The Mk1 VW Golf - For all AA Patrolmen who haven't seen it yet.

We're not seriously suggesting our cars never break down.
(A Volkswagen's only human after all.)
But we do have something of a name for reliability.
A reputation that continues to thrive with the Volkswagen Golf.
And so it should.
It's built to our usual, unusually high standards.
Those we've been practising on our Beetle for more than 30 years.
We spend 16 hours putting each car together. Inspecting it every nut and bolt of the way.
And what happends when it does eventually roll off the production line?
We inspect it all over again.
Each and every car undergoes a rigorous 239 point quality check.
That way, if something falls off in anyone's hand, it's our hand.
Not yours.
So you see, even on the new Volkswagens we can still tell our reliability story.
A fact that might even tempt any AA man reading into buying one.
After all, when you fix cars for a living, the last thing you want to do in your spare time is fix cars.

Have a look in my shop for a high quality reprint of this advert along with other VW automobilia.

Brat!

Before the birth of the Impreza legend in the 1990s Subaru was primarily known for making semi-obscure cars and pickups. The quirky flat-four engines and four wheel drive throughout the range didn't really attract much attention in the UK when everyone seemingly wanted Cortinas and Cavaliers.



They were popular with farmers though, the advantages of all wheel drive all too clear across muddy fields and when towing, in fact the only Subarus I can remember seeing at all in the 1980s were in rural areas such as North Wales.



The pickup variant was perhaps the most stylish truck on the market in that sector at the time. The rear pillar swooping into the truck bed was clearly influenced by the American Chevrolet El Camino and Ford Ranchero. It was quite different to the rival offerings which showed little imagination at all, brutally hacking their body shapes vertically just behind the front seats and nailing on flat set of side panels to surround the bed. I have to admit that I'd nearly forgotten all about the MV until I saw one recently.



They were called the "Brat" in America and marketed as a lifestyle recreational vehicle, it's a shame that they weren't sold in the same way here as we may have rather more of them around today if they had been.

The Frenchman and his Ferrari 365 GT4 2+2

It's wrong to judge by appearances but he really did look as though he should have been behind the wheel of a Range Rover Sport, or maybe one of the current line-up from Aston Martin. But fair play to the man with the long blonde hair (the sort that looks effortlessly dishevelled but you just know costs more in maintenance per month than an average old car) because he was behind the wheel of one of my favourite Ferraris and he looked as though he was loving it.

I'm not really a Ferrari guy. As a fully qualified Petrolhead I naturally understand what they are about and I'll always take time to have a good look if I see one parked up, but they rank far below the likes of Porsche and Aston on my list. There are three, however, that I absolutely adore. The Daytona, the Testarossa, and the 365/400/412.



The expensive Frenchman (I assume he was French, we were in France and the car was on French plates) showed fabulous taste with his 365 GT4 2+2. Pininfarina did a wonderful job of shaping this front-engined GT mile-muncher, elegant lines effortlessly disguising the bulk (as big as a Jaguar XJ6) but still retaining some sporty schoolboy-delighting detailing in the form of the pop-up headlamps and trademark twin round tails.

The bronze paint shone gloriously in the sunshine and the exhausts barked as he accelerated off the Autoroute and up the slip road. I hope he was on his way to somewhere suitably glamorous.

Citroën CX Leader D

I was 650 miles into my 1000 mile drive home from my holiday, somewhere in France, when a sleek silver shape caught my eye in the distance. Low, much lower than the modern cars around it, and so very very sleek - it could only have been a Citroën CX.



As I caught it up in the traffic I took time to have a good look, it really isn't very often that they can be seen "out in the wild". The supple hydropneumatic suspension was working brilliantly, the car effortlessly floating over the broken Autoroute that was causing my own car some discomfort.

The CX was, for many people, the last of the "proper" Citroëns, coming not long before Peugeot took over the company. The graceful design really did justice as a replacement for the wondrous DS and although there are startling similarities to the Pininfarina BMC 1800 prototype some seven years earlier there was nothing like it on the roads.

The one I saw was a Leader D model, a diesel variant of a limited line in 1984. It was tatty but clearly loved and no doubt gets the owner lots of glances and attention. Long may it continue!

If you're a Citroën enthusiast, or you know someone that is, then you may find something of interest in the Citroën section of my shop. Small inexpensive gifts for enthusiasts and brochures/automobilia - have a look and see what I've got at the moment!