a mess, but hey, it was free, and the council freely took it away when I gave up with it... 😂

Would have been nice to get the non-turbo 1.9L Pug XUD diesel engine running, and see the BX rise to the occasion with its' hydro-pneumatic suspension, but alas, t'was never to be...

[#13]

@twocvbloke trouble is with old and knackered cars is that they really are a lot of work to put right. It's not just muscle power, time and money you need either, you need a pretty extensive tool collection for a lot of stuff.

Ball joints for example, once those are gone you've either got to replace the entire wishbone (costly) or use a ball joint pressing tool - and those ain't cheap either. You can use it for a few other bits (bushes) but it's pretty much a one trick pony and they cost around £100. Then it's spanners... a socket set.. a set of flexible spanners.. torx bits... extension bars... breaker bar... fuel syphon... grinders.... drills..... compression tester.... timing gun (not strictly necessary these days but it does confirm the state of the ignition coil) the list is literally endless and i've nearly forgotten about the trolley jack and axle stands. Obviously if you're super serious about your car DIY you'll need an engine crane for those jobs where the lump is broken due to a belt or it needs to come out for some other reason.

Then there's other things.. you've got a broken engine and intend to replace it but you need the air con gas emptied - so you've got to call someone out to discharge it OR send it on a low loader to a garage and then have it brought back.. neither option being cheap.

It's a total pain!

[#14]

Well, it was free, so no cost to myself, and I was 17 at the time so still young & dumb (soon to be 35, so mid-life and dumb!!), but like the saying goes, had I known then what I know now, I probably could have at least got the engine running, assuming the crank & piston rods weren't bent, as the pug XUD engine is a non-interference valve system so new timing belt & a re-timing and the engine would have gone, as for the rest of the car, erm, yeah, it was a dog...

[#15]

A few cars I thought were fun to drive.

RS 3.1 Capri - quite a bit of cheap poke

Dolomite Sprint - great revver

Daimler Sovereign - zoomy in a sedate sort of way

Jensen Interceptor - Looked so cool and caught everyone's eye

Aston Martin - can't remember the model I think it was the one after Connery's Bond

Some little white Italian sports car - memorable but I'm damned if I can remember the name (after reading mayflies post I'm sure it was a Lancia something)

All nice to drive for a bit but were just too pricey to buy / insure / run permanently or just plain impractical for every day use.