The Video Review:
The Full Story:
This post was originally published on 30th January 2020:
What’s the latest with Car #1 then Geoff?
It’s been more than two weeks since the StreetKa arrived back at Geoff HQ… So what’s going on?
Why the radio silence, we hear you say?
Well, as of 8.12pm on January 30th, the StreetKa is sitting outside the workshop with a fresh MOT feeling decidedly neglected, but how did we get here…?
Cast your minds back three weeks and there we are, with the £378 from the canoe all ready to go, and no cars.
Sometimes it seems there’s just nothing around to buy. We’d scoured eBay, Facebook, Gumtree, Autotrader and nothing was jumping out. There were a few obvious purchases and a few potential money spinners but none were on the list and none were interesting.
After the disastrous experience with the Volvo 850 (worlds worst MOT advisory sheet) I promised that I wouldn’t buy anything with no MOT.
And then I did.
Late one night on Facebook marketplace a listing caught my eye because:
A) it was cheap
B) it had no roof
C) the seller seemed desperate
It was a 2003 Ford StreetKa with 80-odd-thousand miles and no MOT, but interestingly it was a nice dark grey colour with contrasting cream heated leather seats. A nice little roadster for pocket money.
He wanted £500, but I played on his desperation and we agreed at £300 if I got there the following day.
When we arrived to collect the car, it was… well, let’s just say the camera sometimes lies. Or more to the point, sometimes people use photos from when they first bought the car, or before they put that massive ding in the rear arch and before it got rusty.
So we get down there and it basically looks like a heap, but we’ve travelled two hours with cash to burn and don’t fancy heading home empty handed. What’s more, the car doesn’t start, even though it has a fresh battery. It still doesn’t start even when hooked up to Dad Geoff’s Mercedes E Class Diesel, which is worrying.
We’re about to walk away when it finally cranks into life. Brilliant, we think…
I take it around the block and it drives exactly like a car that’s been sat outside in the rain for 3 months. Rough. Returning the car to it’s space, I remove the key to have a chat with the owner and… the engine doesn’t stop. At all. The key is in my hand, and the engine is still ticking over nicely. Running around to remove the positive terminal from the battery, we kill the engine, then reconnect it and try to start the car again…. nothing. Confusion and befuddlement take over while all four of us present try to work out what the hell is going on with this awful little car.
Eventually we decide it’s something to do with the ignition switch, and it’s crunch time. The day is getting on, the seller has had enough and I’m anxious to make a decision.
Geoff “How much did the scrap man say”
Seller “£150”
Geoff “I’ll give you £150”
Seller “No man, I’d rather scrap it than give it to you for that. £300 and it’s yours.”
Geoff “How about £185?”
Seller “Come on man, it’s just an ignition switch, that’ll be like, twenty quid”
Geoff “Alright alright, £200 and we’ll take it now no questions asked”
The first deal was in the bag.
Fast forward another week and we get the verdict on the car…
It needs an ignition switch, a bulb, a set of plugs, some drop links and the kicker… rear subframe bushes.
Not the end of the world, but we have £178 left in the budget and the bill is going to be twice that.
We decide to just do the ignition switch and throw it on eBay for spares or repair….
BUT
In the days that follow we see a few StreetKa auctions with no MOT, and they all tick down with no bidders.
What do to what to do what to do?
Now, this is where we had to think outside of the box.
Either we sell it as is and make no money, or we find some mug to pay for the MOT directly by pulling in a favour.
Without going into too much detail (and revealing trade secrets) that’s exactly what we did.
We made a bet with someone, and won.
The net result was a blog that was seen by something like 20,000 people and a tweet from Chris Harris, and because of this, the aforementioned mug coughed up and paid for the work on the StreetKa.
Is it cheating? Possibly.
Does it matter? No.
Do I make the rules? Yes.
Anyway now that we’ve finally got some time to spare, we’ll be collecting the freshly MOT’d StreetKa ready for our first YouTube video, and hopefully a sale. Maybe even a profit.
Watch this space.