About Us (or, rather, me!).
Welcome to my website. My name is Bernard Mullen and I am a retired accountant. I created this website because I have love affairs with numerous cars; sadly my love has not always been reciprocated! To put it bluntly I have owned some pretty awful cars in my time and these are just a few of them.
My first brush with the internal combustion engine was with an old 3T Triumph motorbike. I was given this as a gift; probably because no one in their right mind would pay anything for it; and I drove it around a patch of waste ground owned by a local farmer who wasn't bothered by the horrible racket it made. What didn't help was the fact I was extremely short of money. Petrol was dear, but paraffin was cheaper. I learned from some impecunious friends that a motorbike could be persuaded to run on paraffin if the carburettor was first filled with petrol! This was very successful but what they didn't tell me was that the engine, which was air cooled, would very quickly overheat. I knew this was happening when the exhaust stubs glowed first dull red, then orange, then white, at which stage I would switch the engine off and go and have a cup of tea. Bravely, the engine put up with this behaviour for several weeks before a piston crashed straight through the crankcase. I never could understand how it happened.
My first car was a Ford Popular. This was back in the days when there was no MOT test and it was in a pretty ropey condition. To get it started took a great deal of swinging on a starter handle; and if I didn't hold it just right when the engine fired the kickback came close to breaking my wrist. I put up with this though; but the last straw came when I climbed into the car one day and my foot went straight through the floor. The only thing holding things together was a thin film of rust.
My next car was a Vauxhall Victor 2000 which was almost new and which I was very proud of. I was a bit disconcerted though when I saw lines of bubbles appearing along the front wings. When I checked underneath them I found a ledge had been built in with, seemingly, no other purpose but to collect mud right underneath the line of bubbles. I checked lots of other Vauxhall Victors and they all had the same fault. Yes, this was the age of planned obsolescence and either a designer had been completely incompetent or a deliberate policy was being made to ensure that the cars were scrapped before the engines wore out.
After that I had a succession of Rovers. Some people never learn do they? The 820 I bought looked magnificent in the showroom but the list of problems I had with it would fill an encyclopaedia, ranging from a new windscreen wiper assembly every few months to electric windows which disintegrated in cold weather. The SD1 which followed it had 30,000 miles on the clock (whether it was true or not I had no means of telling) but the power steering failed completely after three months of use and the engine was completely clapped-out, pumping out vast quantities of smoke at anything over 2000 rpm, not long afterwards.
I now drive Rover 75s; I own two of them and have done so for nearly 15 years. I bought them at a bargain price when Rover went bust and I have never regretted it since; they are beautiful cars to drive and are still very reliable even though they have both covered more than 100,000 miles. Sadly rust is starting to strike so they will have to be replaced soon; can anyone recommend a decent, large car that will see me through for the rest of my days?