dickyb
Member
- Messages
- 433
Sadly the time has come to say goodbye to my beloved 145. After 11 years of faithful service and clocking up 149000 miles the old girl has succumbed to rust.
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An advisory on the MOT mentioned rusty inner arches and the front suspension turrets were beginning to crack so I booked it in to a car restorer to carry out some renovation work including new front bumper, front end repaint and all the rust repairs. I thought it would be a couple of grand, a lot to spend on an old car but I thought it was worth it as it was cheaper than buying something else. Unfortunately once the bodyshop started to strip the car this is what they found:
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The quote to do the very basics and squeeze through an MOT was just over £2000 but I'd still have further work to do and that didn't include fitting and painting the new bumper so I'd still have a slightly scruffy car. The floors are also pretty bad and the quote for all of the work amounts to over 100 hours and nearly £5000 so I have had to make the very difficult decision to call it a day. I am gutted as I loved my 145, so great to drive and nice to have a car that is now getting rare. They only sold 15 Cloverleafs in this colour in the UK too so even more upsetting. I was going to try to sell it as is for spares or repair but someone else will only break it up so I am going to break it myself so at least I can recoup some money. It breaks my heart but its really the only sensible thing to do
I bought one of these as a replacement yesterday:
View attachment 17039
I told myself I'd never lower myself to a diseasel but the petrol 147s are a bit dull and slow. I thought long and hard about what could be interesting and toyed with a Fiat Coupe 20v Turbo but as they have the same floorpan and underpinnings as the 145 it was likely that I would end up in the same mess in the future and prices seem to be daft, £3-4k for a decent one and they are all getting on a bit now. Changing personal circumstances and having too many other money pits money pits meant I needed something a bit cheaper to run with lower tax/insurance etc so this fits the bill I think. Mine doesn't have the side stripes so looks a bit more discrete.
View attachment 17030
An advisory on the MOT mentioned rusty inner arches and the front suspension turrets were beginning to crack so I booked it in to a car restorer to carry out some renovation work including new front bumper, front end repaint and all the rust repairs. I thought it would be a couple of grand, a lot to spend on an old car but I thought it was worth it as it was cheaper than buying something else. Unfortunately once the bodyshop started to strip the car this is what they found:
View attachment 17031
View attachment 17032
View attachment 17033
View attachment 17034
View attachment 17035
View attachment 17036
View attachment 17037
View attachment 17038
The quote to do the very basics and squeeze through an MOT was just over £2000 but I'd still have further work to do and that didn't include fitting and painting the new bumper so I'd still have a slightly scruffy car. The floors are also pretty bad and the quote for all of the work amounts to over 100 hours and nearly £5000 so I have had to make the very difficult decision to call it a day. I am gutted as I loved my 145, so great to drive and nice to have a car that is now getting rare. They only sold 15 Cloverleafs in this colour in the UK too so even more upsetting. I was going to try to sell it as is for spares or repair but someone else will only break it up so I am going to break it myself so at least I can recoup some money. It breaks my heart but its really the only sensible thing to do
I bought one of these as a replacement yesterday:
View attachment 17039
I told myself I'd never lower myself to a diseasel but the petrol 147s are a bit dull and slow. I thought long and hard about what could be interesting and toyed with a Fiat Coupe 20v Turbo but as they have the same floorpan and underpinnings as the 145 it was likely that I would end up in the same mess in the future and prices seem to be daft, £3-4k for a decent one and they are all getting on a bit now. Changing personal circumstances and having too many other money pits money pits meant I needed something a bit cheaper to run with lower tax/insurance etc so this fits the bill I think. Mine doesn't have the side stripes so looks a bit more discrete.
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