So I guess it was lust at first sight yet another car I don’t need so after an afternoon in the beer garden I contacted the seller and received more pictures confirming that I have to go and view.

Having just bought a BMW 630i on a whim for my birthday a couple of months earlier, it was more midlife crisis behavior! This wasn’t gonna go down well with the "boss" but couldn’t resist and went to view...

From the first glimpse I knew I had bought this car but tried really hard not to look too enthusiastic in front of Ben at Chevin Specialist Vehicles. Up on the ramp me and my mate, Josh, were amazed how solid this car was and the Essex v6 sounded awesome - fitted with power flow pipes. I managed to hold my excitement and leave saying I would have a think about it.

After sweet talking Gaynor, my ever patient girlfriend, imbibing "rude not to" quantities of vodka and drooling over more photos I arranged for a second viewing and the all important test drive.

To be honest, I think Ben knew I was having this awesome car but I was trying to be cool about it. Ha ha.

Back home the same evening, much alcohol related haggling by text message was undertaken... And the deal was done!

The search for this car started about 6 years previously, following me blowing up my Audi TT on the M6... After a frightening realization of the cost of rebuilding the Audi engine I got rid of it and said to myself "I want a car that I can fix like in the old days of my teenage years". So I bought "Tina", a MK 3 Ford Cortina.

I was going to keep Tina forever, she was my daily driver and I had no intention of ever selling her. But a new business opportunity put pay to that idea, unfortunately.

After a long time looking, the Taunus was the perfect replacement.

The P7b 20m 2500S hardtop runs perfectly. Fitted with an Essex v6 and 4speed box she goes, but the steering and handling left a lot to be desired. The first thing to go was the steering wheel - an upside down road cone as my mate Josh described it!

The original steering wheel was replaced with a nice after-market wood rim wheel and after trying three different steering wheel boss kits, the wheel fitted beautifully.

Next on the list was to re-bushed the track control arms, anti-roll bar and steering idler. This led to much improved road holding, which was much improved by locating better wheels.As nice as the wheels look, the 20mm spacers on the front and 10mm spacers on back give some very "interesting" road holding characteristics... Eventually I settled on some 7x13 JBW smoothies, with correct offset! This meant I could finally remove the wheel spacers.

Overall the 2500S is a pretty well sorted car, and I did not have much to do to make her my daily runner - which is definitely what I want. I don't have the time nor money to have a show car and I fully intend to spend my time enjoying it.

Recent additions to the Taunus have included fitting a Fuzzy dice along with fitting a retro-look digital radio and an 8-ball gear knob. All technical stuff!! Ha ha.

Oh, and of course, I can't forget the 8-ball valve caps...