Early in 1996 I visited a scrapyard to find a brake caliper for the Vauxhall Cavalier I owned at the time. Just as I parked, a recovery truck trailing a scruffy blue Viva drove past. I've always liked these cars, so I ran after the truck and arrived just as the car was being unchained. After I examined the car and found it to be mostly sound, I asked the scrap merchant for a price for the whole car. He asked for sixty pounds; I agreed to buy it there and then.
The recovery vehicle driver told me what he knew of the history of this Viva. It seems that the car had been in use until 1993 when, due to ill health, the elderly owner had given up driving and the car had been garaged. Sadly, the owner passed away, and his son sold the car to the scrapyard, which is where I came in.
Upon my return home, I had some explaining to do. At the time, I already had three cars, so admitting to my partner that I had bought more than just a brake caliper was tricky, to say the least.
Someone at the scrapyard had tried to start the car, connecting another battery across the very flat one in the car. Due to insufficient power, the starter failed to spin fast enough to engage. Believing it to be jammed, this person used a length of iron bar and a two pound lump hammer to hit the starter casing. This distorted the casing enough to jam the motor solid. Also the car had been towed using chains attached to the track rods; fortunately only bending one of them.
First I rebuilt the starter motor, using a spare casing. With fresh fuel and a well-charged battery, I soon had the engine running, and tentatively went for a brief drive round the block, to find out how much of the car worked. No major problems were found, so I booked it in for an MoT test knowing that it would fail because of the bent track rod. Strange, you may think; but doing this would show up other significant problems. The failure sheet listed rusted rear shock absorber mountings and rear seat belt mountings (both known rust spots on Viva HC's); with these repaired, and the steering rack reconditioned, the car passed the test.
Since then the Viva has been used as my daily transport; the original mileage of 56,256 miles when I bought the car has risen to over 75,000. I have had no major problems using this car as my sole means of transport; it has proven to be reliable and economical, on long journeys I have achieved 44mpg!
The only downside is the comments and jokes from non-enthusiast work colleagues and friends, who suggest that I should buy a 'decent car', whatever that's supposed to mean. The Viva is reliable, comfortable and very cheap to run. Recently, I worked out the cost of running this car, including buying it in the first place, all repair costs, fuel, insurance and any other related expenses that I could think of. This comes to just 11 pence per mile, so I think I can have the last laugh!
The bodywork was scruffy when I bought the car and has slowly deteriorated further. As soon as I have alternative transport, the Viva will be taken off the road for bodywork repairs. These will include new front wings and rear wheelarches, new outer sills, and repairs need to be made to the lower edges of all four doors. Once these, and a few 'detail' repairs are done, a respray in the original Sapphire Blue should see this car looking like new.