tl:dr certain makes of c21st vehicles are often a lot more reliable and better engineered than those from the 1980s.

The musing on the Portishead branch's temporarily moribund infrastructure and the parked-up new vehicles that surrounds it, took me to Weymouth, it reminded me of the time when driving licences were passed and the hunt for an ex demonstrator vehicle was on.

This was 1989ish, and there was a British Leyland garage nearby, so, in we went to check over... a Metro.

A canary yellow Metro.

This, the sales guy said, was the price it was because it was a 'Jersey Metro' - perhaps it was some tax advantage that caused them to be taken to Weymouth, exported to the Channel Islands, re-imported and sold. I immediately reflected that perhaps it had been cargo on a car transporter train, down the harbour branch on its way to the ferry. Perhaps that happened. Perhaps there's no photographic evidence.

Further inspection suggested that it may indeed have been sitting around in a salt-laden atmosphere, despite it being 'New' the paintwork was dull and a little rust was starting in the weld attaching the roof gutter. To this day, in some remote location on Jersey, there just might be a vehicle compound with half a dozen now barely recognisable relics of that era.

Ended up buying a near-new Peugeot 205 XLD, which on the whole worked out well, though it was rather hungry for front wheel bearing gaiters.

Also, at one point, it needed a replacement head gasket after a few winters of cold starts and immediately up a 1 in 6.

Oh, and later on, its clutch cable snapped half way up a 1 in 7, which stopped the job, though a plus point was that Anthony Head stopped to see if we were ok and then two guys from the garage that maintained it came out very cheerfully to see if they could rescue the situation.

Then... drum brakes. Coming out of Chepstow on the suburban road with speed humps and constantly touching the brakes, onto the motorway and it became obvious that the brakes were somewhat on and would not release - I can't remember the symptom (oh yes I can, it involved heat, smoke, and, once we were off the Severn Bridge, a visit to the hard shoulder). Once they'd cooled they were somewhat happy again.

And... ah, yes, the time that fuel starvation set in, but only in an uphill direction - that turned out to need its fuel pump and injectors needing to travel to a specialist engineer...

Oh, and just once, we ran it out of fuel, partly because we didn't know where Bicester was and partly because the thing was ludicrously fuel efficient (for a car) that it was easy to forget about the stuff. The guy from Green Flag, to his credit, didn't bat an eyelid.

But... it worked out well. Thinking now of the strange trip back from Orkney during that fuel strike, no fuel so the motorway system was empty. The people we were staying with up there kindly lent us, was it a 25 litre plastic can, which with a full tank as well put South West England easily within range, without needing to depend on a filling station, most of which were out of fuel.

Mark