NDD 96W

NDD 96W was registered in Gloucester in September 1980 and sold by Warners of Gloucester. 12 years later I bought it from it's original owner, when it was still in very good condition, with only 29,000 miles on the clock. The picture above shows it a couple of weeks after I bought it, parked by the road to Stwlam dam in Snowdonia. Since then I have added another 30,000 miles and the body has started rusting in earnest, despite my best efforts to keep it looking good. The Maxi is a large car, but it's very comfortable and refined when it's in a good mood. Performance is not bad with a quoted maximum speed of about 95mph and 0-60 in under a year. I've used the car for towing and found it to be a good tug up to 50mph, but any faster and the fuel consumption, normally about 32mpg, goes through the roof.

NDD 96W is a Maxi 2 L in snapdragon yellow (see the pictures page for proof that it was a genuine colour) and has a single carburettor 1748cc engine and a manual five speed gearbox. I've given it halogen headlamps and driving lamps (it's like driving behind a light house compared with sealed beam units) and a towbar since then, and I've got the bits for a rear wash/wipe (courtesy of a Fiesta, a Marina and a Renault 20). As well as trying to improve it, I'm also trying to ensure its survival and to that end I've been gradually rebuilding bits (engine mounts and clutch hydraulics last year, brakes this year).

In April 1995 I decided to convert the car to run on unleaded petrol. I bought a replacement cylinder head (with free engine), but after finding a machine shop to do the work, I decided to see what would happen if I ran it on unleaded anyway, and at least save some money before having the work done. The timing was retarded by 5 degrees. The upshot of all this is that a 18 months and 12000 miles later the car occasionally pinks, but I have not had any other problems. Pinking was particularly a problem when towing a caravan and in the end I swapped back to 4 star for a couple of hundred miles. Is this experience what would be expected from a car of this type and treated in this way? If you have any comments please let me know, if I get a number I shall report to the uk.rec.cars.classic newsgroup. Since I originally wrote this, I've put a new thermostat in, the engine runs much warmer than it did and the pinking has been considerably reduced.