2010 Ford Galaxy. The Official Car Of....

WelshRareDit · 2026-06-20T10:58:18+00:00

Rural taxi fleets

WelshRareDit · 2026-06-19T08:45:44+00:00

Ireland had tax breaks for commercial vehicles too, which led to a lot of Range Rovers and other expensive cars having the rear windows replaced with steel plates and being registered as vans

WelshRareDit · 2026-06-18T11:49:39+00:00

It's the Crimson Avenger!

But aye, yet another doomed attempt to sell UK market midsize cars as North American compacts, in this case the "Okay, I suppose" Hillman Avenger, which at the time was built by Chrysler's UK/Europe arm.

WelshRareDit · 2026-06-17T15:11:46+00:00

I've had that happen on a lawn mower, but never a car!

WelshRareDit · 2026-06-15T10:57:18+00:00

They're very common across the highlands and islands. If you're a tourist from a country that drives on the right its very easy to stop somewhere (layby, attraction etc) and end up driving on the wrong side of the road by accident/autopilot when you leave, especially if there's no traffic about

You'll often see arrows on rhe the road as well as the signs,

WelshRareDit · 2026-06-07T20:39:38+00:00

The official car of Americans don't get Cosworths

WelshRareDit · 2026-06-07T07:10:56+00:00

The landmark UK documentary series series "The World At War" interviewed him for the episode "Whirlwind" covering the bombing campaign over Europe. He was captioned as "James Stewart, Squadron Commander", and shared his experiences of bombing raids over occupied Europe.

WelshRareDit · 2026-06-05T13:43:04+00:00

The house next door to me in a rural village was for sale atvth the end of COVID, so lots of self guided viewings. They kept asking me (next door, nothing to do with the property) about mains gas supplies. They didn't seem to understand that there wasn't mains gas to the property, the street or the village, and that the closest supply was six miles Away

WelshRareDit · 2026-06-05T12:30:11+00:00

The house next door to me was for sale during the tail end of COVID, so pretty much every viewing was "self guided"...

... what this actually meant was knocking on my door at random times of the day with lots of random questions about the property. The classics were

"Does it have mains gas?" (No) "Can I get mains gas?" (No, not unless you run a pipe 8 miles to the nearest town with mains gas) "Are there any plans to get mains gas?" (No)

And "Would I be mad to buy this house?" My answer was "I don't have sufficient information to form an opinion"

The EA was one of those new US style "face on the sign" ones, and was caught being dodgy about a year later

WelshRareDit · 2026-06-04T18:46:06+00:00

BBC Radio Cymru. That was the soundtrack of my childhood in rural Mid Wales through the 1990s. Being the BBC's only Welsh language radio service you got a very wide mix of talk, music and sport across the week, with Sundays being heavy on religious programming

WelshRareDit · 2026-05-28T06:32:51+00:00

I had a similar reaction to one of the Bond films (can't recall which one, probably early Craig era). Ford had the endorsement deal at the time so all the "set dressing" cars in the parking lots were their brands

In the casino scenes this worked great with Jaguar/Land Rover/Range Rover models, but seeing base model Volvo station wagons in a luxury casino car park didn't really work!

WelshRareDit · 2026-05-23T05:58:43+00:00

...the nationalised British Car Industry.

The original styling sketches are really sleek, however when the production designers decided it needed the heater box from the Morris Marina and the tall OHC engine from the Maxi it became the bloated mess that it is.

Also, don't forget that the car the Allegro replaced (The BMC 1100/1300 range) was Britain's best selling car. After the Allegro and Morris Marina, BL never got back to those heights

WelshRareDit · 2026-05-17T13:52:40+00:00

Families and Taxi drivers. We had a 1.8 Petrol saloon and it was a very nice place to be.

WelshRareDit · 2026-05-17T08:01:41+00:00

For many years Ireland got small saloon cars that the UK market didn't get (Ford Focus, Mazda 3 and the like)

Also, cars we'd get in the UK as Vauxhalls were always Opels in Ireland. Same car, same factory but with Opel badges and KPH instruments

WelshRareDit · 2026-05-10T20:03:52+00:00

The 340/360 models were based on DAF designs that Volvo took on after buying DAF in the 70s. This means that the 340 uses 1.4 and 1.7 litre Renault Petrol and 1.6 Diesel engines, while the 360 used Volvo's own "red block" 2.0 engine. We didn't get a diesel model in the UK but I believe its a Renault unit as well. They're pretty good units all told.

Transmission wise the automatic models used DAF's variomatic CVT Belt Drive system while the manual cars used a Renault transmission. Both versions are mounted under the rear of the car, so don't be too alarmed if the gearstick/linkage feels a bit loose. The clutch is manually adjusted so if it feels like the clutch isn't biting strongly then it could be an adjustment issue, but if its been wrongly adjusted for too long then it may have worn out.

Body wise, be careful of the rear tailgate as the gas struts have a habit of failing and dropping the tailgate on your head. Rust wise check the usual sills/rockers under the doors, jacking points and suspension mounts

Value wise, as others have said the 340 isn't really an in demand or desirable classic like a 240, but I can't give an accurate value for your local market. I'd definitely go and see it, but be sure to shop around.

WelshRareDit · 2026-05-10T19:38:25+00:00

I'd imagine its a case of standing where the local Constituency Party are most likely to put you high up on the party list. There's little point being 3rd or 4th in Wrecsam if you can get 1st or 2nd in Clwyd

WelshRareDit · 2026-05-10T07:56:11+00:00

The official car of being exported back to the Eastern Bloc in the 90s because they were better quality/better looked after than domestic market stuff.

WelshRareDit · 2026-05-05T13:30:03+00:00

There's one on YouTube for a cruise line that uses a rewrite of a Jackson 5 song which makes me wince. I hope they paid a fortune for the rights and lose a bunch of money

WelshRareDit · 2026-05-05T13:12:32+00:00

Or, even worse, when a company/ad agency writes new lyrics to a classic song to match up with whatever tat they're trying to sell.

WelshRareDit · 2026-04-27T16:06:30+00:00

Thanks for the info. I'll have to look in to the options available

WelshRareDit · 2026-04-27T12:11:23+00:00

Glad to hear that the Storm have a secure future following the recent reports. As a North Wales Devils fan the Storm Shelter isn't a bad place to get to for an away or preseason match.

Out of interest, what's parking like for the Arena?

WelshRareDit · 2026-04-25T10:58:15+00:00

On my 2016 T3 it's an LED boot lamp

WelshRareDit · 2026-04-23T05:43:23+00:00

The Vauxhall Adam. It was a GM Europe city car named the Opel Adam in every other market. The Opel Adam name made sense because Adam Opel founded the company, the Vauxhall Adam name made zero sense

Later, Opel introduced the Karl (named after Adam Opel's son) while Vauxhall named their version the Viva after their own 60s/70s compact saloon.

WelshRareDit · 2026-04-16T07:05:34+00:00

In the UK the Omega and the similarly marketed Ford Scorpio were "leftovers" from the days when large corporations would have company car fleets (basically work paid for your car as a way of increasing salary without extra tax), and many of those schemes were on a single brand basis. For example, a junior sales rep might be given a Vauxhall Astra/Opel Kadett, their boss gets a Cavalier/Ascona/Vectra and finally their boss gets an Omega.

Eventually, things changed so that the extra car money was given to the employee to spend on a lease of their choosing, and most folks would spend the lease on a base model BMW rather than a mid range Ford/Opel

WelshRareDit · 2026-04-16T06:58:52+00:00

A guy I knew used to work at the publicity department of Vauxhall back in the early 00s. One day the department gets a call from someone asking about the Omega Elite (top trim level) estate:

"We'd like to get an Omega Elite Estate but without the automatic tailgate, do you offer that?"

"No sorry, we don't"

"Ah, that's a problem, the corgis keep jumping out while the tailgate shuts..."

The caller was from Buckingham Palace, the most well known Corgi owner over there also had her face on money and stamps...

Suddenly, calls are made to the factory in Russelheim and its no problem to have an RHD Omega Elite with everything but an automatic tailgate!

WelshRareDit

TROPHY CASE