Nonsense I Won On eBay 04/12/2012

I did try, to go cold turkey on eBay, I really did. But to no avail. I blame Saturday shifts at work, where I arrive early and the internet is just..over...there and there's all that lovely stuff out there for such low, low, prices.

Anyway. This weeks bounty came slithering through the letterbox and plopped right down onto the mat, causing great joy in my soul. It's a 1966 US Ford catalog(ue) and a brochure for the Seat Malaga.

It's been an exciting week, as you can see.

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Ford Ka Revisited

I’ve been driving around for the last couple of days, and will be for the rest of the week, in a ’97 Ka that’s been in the family for thirteen years.

It’s hard to believe it now, with rusty, dishevelled old Ka's ubiquitous on our roads, and on the back of scrap lorries the country over, but the Ka looked like it was from the future when it arrived in ’96. Ford was in the middle of its “edge design” adventures, the Ka was quite a radical departure for the small car market, and particularly for dull old Ford.

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How to Win Friends and Influence People, Corporate Style

So I was seven years old (EDIT:- No I wasn't, I was six. Elementary maths fail), and I wanted to be a car designer. Cool, OK, most kids my age wanted to be footballers, astronauts or pilots, and there were probably a few hopelessly precocious little bastards who wanted to be lawyers or realtors, but at least I had a direction in life.

But how to get started? Well, my Dad was the proud owner at that time of a Ford Cortina. I loved that car, it took me to awesome places like airshows and the seaside. Yes, that was it, before my eighth (EDIT:- Seventh) birthday I'd write to Ford and they'd almost certainly give me a job.

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Driven #8:- Mk 3 Mondeo 2.2 TDci

 

In 1997 Grand Theft Auto was released in all its anarchic, top-down glory. Here was a game where you were encouraged to steal any and all vehicles found prowling the mean streets of Liberty City. The choice was huge, with public utility vehicles like ambulances, coaches and police cars, as well as motorbikes and supercars. Some of these were recognisable. The Ferrari Testarossa made an appearance, as did the Escort Cosworth, both iconic machines. You could understand their inclusion.

One car, though, stood out to me. Why have they included that? Also, why have they awarded it such an insulting in-game name? That car was the Ford Mondeo. And that name? Mundano. And a new cliché was born.

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Driven #1:- '96-'08 Ford Ka

2009s Ford “new” Ka was met with a universal shrug of ambivalence from the motoring press. A car widely acknowledged as being "nice". There were no fireworks released or front pages being held, Ford had released quite a nice car into a sea of quite nice cars. And as has been commented in numerous places, this is rather a shame.

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