Wow, I’m chuffed. Just saw my old Elan on Top Gear, an episode where Clarkson/May/Hammond were mixing with filthy rich car fanatics taking part in a classic rally on Majorca.
Of course, when I owned the Elan it needed a new chassis, a respray, and was sold with the clutch seized for around £700 if my memory serves me right. Being the first FHC Elan ever made I daresay it’s considered quite collectable today, probably worth over £30,000. Perhaps I should feel jealous, but I’m happy it’s living the high life, and that someone else is paying the bills. I can honestly say that I’m just as happy today with my MX5 1.6 MK1 because it’s far more usable and just as much fun.
Just once, our woody red mini traveller, I sold it at 23 years old needing clever welding to a clever welder. Twelve years later I saw it pulling into our local shops looking absolutely immaculate and no longer producing a blue haze, same owner too. I congratulated him on its superb condition, and he took a good ten minutes to show me all the work he had done restoring it, including the carpentry! They were moving to Cornwall so I was lucky to see it before it left the neighbourhood.
But now 52 years after manufacture it is no longer listed on the DVLA. Oh well.
I wouldn’t have the heart to check up on my old cars (can you really look them up at DVLA?). I’d be heart broken if they’ve been melted down and remade into a modern shopping trolley.
Edit: I just remembered I had a woody once, a Morris Traveller. It ended up in the scrapyard still bearing it’s reg. 60MM. What an idiot I was, forget the woody, that reg. would be worth £5,000? today.
I have done the reverse…met a car that I owned 10yrs later.
I was at a race track and saw a Brand new Datsun 280ZX when I was about 17yrs old (1977) which I took pictures of. 10 yrs later I still thought they looked a great car 2.8lts fuel injected straight 6. I then got the chance to buy one. One day while looking through old photographs I noticed the car I photographed 10 yrs earlier had the same registration number as the one I bought…it was meant for me.
I have since photographed many Ferraris and Lamborghini’s…but unfortunately I dont own any of them.
zebedee, funny you should mention the Datsun. I was amazed to see one on eBay today for £20,000+. If you’ll forgive me for saying, when current they were not up there with the likes of Ferrari, but now, crazy prices seem to be everywhere (except MX5’s of course).
I built a Mini Marcos in 1976 for £650. Did 90,000 miles in it in 6 years then sold it for £850. Saw it in 2000 looking better than it did just after I’d put it on the road.
Not quite the same thing but I bumped into a number plate I had owned previously a few years back…
During the 80s I owned a Vauxhall Astra Mark 1 which I bought new through a relative’s dealership. I asked him to try and get me a decent number plate and ended up with TCN 3Y. I sold it on with the car a few years later.
Imagine my surprise in the early 2000s when walking into the offices of the oil company I used to work for I saw a Lexus LS400 chauffeur car outside with the same number plate. I talked to the driver and sure enough he had bought the plate as a personalised plate, matched his initials, from off a car in the N East which is where I lived in the 80s…small world
RichardFX, I was right when I said it’s best not to look up the fate of your old cherished possessions at DVLA, but I couldn’t resist the temptation. I ran a few of my old reg. numbers through and discovered they were nearly all dead. The saddest one, a beautiful rust free Dutton Pheaton that I loved, HOT29L, which was perfectly set up for hill climbing with a 170bhp Fiat twincam, the fastest car I’ve ever owned. Just hope it died an honourable death on track rather than in a scrap yard.
I put my 1998 Mk2 on Ebay to sell last March. It was seen by a chap who lives four doors away from me and recognised by the sign written van in the background of the picture. I had not seen or spoken before his approach on line. The car was purchased and I crossed everything praying that the car didn’t go wrong. A friendship was struck, he and his wife subsequently joined the Owners Club and we all regularly attend club meetings and runs. We also meet socially in our own homes. The car has just passed this years MOT and thankfully there have been no problems. I can relax now, it’s his car!!
Sort of, sold a Renault 5 1.1tl to a mate who wrote it off, bought Renault 5 GT Turbo which then had a slight engine bay fire which melted one of the headlights, ended up getting a headlight from a scrappy which was from my old car.
Yes, my wife’s old Clio, an X plate of 2000. Still seen locally and apparently going strong, according to the owner.
It would have saved a fortune if we had kept it!
Seen quite a few of my cast-offs knocking about around my home town of Sheffield over the years. Datsun 100A F11 RWA 809R was spotted 2 years later in a car park looking very sorry for itself. Cortina SKU 771Y (traded in) went to a guy 2 miles away, I used to regularly walk past it. Micra E612 XWE - immaculate when sold - was spotted in the city centre 1 year later in a trashed state. Used to see my Corsa K46 HHL, p/xed in 2001, going past my office window for years after I sold it - that went off the road in 2010 I assume via scrappage as it’s no longer listed on the DVLA website; all my other old cars are.
Haven’t (yet) seen my Astra YL51 UJD or Fiesta PX09 WDP, according to the DVLA both are still on the road somewhere!
Strangest thing was when Dad p/xed Escort JWJ 875N in 1980, we didn’t see it again until we holidayed in a caravan park in North Wales in 1983 - & there was JWJ 875N parked at the side of the caravan adjacent to the one we’d hired!
