First car recommendations?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Could you give some more details of this car? Like age and model? The 100 didn't have a pre-select box.

[Davey]

A little clarification. I could pre-select a change up or down, the actual change being activated by depressing the 'clutch' pedal. If it was not a 100, but a 90 or something, my apologies, I have always thought of it as a 100. Other than that, and that it was black, and had worn tan leather seats, I don't have much more information. As I said, "I wonder where he is now?".

--=20 Davey.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes - that's a preselector box.

The 60,75,80,90,100,105,110 were all post war cars with normal synchromesh boxes. Apart from the 105R.

I'm not well up on pre-war Rovers - but they tended to be named by HP, ie

10,12,20,25 etc.

Are you certain it was a Rover?

[Frank Erskine]

My dad had a Rover 60, which had a "freewheel", which made it unnecessary to use the clutch to change gear. Very useful to help you home if the clutch cable "went" provided that you could roll start and didn't have to stop during the journey, as I found out when I looked after (a.k.a. "used") the car whilst Dad was at sea. I'd parked the car on a hill, fortunately. I left it until a Sunday when there was little traffic, and managed to drive home, about 10 miles, without having to stop...

Heck - that must've been ca. 45 years ago :-)

[Davey]

Absolutely, no doubt about that. The fun part of the pre-selector was when driving in the country, you could pre-select the up or down, and then make the change as you approached a bend, or accelerated after a bend, when you were ready. It was quite nimble, for its size. The control lever was on the right side of the steering column. This was certainly the 'Auntie' Rover 75/90/100 body style, and all black. Maybe the box was not original? But it seemed to be well integrated.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Certainly not original. I don't know of any Rover ever fitted with a pre-select box - although I don't have extensive knowledge of all models. I did have a '35 12 which had a crash box and freewheel. The box was unusual in that the gear engagement was by dog clutches - rather like most motorbikes.

It would seem a strange thing to experiment with too, as by the time the P4 arrived autos were becoming common in the US. So an auto P4 may have been tried. Although Rover never marketed a full auto P4 - just a weird attempt with the 105R. IIRC, the reason it was never fitted with an auto was the amount of chassis and body mods required, as the P5 (with the same engine family) was available with one during the P4 production run.

Have you ever been in contact with the P4 club? I'm sure they'd be fascinated to know of this one. Especially since the 100 didn't arrive until 1960, when pre-select boxes were virtually forgotten, for cars, at least. The auto had replaced them.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Apparently, some companies are now doing this. You transfer your pension to them, and they can then lend some of it back to you.

However, HMRC then come after you for 40% of it (tax) plus

15% (fine for using an unauthorised scheme), and the funds seem to charge around 25%, and basically, you kissed goodbye to 80% of your pension.

BBC's "Money Programme" was warning about this...

Really? Hadn't heard that one.

[Nightjar]

I had one of those too. It can just about be seen in the only photo I have of the car, although most blokes don't look further than the bonnet ornament.

Bignell

[MuddyMike]

bird has her arse on it...

Mike

[gremlin_95]

Well, what a pain finding cheap insurance is!

Quotes for many different cheap 1000cc (or below) cars are coming in at £5000+ with me as the main driver and registered keeper and my Mum as a named driver (not the other way round because I will be using the car most!)

However, someone in this thread suggested a van and I am glad they did, I can get a car derived van* insured for just over £3000. Still very expensive and I think it's also due to my area which has had a lot of car vandalism recently (mirrors being ripped off, stereos being nicked etc), however out of interest, I checked a friends area and it would only be around the £1650 - £2000 mark which is cheap as far as young drivers insurance gets.

So not exactly sure what I will do for now, I can get a 31 day bus pass to get to work which works out at just over £3.40 a day which is excellent considering the route I will use is around 36 miles each way!

*Vauxhall Corsavan 1.7 diesel. Peugeot Partner HDI and many others all cost about the same.

[gremlin_95]

Oh and I won't be using my mates address!

[Phil L]

this is in reply to a post made in Feb?

Nice retention

[gremlin_95]

Sorry I am still getting to grips with using Thunderbird, the thread has a lot of messages: