The Ones That Got Away

When Richard Brunning from Bad Obsession Motorsport asks if he can write a story for you, you say yes. Mainly because that’s polite, but also because you know it’s going to make for an excellent read. In this post, he explores some of the cars from his and partner in crime, Nik Blackhurst’s past that would be worth a small fortune had they kept them. Instead of, you know, ragging them to death in a muddy field! 

With increasing frequency, my wife has heard me exclaim, “How bloody much!?” while I innocently peruse the car classifieds. Someone was selling recently an exceptionally clean Austin Montego and wanted five figures for it. Eleven thousand pounds for a Montego! Maestros are fetching over four grand and they are terrible things. I had a metallic green MG Maestro once; I wonder how much that is worth now? I don’t think I gave much more than a bag of chips for it because, well, it’s a Maestro. I think I swapped it for a Suzuki GS550 that didn’t run very well. Don’t know what happened to that either.

Sitting having lunch with my colleague and bracket fetishist, Nik Blackhurst, we started thinking about all the cars that we have had in our possession over the years that we didn’t give a flying fig about at the time but are now worth ridiculous amounts of money.

Before we were old enough to have a licence, we messed around with cars at Nik’s uncle’s farm. It was a veritable cornucopia of crap that we fixed and raced around the fields. There was an orange Morris Marina 1800 TC, a black MK1 Fiesta, various Minis and Chevettes and a silver MK1 Fiesta Ghia! I daren’t imagine today’s value of the cars we thrashed around a muddy field in Shropshire.

Both Mr. Blackhurst and I had Renault 5s as our first car. I had a 1978 TS and Nik has a 1983 Le Car 2. Very posh. Mine was held together by bits of baler twine, papier-mâché and filler. Predictably, Nik’s had been crashed and he and his dad repaired it. The engine blew up in mine (nothing to do with me – probably) so I put a bigger one in it. Eventually though, it cried loudly and got scrapped. I bought Nik’s off him as he had graduated to the pain that is Hillman Imp ownership. Try buying a Renault 5 these days… I remember going to collect a 1978 Pontiac Catalina from somewhere fairly local. Nik gave the owner a shiny pound coin for it. Think that got scrapped, too.

My next car was a 1986 Vauxhall Nova SR. Seen the price of those lately? I then had an Electric Blue Renault 5 GT Turbo. I shudder to think about what I should have done with that. Meanwhile, Nik is going through cars like there’s no tomorrow; a MK1 Astra GTE that got stolen, a very rare 5 door MK1 Astra GTE, we had two Opel Manta GTE’s! We did our first road rally together in mine. We acquired a Mini 1000 from somewhere and promptly lost it. Can you imagine losing a Mini 1000 today and not being the least bit worried about it?

We towed – through the middle of Shrewsbury – a 1973 Simca 1000 Rallye 2 that didn’t run and had no brakes. The handbrake worked a little on one wheel so that was an interesting and perilous, not to mention illegal run back to the house where we parked it and got it running.

There have been the usual 205 GTIs, a 309 GTI that I thought was fabulous a Golf GTi 16v along with a Jetta GTi. Nik had a Chevette HSR shell at one point. He still hankers after another.

One car that we never actually owned but really should have done was a genuine, factory bubble arched MK1 Escort RS2000. The bloke only wanted £1200 for it but that was far too rich for our wallets. That would go a long way towards the pension these days…

The one that really sticks in the craw though is one that we both knew would be worth something in the future. For years it sat under a sheet in a corner of the first shed, and then the current shed when we moved but eventually space became a premium and it just wasn’t worth keeping hold of any longer. Unusually, it came complete and not crashed. We still have a complete spare engine and box on the shelf for it. It had a perfectly intact parcel shelf and everything, but a grand is a grand and cash is king so a trailer came and picked up the dusty but straight 1983 Renault 5 Gordini Turbo.

We barely gave a second thought to these cars; we certainly didn’t imagine some of them would be worth a small fortune today. This story I’m sure will resonate with many of you but it’s no good kicking ourselves because who could have foreseen a used Austin Montego ever being worth any more than a bag of chips?