Just a quick bit of administration. As well as appearances in various automotive titles, mainly of a classic persuasion, you can find Ian Seabrook:

On Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ian-Seabrook-Writer/362329277237811

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Click one of the above links and Like or Follow me. 2014 promises to be an interesting year, and social media is where I’ll be placing updates first, whether relating to my everchanging fleet happenings, or where you can find my work.

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Thanks for all of your support so far. ClassicHub has been gently ambling along the cyberspace highway for three years now. Long may it continue!

No, not like that. Behave.

In early 1999, I bought the nicest car I’d ever owned. That may not sound that bold a statement for a 20-year old to make, but in three years, I’d already owned about seven cars. All of them rubbish (if lovable). That changed when I handed over the extraordinary sum of £1600 for a 1992 Citroen BX 19TGD in silver. Sadly, I don’t seem to have any photos of it in electronic form, so you’ll have to take my word for it. It was silver and felt hugely rapid! It was a 1.9 non-turbo diesel, so most of that was down to the fact that my only other experiences were 2CVs, Dyanes or a 1-litre Fiesta and a 1-litre Skoda Estelle that barely worked. Compared to these, the BX was a flyer, and it had five gears!

I clocked up about 6000 miles in six months, taking its total over 150,000. It still drove incredibly well, but I stupidly traded it in for a brand new Daewoo Matiz later in 1999. I have made better decisions over the years.

It didn’t look much better, even in focus

Not until 2004 did I get my hands on another BX. This time, rather than a 71bhp diesel, I opted for the most powerful BX (Group B rally cars excepting) that you could buy. The fearsome 160bhp 16-valve. It was ludicrously quick, ludicrously shoddy and huge fun. I somehow clocked up about 4000 miles in it during a frantic eight weeks of ownership, including trips to Devon and North Yorkshire. It was utterly knackered, but kept on going somehow. It was sold and later broken for spares, where it was discovered that it was hopelessly rotten. Oops.

I sold it mainly because my driving licence was in real danger. In a diesel BX, the power is pretty much all gone by 4000rpm. In a 16V, it’s only just waking up. Hitting 4000rpm felt like pressing a nitrous button. The thing would leap down the road and the scenery went all blurry. The problem was, you just wanted to keep on doing it! That was a problem in a car that would spring from 30mph to 70mph in just 7.4 seconds. Blink, and your speed was illegal. It was still hugely addictive, with the engine roaring in a manner that just encouraged you to be a hooligan. It had to go. It was swapped for a far more gentle Rover 414 ‘bubble.’

It would be a few more years until I scratched the BX itch again. A foolish plan was hatched by a friend and I, to take part in a Citroen BX rally that would drive around the perimeter of France – about 3000 or so miles. The only slight sticking point was that we didn’t own a BX. Happily, I found one on Ebay that sounded ideal and was on our doorstep. I bought it with an entire month still to go. It had 142,000 miles on the clock, and had lived in our village for most of its life.

It was so clean when I bought it!

Frankly, it was the best £266 I’d ever spent on a car. It didn’t come with much service history, but I popped to our local garage, and then got a print out going back years! I now had a fully historied diesel, in pretty good condition, with tax and MOT, for next to nothing. Result! Sure, the heater control had been cobbled together with a bicycle brake cable and the rear suspension arm bearings were groaning a bit, but I didn’t care. It’d be perfect! It just needed a livery…

The Green Tiger ready for its trip to France

It was too. I treated it to a service and then we headed off, wondering just what we’d let ourselves in for. Ok, so it wasn’t problem free (one split coolant hose and a rear disc shroud fell off) but we clocked up over 3000 miles in 17 days, averaging 48mpg in our £266 car. I felt a real bond with it after that, and couldn’t bear to part with the car or the graphics. It became my daily driver.

We used it to drive around Wales one weekend, where we found the house we wanted to move to. It helped us move too, with several 400-mile trips back and forth from Cambridgeshire. We went on holiday to Scotland in it. We once got stuck in a hideous snow storm in it. We even once slept in it (actually, I didn’t learn my lesson and attempted this once more on my own at a later date, with little more sucess).

Naturally though, I got bored with it in the end, and flogged it to a friend of mine. He hideously abused it for 30,000 miles and when I got it back, it was in a very sorry state. I tried to revive it – it remains the only car I’ve owned twice – but my love for it just wasn’t there anymore. I sold it for a pittance to someone who uncovered a lot of serious rot. It was sadly scrapped last year. It didn’t half pack a lot into its last few years though!

Not long after first selling it, I got wind of something quite remarkable. A Mk1 Citroen BX estate! At the time, these were just impossible to find. I paid £250 for it and dragged it home with my Range Rover. This one did not have full history and an MOT. It was a wreck.

The wreck I revived. What a car

The above was taken after several months of ownership. It took that long to fettle it into a state where it could just about scrape an MOT. I won two awards for it at two shows, both for worst car there! Truth was though, I found it a bit of a disappointment. The Mk1 BX has the wacky, original dashboard with utterly bonkers controls.

Bonkers, complete with rotating drum speedo

It was as insane as a Citroen dashboard should be. For example, there were no column stalks, just a lot of switches within easy reach of the steering wheel, banked down each side. You indicated by using a rocker switch. A slider controlled lights or the front wiper. The speedometer needle did not move, so the speedometer itself did, rotating around on a drum. I probably spent FAR too much time looking at how fast I was going, just because of how lovely a speedo it was. Thankfully, it was a diesel (and a poorly one at that) so I was never travelling very quickly.

But the switchgear wasn’t very nice to use. I didn’t enjoy it even half as much as a CX I’d owned earlier. I actually began to pine for the later Mk2, which still groups switchgear around the steering wheel, just with more sanity and sensible dials. I sold the Mk1 to a very enthusiastic enthusiast, who has continued its restoration. It still looks dreadful though! I still love it for that.

I was still feeling the BX love though, so bought my first turbo diesel for £375 in 2011. The extra performance was nice, as was even better fuel economy (54mpg on a run) thanks to taller gearing. That made it better on motorways than the non-turbo diesel. More refined.

This car was very quick. Its Peugeot alloys were sold very quickly

I hate alloy wheels, so they were quickly sold. With the proceeds, I purchased a set of winter tyres and found them superb. I also fitted a remote central locking kit. Wonderful. I liked this car a lot, but began to miss the extra practicality of the estate – nice as it was to have a sunroof. It lacked a tow bar too, so for some reason, I bought another BX that was (in theory) better.

BX Turbo Diesel estate was not as good as I’d hoped

Now I briefly owned two BXs! The red estate had covered over 300,000 miles. The thing was, it felt it! I lost my love for the vehicle after it blew a front-to-rear pipe, which cost almost as much (£400) as I’d paid for the car (£500). The silver BX got sold, which was probably a mistake looking back. The red estate later got swapped for a Volkswagen Golf, which was not a mistake – though it did quickly make me realise how inferior the Golf was when it came to ride comfort.

So, I left the world of BXs on a bit of a dark note. I decided to have a break from them. That’s lasted since July 2013 so far, and it’s now February 2014. I’m looking forward to a return to BXs once more – my fourth non-turbo diesel! I’ve gone through my reasoning before, so I won’t do again. While the BX isn’t perfect though – I get very frustrated by the single windscreen wiper, lack of a flip-wipe and flimsy interior build quality – I still haven’t yet managed to find a car that really matches it as a general all-rounder. Not that I’ll stop looking of course! That’d be silly.

Yes, it seems I’m thoroughly returning to the world of Citroens. Astonishingly, within hours of putting the Discovery on the market, a friend with a BX offered a swap deal involving actual money, as well as a 1988 BX 19RD estate. I couldn’t possibly refuse. After all, I have been missing BXs since I swapped my turbo diesel estate for a Volkswagen Golf last summer.

Don’t get me wrong – the BX is not a perfect vehicle. However, I still find it a very difficult car to match dynamically. It has an excellent balance of ride and handling – it’s good at both – and yet is massively practical, attractive (in an Etch-a-sketch kind of way) and economical. I’m looking forward to the swap taking  place, but it’s a good few days away yet. The BX is going to have a fresh MOT, and the Discovery is going to have new rear radius arm bushes fitted. I’m very excited.

Here’s a picture of it, next to my old striped BX estate.

My new BX sits alongside my old one in 2012

I am still hoping to close a deal on a Citroen XM as well. I’ve never owned an XM, but as it is really just a scaled up BX, I should imagine I’ll like it. It’s an automatic, so it’ll drink a lot more fuel than the BX, but offers a full-on-waft driving experience. Yet, as I well know, an XM can be hustled through corners with surprising vigour. Will it just be too big for Welsh roads? That was certainly a fault of its predecessor – the CX. I look forward to finding out.

I tried to sell the Discovery and failed. This led me to believe that I should keep it and I readily entered into the spirit of that decision. However, I was wrong. At the moment, I can’t justify a car I barely drive. It takes too long to warm up, so I don’t use it for local (ie less than 10 mile) journeys. It’s rubbish at hooning too, so I prefer using the 2CV or Sirion when twist roads are encountered. Twisty roads are encountered on pretty much every journey. I can’t even say that I use it everytime I go greenlaning, as I recently went in the 2CV instead. Albeit not too successfully…

Sorry for the to-ing and fro-ing, but it really must go

Last week, I did use it for a long-ish distant trip, but found it wasn’t as comfortable as I thought it was. It also reminded me just how unwieldy it is on twisty roads. Yes, it handles very well for something with a steering box, beam axles and so much weight so far from the ground, but it always feels heavy, especially when braking. I don’t really like that.

So, sensible head wins again. It really must go. I’ve got a lot of long-distance driving to do this year, and sadly my trip to Leicestershire in the 2CV has only reminded me how regular long distance driving really wallops my admiration of the Tin Snail. It was never built for motorways and driving it out of its comfort zone takes me out of mine too. A 2CV on a motorway should be an occasional adventure – one to savour. Just getting from A to B as quickly and as smoothly as possible is not its forte. You really are driving a 2CV at its limits at motorway speeds, and while it’ll happily lap up the abuse, it’s hardly relaxing.

What the replacement will be, you can only guess at. To be honest, I’m playing a guessing game myself. I may be getting an Citroen XM, but the purchase is not exactly going smoothly. A hydropneumatic Citroen seems a sensible option though. No other car rides in quite the same way, and 1980s/90s hydro-Cits combine ride and handling in a quite spell-binding way.

In the meantime, the Discovery is for sale with an asking price of £795. It’s not one of the best, but it’s a sound basis for further improvement. I may be sad to see it go, but perhaps it’s better to say goodbye while the memories are still fond. After all, few vehicles manage to combine the glorious looks of a Mk2 Transit, the humped roof of a Citroen CX Safari and lighting pinched from Maestros and Sherpas quite so well. I’m glad I have many photos of it.

Who am I to disagree? Some very dear chums of mine got married at the weekend. Sorry for taking quite so long to get my report of the day into readable form. There have been many distractions. Both are quite keen on the brand known as Skoda, as it seems are their friends and a good chunk of their families too! Skodas were plentiful, from rear-engined ‘jokes’ of the early 1980s right up to a brand new Superb estate, kindly loaned to the couple for the weekend by Skoda UK. Very nice of them!

Logistics are always a challenge, so I’d offered my services as a driver – though I could hardly offer any of my rusty relics as suitable transport. Fortunately, a mutual Skoda-owning chum called Dave, who was the best man, leant me his 1983 Skoda 120LE. This forerunner of the more-common Estelle shares the same delicious, kinked-up wingline as later models and naturally has the engine at the back. This example had only covered 19,000 miles. It was an honour to transport important folks to the service in style! Even better, another 120LE (that’s 100% of the 120LEs known in the UK) transported further wedding people. We enjoyed a merry convoy even in horrible weather conditions.

Fabulous wedding convoy!

As you can see, it’s a lovely example of the breed, though so is the yellow one behind it. Right. To the road test. The first one I’ve ever carried out accompanied by a bridesmaid.

It’s been a while since I drove a rear-engined Skoda, and I’d almost forgotten how thoroughly charming they are. The engine hums away in the distance, behind you though it must be said, it doesn’t provide very much urge. It delivers its power smoothly though, with a nice spread of torque. The gearchange is very much like many other rear-engined cars, from Volkswagen Beetle to Renault Dauphine. You can feel that there’s a lot of linkage, but there’s a nice, mechanical feel to the change, and I certainly didn’t have any issues finding the desired ratios.

The steering was lovely. It uses rack-and-pinion but having little weight up front means it can be nice and direct without being heavy. I was hardly going to push the handling to the limit – hairstyles and bouquets were at risk – and it’s probably best I didn’t, as they’re a bit of a handful when pushing on. I was still able to barrel along at a heady 50-60mph without having to get too pedestrian at the curves.

All-in-all, it was a reminder that I really do need another rear-engined Skoda in my life. There has been only one, and it wasn’t very good. Next time, I shall spend more than £150.

Finally, best wishes to Rob and Sophie Parker-Norman for the future. May life bring you much happiness and even more Skodas!

I’m sure the official photographs are better…

For no better reason than it’s been a while, I thought I’d regale you with details of how my ‘perfect,’ self-employed, freelancer writer life is going.

To recap – I quit my deputy editor job on Classic Car Weekly in August 2010. My wife Rachel quit her job around the same time. We sold our house in Cambridgeshire and bought a cottage in mid-Wales. We were going to live the dream! We’d be more self-sufficient, have much less income but life a vastly different life where the work/life balance was more in our favour.

There are occasional barriers to productivity…

There are bad times for sure. Dealing with enough wood to keep our house warm is hard work, the weather has been appalling at times and pretty much wiped out our food crops in 2012. Every time I travel for work purposes, I’m reminded just how far away we are from the places I have to visit too. Birmingham is about 100 miles away, Peterborough around 200. Just reaching a motorway requires a two-hour drive, regardless of which motorway you aim for. Thankfully, I don’t have to travel very often. It might seem odd that a petrolhead is glad not to have to drive, but driving long distance for work just isn’t as appealing as having a quick hoon on the quiet roads around here. Plus, motorways are really boring and ill-suited to most of the vehicles I own…

But, it is marvellous not having an alarm clock anymore. We get up when we feel like it, which is often embarrassingly late during the winter months, when we sort-of hibernate. I write when the mood takes me, which is usually fairly close to deadline (I need that sense of mild panic) but might be a Sunday evening or, occasionally, a Monday morning. Not before 9am though…

It leaves a LOT of spare time – I’m still currently working on average less than 15hrs a week. Mind you, that means income is far from high as well, so while I have plenty of time for hobbies and other activities, there’s never the freedom to spend money like we used to. At first, I would regularly raid charity shops for reading material, but this soon started to add up. Now, I make more use of the library. Free books! Incredible. Even better, you have to give them back, so you don’t end up filling your house with books.

Surprisingly, I don’t spend that much time reading car magazines. One major downside to writing material for magazines is that I’m just not so interested in reading them anymore. It feels a bit too much like work! I do spend a lot of time on car forums though – if there’s one thing I really miss sometimes, it’s having friends nearby with similar interests. I really couldn’t live the life we do without the internet. I have a few petrolhead friends here, but there’s not really a community of us. Fortunately, there is generally a great sense of community in our village and local area, and that really does drive home why we moved here. Life feels so much better when you can enjoy it with the people you see all the time. Neighbours become acquaintances and people come together to make things work. I love it. As a city boy, it’s a lifestyle I absolutely adore.

Sacrifices do have to be made though. We attend far, far fewer 2CV events these days, as the costs quickly start stacking up if you head to England for events every few weeks. So, we’ve lost touch with 2CVing chums, only interacting via Facebook – what a godsend that site is. Holidays are generally avoided – we actually had one this year for the first time. Funny thing is, we didn’t enjoy it as much as we thought we would…

I’ve also had to realise that many classic cars are now well out of my price range. My car fund is minute and while I’m managing to run three cars on pretty much naff all, it must be said that all three cars are far from prime examples of their breeds. I’m starting to crave something that’s actually nice!

Hugely desirable, and entirely unaffordable thanks to our lifestyle

Overall though, life feels like it is at a much nicer pace now. I have time to enjoy the company of the rather spiffing woman I married, rather than spending most of my time with her asleep as we did before. I can enjoy the art of lazy conversation with local friends over a cup of tea. I have become far more proficient with my musical instruments as there is actually time to practice. I’ve also learnt a lot more about working on cars, because more and more has had to be done by my own hands for cost reasons. There are times when I’m driving around local lanes when the sun does shine, and everything feels so brilliant that I might just explode with joy. Red Kites swooping overhead, lush, green fields with contours that are endlessly varied, smooth tarmac roads that are endlessly entertaining.

In conclusion though, it isn’t the perfect life – there’s no such thing really. But, we made a very brave decision in 2010 and thus far have felt absolutely no reason to doubt it. Sacrifices have been made, but they have been made willingly in order to spend more time in a state of relaxation, with a ‘paned o de’ close at hand. (Learning Welsh is our next challenge!)