The back story
Changing jobs to one with an actual commute and some crapping car-parking meant I started thinking about converting some cash to a "station car" - something smaller, cheap to own and that wouldn't leave me with the sads if anything happened to it.
First I wanted to go back to the Clio RS172 - but they've got a timing belt that costs the value of the car every 4 years to replace. And they're largely fucked at 18 years of age now. Good ones are out there but the best buying was 5 years ago. So I went laterally around the problem and woke up one morning remembering the Ford Fiesta XR4.
That was it - told the nopics who surprisingly was behind the idea although strongly wary of it looking like a gay clown car when the 6'+ dude gets out of it. We narrowed down a colour choice and the hunt started.
Currently these hover around an advertised $5k - so I figured $4k would get a combination of car with decent mechanical condition, some minor detailing and fixes outstanding and a better than average chance of getting through an ACT Rego inspection.
After a few weeks I'd gotten familiar enough with the ads to know "good ones move, and odd ones linger", Attributes of good ones: A recently changed clutch, working A/C and working seat tilt mechanisms. Some have iffy door locks and others - well as attractive as a full cat-less race exhaust is for power it wasn't going pass a rego inspection here.
Like every unique car there's forums and a Facebook group or 6. I decided one night to hit up one group with a "Hey peepz, I got the cash money show me your dope ridez" message - well a version of that written by a 45 year old IT dude. Funny enough while a few of the "old guard" are laughing at my audacity to expect a functional car for $4k the thread shook out a few cars and my Facebook Messenger a few more. Only one of these had been advertised elsewhere and was a car in Melbourne I was prepared to chase. But another name was familiar, another car looked familiar...
Enter gbanger.
Enter gbangers FiST (FiST is what the UK tragics refer to Fiesta ST's as in the UK)
A few days later I was taking nopics "to the back woods to meet a bloke named gbanger and check out his FiST". I really should have presented the invite to her differently.
Long story short - car was as described - gbanger had dailied the fuck out of it with his monster commute so mechanically it's very sound despite the kms, the body was not perfect, but again sound. In short it's a 12 year old car that is straight enough for the 10 foot test, and otherwise not going to attract attention in a carpark for being a minter. Except for the stripes. gbanger had a short thread here (https://performanceforums.com/forums...t150-toy-thing)
I picked it up yesterday and would the big spring up and drove it 220km home. At 3500rpm because these things don't have 6th gear....
I don't like the Stripes.
When these came out they were mostly striped from the factory, with a Stripe-Delete option being available but realistically most cars were sold with the stripes. nopics didn't like the stripes, I'm not a fan. So we bought the car with only half the stripes, and for everything else I have a heatgun. Half a day of ownership later "I like the stripes", this will playout further in this thread as stripe condition wasn't part of the buying checklist..
It's a lot of blue!
White on the outside, blue on the inside. Including the dash. It's like someone turned a traditional Australian Willow esky inside out. I guess that helps with the name we've given it "Chilly Bin", Chilly for sort - that and I've always thought these things were kind cool. It's still a lot of blue. Blue is not my favourite colour.
Ok Time to make with the Pics
Changing jobs to one with an actual commute and some crapping car-parking meant I started thinking about converting some cash to a "station car" - something smaller, cheap to own and that wouldn't leave me with the sads if anything happened to it.
First I wanted to go back to the Clio RS172 - but they've got a timing belt that costs the value of the car every 4 years to replace. And they're largely fucked at 18 years of age now. Good ones are out there but the best buying was 5 years ago. So I went laterally around the problem and woke up one morning remembering the Ford Fiesta XR4.
That was it - told the nopics who surprisingly was behind the idea although strongly wary of it looking like a gay clown car when the 6'+ dude gets out of it. We narrowed down a colour choice and the hunt started.
Currently these hover around an advertised $5k - so I figured $4k would get a combination of car with decent mechanical condition, some minor detailing and fixes outstanding and a better than average chance of getting through an ACT Rego inspection.
After a few weeks I'd gotten familiar enough with the ads to know "good ones move, and odd ones linger", Attributes of good ones: A recently changed clutch, working A/C and working seat tilt mechanisms. Some have iffy door locks and others - well as attractive as a full cat-less race exhaust is for power it wasn't going pass a rego inspection here.
Like every unique car there's forums and a Facebook group or 6. I decided one night to hit up one group with a "Hey peepz, I got the cash money show me your dope ridez" message - well a version of that written by a 45 year old IT dude. Funny enough while a few of the "old guard" are laughing at my audacity to expect a functional car for $4k the thread shook out a few cars and my Facebook Messenger a few more. Only one of these had been advertised elsewhere and was a car in Melbourne I was prepared to chase. But another name was familiar, another car looked familiar...
Enter gbanger.
Enter gbangers FiST (FiST is what the UK tragics refer to Fiesta ST's as in the UK)
A few days later I was taking nopics "to the back woods to meet a bloke named gbanger and check out his FiST". I really should have presented the invite to her differently.
Long story short - car was as described - gbanger had dailied the fuck out of it with his monster commute so mechanically it's very sound despite the kms, the body was not perfect, but again sound. In short it's a 12 year old car that is straight enough for the 10 foot test, and otherwise not going to attract attention in a carpark for being a minter. Except for the stripes. gbanger had a short thread here (https://performanceforums.com/forums...t150-toy-thing)
I picked it up yesterday and would the big spring up and drove it 220km home. At 3500rpm because these things don't have 6th gear....
I don't like the Stripes.
When these came out they were mostly striped from the factory, with a Stripe-Delete option being available but realistically most cars were sold with the stripes. nopics didn't like the stripes, I'm not a fan. So we bought the car with only half the stripes, and for everything else I have a heatgun. Half a day of ownership later "I like the stripes", this will playout further in this thread as stripe condition wasn't part of the buying checklist..
It's a lot of blue!
White on the outside, blue on the inside. Including the dash. It's like someone turned a traditional Australian Willow esky inside out. I guess that helps with the name we've given it "Chilly Bin", Chilly for sort - that and I've always thought these things were kind cool. It's still a lot of blue. Blue is not my favourite colour.
Ok Time to make with the Pics
... but the 5 other projects and kids got in the way of that.. Enjoy dude.. I'll be following..
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