Alan's Cars

	This was my first car, the famous Datsun 180B SSS coupe. This car was much talked about due to it's highly modified 2litre engine, and was quite fast. It featured tuned extractors, twin carbys, electronic ignition, lowered suspension, gauges etc. But after 3 years of repairing broken gearboxes, difs, suspension etc. I soon replaced it.
	This car, the old Valiant "Slant Six" was bought for $50 for use as a spare car whilst repairing the SSS. I totally thrashed this car, including taking it off-road and driving it like a rally car, but we could not kill it, and so sold it for $150 a couple of months later! By the way, that's not me driving! Lesson learnt - never loan your car to friends!
	Next, I got my first practical car, my White, Holden HQ Wagon. Despite being practical, the car turned out to be a lemon, and needed a new exchange motor within 1 week of buying it. It was a money pit, and hence I only kept it for 1 year. The photo to the right is not my car, but just an example of the model.
	This was my first decent car, and one of my favorite cars, my trusty 4.2 V8, Comodore VB "Sportspack" Wagon. This car had everything, including auto, twin exhausts, electric everything, velour interior etc. This car was a pleasure to drive (being automatic), had plenty of power, and proved to be very reliable, but a bit heavy on fuel. I owned this car for 3 years.
	I then bought an ex-rally car - the famous Datsun 1600. It had very hard suspension, 2 litre motor with twin 45mm webers, roll cage, locked diff, it was gutted and had Perspex windows to keep the weight down. It was also very noisy, but was great fun to drive, and was very fast. It used to turn heads when this "stock looking" Datto pulled up next to other cars, as soon others would notice the roll cage, 5 point racing harnesses, the lumpy idle of the cam'd up engine, and the smell of the av-gas racing fuel.
	Having a V8 or rally car is good fun for a while, but then I had to get something more practical. So I bought a Commodore VH manual sedan, which had the 2.85 litre 6 cylinder motor. This was a very basic car, but got better fuel economy, and was also very reliable. After the cars came the Four Wheel Drives!

 These pages were last updated on 24 May 2009.