Fourtrak-rak Collecting, Moody Seat destruction...

Today I am keeping Dom and Stubby company whilst we collect Stubbys latest aquisition, a 1995 Diahatsu Fourtrak 4x4. This is to be Stubby's winter transport in anticipation of the BMW M3 being less than useless in the snow.
A Diahatsu Fourtrak for those of you who don't know is a large 3 door 4x4, Stubby has purchased a van version so there are no rear seats or rear side windows. In case you care - although I am sure you don't - its a 2.8l 4 cylinder Diesel Turbo manual.
I should make it clear at this point that this is not the first Fourtrak that Stubby has owned, he bought a few years ago an identical car. The only thing with his last one was that it was a complete lemon - the owner beforehand neglected to mention that the front propshaft had been removed so it was a rear wheel drive only 4x4, he also neglected to mention that the engine leaked water, and that there was more rust than metal left...
Predictablly this fourtrak did not last long, but I think Stubby was able to profit from it all the same.
I opted to tag along to see how this one works out, not at all so I could gloat if it did not work out well.
For this excursion we took Doms new (To him) Ford Mondeo ST-TDCi. Fortunately for me Doms car has headrest screens, so I would not be too bored. It would be four hours and 180 miles each way!
On the way we tried to use the in-built twat-nav but it was having one of it, apparenty the County of Lincolnshire does not exist (not that I blame it).
Also of great amusement to me was that an hour or so into the journey someone pushed something on the stereo and for a while after that it automatically retuned itself to Classic FM, even if you changed the station it changed it back a minute later. I can live with classic FM if I am honest - its better than listening to Radio 1's Vernon Kay anyway.
At our first stop Stubby mistakenly offered to drive, and Dom took advantage by buying the Movie 'Senna'. So me and Dom spent the last half of the journey watching that and left Stubby to be alone driving. Lincolnshire reminds me of Devon, plenty of very slow drivers and some insane overtaking. When cresting the hill of a normal country road we came across a foreign lorry on our side of the road, evidentally he was confused about what side of the road to be on... A few impolite gestures and lane changes later we passed each other - although it was a close thing. My life would have flashed before my eyes, but ironicaly we were just watching the demise of Ayrton Senna on the TVs...

We arrived at the chaps house safe and sound, despite Lincolnshires best efforts - Stubbys new motor was sat on the road awaiting its inspection. A friendly if slightly backwards chap is its current owner, he has owed it for a worryingly short three weeks.
Upon inspection it looks good for its age, some bad welding here and there, non-structural rust occasionally but it has been fully waxoiled underneath.
It started and ran (a bonus) sounds fairly good for a rattly 4 cylinder Diesel. The drivers seat is demolished, and has been home-repaired with what looks like a sofa cushion held down with a homemade seaty cover. It is equipped (badly) with a Parrot hands free system which does not appear to be working and a decent looking Sony Stereo.
Stubby took it out on a test drive and came back shaking his head, the clutch was slipping badly, perhaps it was not the good buy it first appeared!
A bit of assessment, and some adjusting later Stubby had negotiated £250 off the agreed price due to the clutch and handed over the cash. There is of course no problem with the clutch at all... Must remember never to buy a car from him.
On the way home I elected to stay in the Mundano with Dom, Fourtraks are just one small step up from farm tractors after all.
We gave Stubby the TomTom twat-nav in the expectation that the Mundanos built in twat nav knew where Doms home was. For the first hour or so it did indeed work fine, but then lapsed and eventually decided we are driving across a field in Scotland. It continued to disagree with us all the way home.
We actually made it home without incident, bar some small arguments with Fords finest satnav.
Upon arrival I prompty stole the Parrot for Vickys car, and we found some extra 'ventilation' courtesy of some rust holes in the floor. Much to my dissapointment Stuby had found the odd chair repair quite comfortable. But he had used quite a quantity of diesel all the way home.
Try as I might I could not convince Stubby to take his new (untaxed and thus not road legal) toy offroading so we were at a loose end.
A loose end that is, until we spotted Abi's old Seat parked in a corner of my drive...

You see, a few weeks ago I agreed to buy Abi's deathtrap of a 1996 Seat Ibiza 1.4l petrol manual off her hands for scrap money. It had sat in limbo for the last few weeks on my drive whilst we considered giving it to Vicky's brother but as it was in a questionable condition it was decided that I would scrap it and get my money back.
We had mooted about banger racing it with other cars on the road for a giggle but we lacked the other cars so it sat... and sat.
Until today that is, because although I could not convince Stubby to offroad his Fourtrak he was more than happy to offroad the little Seat.
Sadly round one went a little too quickly, the plucky Seat only managed one and a half laps of the local unsurfaced (heavily rutted, slightly flooded and very hilly) lane before succuming to water ingestion related injuries and battery issues when trying to restart it.
We had to call Crispy for assistance, he obliged by towing the little Seat to the local scrapyard where we managed to get it running again.
We agreed to all go home and get fed and watered, then meet up later to have a bit of fun in the little Seat for the night at some of the longer unsurfaced roads locally.
An hour or two later found us in some woodland, Myself, Dom, Stubby, Crispy and Merv. We had wisely chosen to bring my old Jeep along in case of brakedowns of getting stuck and had quite a few successful rallys before the Seat had a small incident involving a large hump and having all of us on board. This small incident resulted in the complete severing of the fuel lines, unfortunately we did not have anything to hand to bodge new fuel lines so after a small argument on why we should not set it alight and leave it we opted to tow it back to the scrapyard for repairs another day.
The towing home was eventfull enough mind you, the handbrake on the Seat often found itself on, and we detoured though a ford to clean it a little before getting back.

All in all, an eventfull enough day I guess... Next time I think I will have a lie in instead.

Excuse the obvious grammar and spelling mistakes, turns out my pad thing does not have spell checker...