This is the story of Danny Gardner and his 1987 Ford Fiesta 1.1L, imported to the UK in 1988 and affectionately known as Evop!
From Danny, in his own words…
“My late father bought me the car back in January 2001. It was a part exchange at the car dealers my brother was working at (Car Land) and he bought it for me for £150 as my first car for when I turned 17 in the August.
Since then we’ve done a fair bit together. My everyday car from passing my test, until 2003 when I bought a Ford Sierra to use every day.
She had a bodywork freshen-up in 2002, then I crashed it, so back to the body shop for another tidy-up. I went through my boy racer stage and fitted a bigger engine (1.6 Crossflow) and all the usually silly accessories. Thankfully they’ve mostly been removed or changed back to standard now including changing back to the factory-fitted 1100 engine in 2009.
(The original engine had sat in the damp for many years and wouldn’t start when refitted, with virtually no compression. It was assumed to be scrap, but after soaking the bores with Redex for 24 hours, it fired up and has done over 10,000 miles since then)
We’ve moved house with it twice! Thanks to a roof box and small trailer for extra room.
Attended many car shows over the years, travelled to many parts of the UK, and done a couple of little sprint-style track days too just for fun. It’s also the only vehicle we have left that our unborn son got to travel in before we lost him. I then went on to use the car to raise money for SANDS charity:
Not long after that I put the car away for a good few years but was inspired to get it back out again with the announcement that Ford were discontinuing the Ford Fiesta. A first-time pass on the MOT even after all those years parked away.
I then took the car back to visit two Bristol Street Ford dealers during their “farewell Fiesta” event including the Birmingham branch that supplied the car in 1988 (after paying my clean air zone fee of course) and I’ve managed to get one show in this year too.
It was my intention to get some more body work done this year as it needs tidying up again however I’m struggling to find a body shop prepared to do the work. They keep saying “It’s more than it’s worth” but don’t understand what it’s worth to us…”
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If you have memories of a special vehicle, we’d love to share them. Simply email rob@bridgeclassiccars.co.uk with some photos and why your vehicle means so much to you.
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