Back again after a night's zeds to do battle with the posting system here, which chucked me out unexpectedly last night (probably spent too long being long winded, and the system thought "enuff is well and truly enuff. Cut the crap and go to bed please!".
Anyhow, your responses to my query were much appreciated, and raised some reactions which I'll try to be brief about.
My BH (better half) and I have long reacted primarily to style and what we see as the "mature age sex appeal" of cars rather than practicality, but having said this we like old cars that were usually pretty pedestrian/boring/staid/ in their heyday. Hence two 30 year old - at the time of purchase - 1970 Merc 280s's (two), big old 80's Beemers (two), 80's Saab, 4 Morrie Minors and many more Jap cars including a beautiful old Toyota Crown. But they became attractive only as they aged beyond at least 10 years, and became a bit unusual. Some were hard or expensive to keep running properly, some just died altogether, some were reluctantly passed to new homes to make room for a replacement, and some had to go on when we migrated to Scotland from Oz, went back to Oz, then migrated back to Scotland a couple of years ago.
And this change of taste for something that's older (riper??) is what's happened to 144/5s and 164s. We both saw them (and also later Volvos like 240s, but definitely not Amazons) as boring lunch boxes on wheels back when they were common-ish. Now we really like the 140/160 style. Being solid, driveable, reliable, and supposedly easy to keep on the road helps, but looks come first before practicality. I accept that later models are probably a much better buy, but they don't float our boats (yet? Give them a few more years perhaps?).
We have two modern cars as daily drivers now. Boring but practical and comfy. I have a recently acquired fourth (57 year old) stock standard and rather ratty Moggie to satisfy some of the urge for ripened transport. We could offload a modern set of wheels and get something in between the new-ish but boring and old but dodgy extremes for in-between (ie not super long distance but OK for a hundred mile trip) transport. Hence the 144/5/164 search
I'm pleased that most comments indicated that the 145 I was looking at seems OK, apart from price. I feared I'd missed something obviously wrong with it.
I'm a bit worried at Laird Scooby's mention that a good 164 with PAS might be harder to find than I imagined, as a frustrating few hours of research had led me to believe that most RHD 164's (that landed in the uk at least) probably had it fitted (or at least 1971 onwards models?) So am I chasing the difficult if not impossible dream?
Fitting electronic PAS to a 144/5 seems to be a fairly reasonable option, but living over on the far west coast of the Highlands makes it a bit of a chore finding somebody to do it - it's beyond my now fading DIY abilities. Driving a stock one with no PAS might be OK for me, but almost certainly not an option for the BH.
Unfortunately even finding one to have a test drive in is a chore from over here. All the ones on the market are way down south. If anybody on this forum lives anywhere near Skye/ Kyle of Lochalsh/Inverness and would be prepared to let me drive around the block in their pride and joy, I'd be a happy chappie indeed.
So I'll keep my eye on what's going out there, keep doing more homework, and keep options open.
Thanks again,
Leroy
