Thursday, 16 August 2018

Cars I have owned - No 16: Ford Ka (1998)

I have not bought many new cars. Piling so much capital into a fast-depreciating asset has never seemed a particularly good use of my limited cash.
I know people who never buy used cars, but I like a car that’s been around the block a few times and has lost two-thirds of its original value.
I made an exception for the Ford Ka. It was the second brand new car I’d bought (after the VW Polo) and I bought it using a new finance package (now quite common) called PCP – personal contract purchase.
It was an idea dreamed up by motor manufacturers to allow people to buy new cars with minimal deposit and to be able to change the car every three years without having to stump up another lump sum.
They were so keen to persuade people to try this new-fangled thing that there were lots of low-interest deals or even interest-free deals. I think my interest awakened at the words “interest free” and I bought a Ford Ka – a little red one for Margaret to use. I may also have had one eye on Tom and Sam being able to drive it, or at least learn/practise in it.
PCP works by asking for a low deposit (typically only a couple of hundred quid), you then pay a monthly sum for three years and you then have three options:
·         Hand the car back.
·         Buy it for a pre-agreed sum.
  • Trade it in and take out a new PCP agreement on a new car.
I’d driven a few Ka models and I quite liked the car. It was small, easy to drive and it looked quite stylish. We got a bright red one in 1998 (S-reg). Ours had the dark grey plastic bumpers.
The Ka had good headroom and plenty of room for the two in the front. The rear seats were tight (just two of them) but we did go four-up quite often. The car handled OK, a bit nose heavy, but there was power steering (quite rare then on a supermini), which was great.
What wasn’t great was the engine. It used a 1.3-litre pushrod engine, which (although much updated and revised) could be traced back to the Ford Anglia. This has decent mid-range torque, but wouldn’t rev, so coupled with high gearing to improve refinement and economy, the result was very sluggish performance.

It would trundle along happily at an illegal 80mph on the motorway, but hills took their toll and overtaking needed good judgment.
I didn’t trade it in for a new one after three years, I bought it for the pre-agreed sum. I’d used it to go to Bristol and few times and the mileage was way over the allowance. Tom and Sam did drive the car and Sam used it quite a lot, including to get to school. It had a couple of scrapes, not down to the kids, and we had to have a new door skin fitted after a supermarket car park incident. Annoyingly, while it was parked outside King’s School, someone scratched the side quite badly with a key, a deliberate act of damage (possibly they were annoyed by schoolkids parking in their street all day).
It didn’t give much trouble. The exhaust failed really quickly (around three years) and, in later life, the sump leaked a bit of oil (it had gone porous according to Andy Bunyan), but we still managed to sell it for a thousand pounds to a girl who had just passed her test.
By then, the Ka had lost some of its style, it was looking a bit everyday. Tom and Sam will have happy memories of the Ka.


Also see:

Ford Popular - click
Bedford HA Van - click
Morris Mini - click
Vauxhall Viva HC - click
Citroen GS Club - click
Morris Marina 1.3GL - click
Talbot Horizon 1.1 LS - click
Vauxhall Cavalier 1.3L - click
Datsun Stanza 1.6GL - click
Vauxhall Cavalier 1.6L - click

Peugeot 405 STi - click
Ford Escort Mk IV 1.6D L - click
VW Polo Mk II 1.0L - click

Vauxhall Cavalier Mk III 2.0GL - click
Nissan Serena 2.0 SGL - click


Sunday, 12 August 2018

Cars I have owned - No 15: Nissan Serena 2.0 SGL 1994

The Nissan Serena - about to transport French-exchange visitor, Marc.

The Nissan Serena was one of those vehicles adapted from another model to try to take advantage of a new trend or fashion.
Renault designed the Espace from the ground up and it was a fantastic car. It defined the people carrier market and sold like hot cakes. Nissan wanted a slice of the action, so it took its panel van, inserted windows and seats and – hey presto – you have a people carrier.
In the US, they called people carriers ‘minivans’. In the UK, a Minivan is the car-derived van version of the Mini, so it’s a little confusing. However, the Serena was a van and little had been done to improve the ride, handling or performance. It was no Espace, but it was in my price range; in fact, I could afford the top-spec model.
There was a normally aspirated diesel, which was incredibly slow, and a 2-litre petrol, which was the version I had. It was very thirsty (below 30mpg) even on a long run and it still wasn’t what you’d call fast. Thankfully, I was able to put a fair bit of petrol into the car on the company’s account, so I wasn’t unduly concerned about mileage. Auto Express named the Serena as the slowest passenger car in the benchmark 0-60 mph (now 62 mph) test, with the 2.3 diesel version taking 27.8 seconds to reach that speed.
There were some odd quirks about the vehicle. Soon after we got it, Margaret called me one day to say the battery was flat. I told her she’d left the lights on, she swore she hadn’t. I didn’t believe her, but then it happened to me and I definitely hadn’t left the lights on. There was clearly an electrical leak that was flattening the battery over around three days. I checked all the interior lights, none were staying on and I also checked for odd things like bonnet lights – nothing!
The car went to the Nissan dealer in Peterborough and, almost in mockery, they gave me a Nissan Micra as a replacement car. From an eight-seater people carrier to a four (five at a push) seater supermini – now that’s what you call customer service!
They said they’d check over the car, it was fine. It was probably a faulty battery, so they changed the battery.
Of course, it happened again and Nissan’s (then) high reputation for reliability was looking a bit suspect. The car went back and I suspect this was a rare, but not unique, fault on this model. They kept the car for a couple of weeks and flew in a technician from Japan to look at it. When it came back, they couldn’t tell me what the fault had been, but they promised it was sorted (and so it was).
The Serena was tall and thin and, dynamically, it was not a good car to drive. It felt heavy, accelerated slowly and overtaking had to be carefully judged. It wasn’t the sort of car you’d throw into a bend. It was front engine/rear-wheel drive and the car had a live rear axle, mounted on leaf springs – crude by passenger-car standards in the mid-90s.
Oddly, the engine sat quite high between the driver and front passenger. The almost mid-engine design would have helped handling, but the engine was set too high for good weight distribution. To check the oil level, you had to lift a cover inside the car and hinge it forward to expose the engine. It was a faff and, despite a heat shield and noise insulation, you were always aware there was a big engine sitting alongside you. There was a short, stubby bonnet and that lifted to allow access to washer fluid and coolant levels.
It did have a radio/cassette player, electric windows, power steering and two electric sun-roofs. No air-conditioning back then. I never liked sun-roofs, they are noisy when open, reduce headroom and often leak. However, pulling back the cover on the Nissan’s main sun-roof gave you a tinted glass roof that made the car seem really light and open. If you did open the roof and drive at any speed, all kinds of severe vortexes and whirlwinds would be created inside the car and you couldn’t hear yourself think!
We didn’t take the Serena abroad, but we did clock up quite a few miles around the UK. It certainly went to Somerset a couple of times and also to the Lake District. I remember doing the Hardknott and Wrynose passes in the Lakes. These two lead into each other and have some really steep roads, which were quite wet on the day we did them. The rear-wheel drive Serena lost a bit of traction on some sections. It was possible to lock the differential by pressing a button, but this wasn’t needed.
It was hard to like the Serena, but there was no denying its practicality. It was an eight seater 2+3+3 and, unlike other people carriers I’ve owned, it was possible to fold all the rear seats out of the way (there was no need to start unplugging them like the Galaxy, Sharan, et al. The middle seats tipped forwards and upwards (like an estate car) and the rear seats (a bench seat) split in the middle and folded into the side.
We didn’t have to do any removals, but the eight seats came in handy a few times, and Tom and I managed to get a motorcycle in the back. We took the Derbi Senda to a moped endurance race at Cadwell Park and it just about squeezed in (along with our other gear).
We had the Serena for four years. I changed it in 1999 for another people carrier – a VW Sharan.


Also see:

Ford Popular - click
Bedford HA Van - click
Morris Mini - click

Vauxhall Viva HC - click
Citroen GS Club - click
Morris Marina 1.3GL - click
Talbot Horizon 1.1 LS - click
Vauxhall Cavalier 1.3L - click
Datsun Stanza 1.6GL - click
Vauxhall Cavalier 1.6L - click

Peugeot 405 STi - click
Ford Escort Mk IV 1.6D L - click
VW Polo Mk II 1.0L - click

Vauxhall Cavalier Mk III 2.0GL - click

Sunday, 5 August 2018

Brothers meet for the first time in 80 years

Tony Burrows (left) and Keith Sanders - brothers reunited after 80 years.

Here’s a picture of Margaret’s two half-brothers – Tony Burrows and Keith Sanders – who met for the first time this month.
The brothers were from Margaret’s dad’s first marriage. He married Amy Sanders in 1934 and they had two children – Tony in 1935 and Keith in 1937. Keith was born in July and Amy died in August.
Tony stayed with his father, although Norman joined the Army at the outbreak of the Second World War, and he was brought up by Edith Burrows (nee Mason), his grandmother.
John Joseph Keith Burrows went to live with his mother’s family and his name was changed to Keith Sanders.
It’s not unusual for children to be divided between the family in the event of such tragedy. What is unusual was that there was no contact between the two brothers or, to the best of our knowledge, between father and Keith.
Tony knew he had a brother and Keith knew he had a brother, but that was it. None of the children of Norman’s second marriage knew anything about Keith (their half-brother). Tony, brought up by his grandmother, was a visitor two or three times a year.
The first Margaret knew of another half-brother was when it was uncovered during research on our family tree and her cousin Gillian was able to fill in a few gaps and provide a picture of Amy and now this picture of Tony and Keith.
The 1939 Census shows the Burrows family living at 15 Morris Drive in Weaverham. There was William Burrows, wife Edith, sons Norman and Walter and grandson William Thomas Anthony Burrows (aged three-and-a-half). William and Norman are working as Roadmen and Walter is a Labourer.
John Joseph Keith Burrows, by now called Keith Sanders and two years old, is living in Chapel Lane, Action Bridge (maybe two miles away) with Gladys Esther Sanders (aged 25). We don’t know if she’s his mother’s sister or wife of his mother’s brother. We assume she was a relative of some kind.
Norman Burrows - aged about 60
It seems extraordinary to me that I might live a couple of miles away from one of my sons and never see him. Of course, I don’t know any circumstances or background. One assumes there was some bad blood, but it might simply be they thought it best to bring the child up as a Sanders and sever all connections. We’ll never know. There was also the small matter of the Second World War ...
Anyway, the story has had a happy, if poignant, ending. Aged 82 and 81, the brothers are reunited for a photograph and may get chance to catch up some more in the future.
There’s an amazing similarity between the two of them and also with their father Norman.