When my first car (Datsun 120Y) started to rust away my Mum suggested helping me buy a new car.
So I bought an FSO 125p. F865 XAH
I loved the old styling as I really wanted a classic car.
I sold it a year later as the ridicule I got was too much for an 18 year old to handle at the time.
Fast forward 10 years & I had started to enjoy restoring classics.
Now I looked at cars from a different angle.
i wanted something that no one else had & also something that people would not understand.
I bought a Skoda Estelle 120LSE. In Autumn yellow with black vinyl roof. D153 EHU
I loved it. My mate Paul got a 130LSE in beige as well.
We took them to the Treffen at Mildenhall in 2000.
That same year I went to the Aircool 2000 festival at Brooklands.
Here I fell in love with Trabants & more so Tatras.
Paul decided to get a car that his parents once owned. A Moskvich.
I hadn't heard of one, but a month later Paul aquired a light blue 427.
My Skoda promptly blew up its 1200 engine, so impressed by Pauls 427 I too looked for a Mosky.
I bought from a yard in Germany a Moskvich 2140. OPW 970P
I restored this from the ground up & took best non IFA at the IFA day in 2003.
From then onwards I had 3 Trabants, E699 FEO, ONV 440P, E813 WCL, a Lada Riva 1.5E P986 OEX & another FSO 125p.
This time I was proud of the FSO. E896 RVF
I took the best 4 stroke at the Treffen in October 2003 at Foxfield railway.
Paul meanwhile, sold his blue 427 when the Earls Court 1971 Motorshow exhibit Moskvich 427 surfaced in a lock up in London.
Paul collected that & took that to EB Rallies up until 2005.
By then he had aquired my Lada Riva 1.5E & that in turn became the Lotus Lada.
My Moskvich was sold along with my FSO to Rupert White here in Norwich.
The Moskvich still is in A1 condition, sadly the FSO ended its days last summer on the banger track.
My 3 Trabs were sold on. One was smashed in an accident, two survive. One in Oxfordshire, the other in North Norfolk.
My Skoda Estelle, I gave away & it too survives. Still in Norwich but now running a 1300 Favorit engine.
Sadly I have no EB car at the mo. I keep trying to buy my Moskvich back as Rupert never uses it.
In cant bear to see it quietly rust away in his lock up.