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  • The Carchive: 1978 MCW Metrobus

    The Carchive: 1978 MCW Metrobus

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    ‘Tis the season for friends and families to come together and share the spirit of goodwill, considering the present, the future and the past. Perhaps channelling  A Christmas Carol (the Muppets version of which, incidentally, sets the gold standard); a heart-warming tale set in old London town, where a miserly, hated old man learned the…

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  • The Carchive: The 1989 Ford line-up

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    The passing of time is the most powerful force in existence. You gaze over your lawn and all seems well, then you look again and it suddenly needs mowing, or you spy a delicious looking orange in the fruit bowl and say, “ooh, lovely, I’ll have that tomorrow”, by which time it’s suddenly white with…

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  • I'm thankful for: Car brochures

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    It will come as a surprise to absolutely nobody that, with Friday night being Carchive night, I should choose the day after thanksgiving to express my gratitude for car brochures. They’re the closest thing I have to an addiction, one I’ve been a slave to through the 34 odd years that I’ve been able to…

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  • The Carchive: Enid Blyton style Ford Fiesta promo from 2003

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    And now for something completely different. At about this time every week we put 2018 on hold for a little while and take a peek into the past. Yeah, there’s been some bad stuff, but as we saw last week with the Citroen GS, there’s been plenty of good stuff. Today, though, it’s time for…

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  • The Carchive: The 1978 Citroen GS

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    Consider the entire spectrum of automotive offerings there are out there today, from the least alluring, economy-minded thriftmobile to the worlds most extravagant, fastest beacons of conspicuous consumption. When all’s said and done, there’s really not a huge amount to choose between them. All the city cars, superminis, coupes, sedans, SUVs and supercars are each…

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  • The Carchive: The 1976 Toyota Celica Coupe

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    With the weekend firmly in sight, and Last Call about to provide us with that final breath of relief that we’ve all been waiting for, lets just sneak a moment to look at something comfortingly familiar in this fast-paced, ever changing world we live in. Last week we saw how Vauxhall marketed its Carlton, Viceroy…

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  • The Carchive: Posh Vauxhalls from 1982 — Carlton, Viceroy, Royale

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    It’s Friday night, and the moment that literally some of you have been waiting for. It’s time to discard all that’s new and exciting in favour of the unloved, rusting and forgotten. Welcome back to The Carchive. A fortnight ago we dissected the Citroen C3 Pluriel, and witnessed some truly whimsical marketing for what was…

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  • The Carchive: The Citroen Pluriel C3

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    Well, there goes another week, in which we nibbled away at the future a little bit more, and distanced ourselves slightly further from the familiar and the comforting. Yeah, I’m talking about the past. I’ve got bookcases full of the stuff, and surrounding myself with it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Like binge-watching…

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  • The Carchive: The 1991 Fiat Tempra

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    It’s Monday, and as we gather momentum for the charge towards a weekend that seems a distant speck on the horizon, let’s pause for breath with a whimsical look at the past. In 1991 my parents had a meeting with their mortgage advisor in Frinton-on-sea. I was ten years old and in dire need of…

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  • Trouble fulfilling promises: Outside vs Inside

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    The Carchive has, once again, reached critical mass. The shelves are so densely packed that inserting one more brochure could lead to a black hole forming, and my study wasn’t built with that in mind. This morning the 1985-2000 North American section nigh on exploded off the racking, and Camaros, Imperials, Intrepids and many more…

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