It is with a slightly heavy heart I write this advert for Parky, our Rover 200. Officially speaking he’s a 214Si 16v built in 1990, and is often what people refer to as a “survivor”.

We only bought him fairly recently, but we’ve grown quite attached to him already.

When our beloved half a million-mile Volvo 940 needed some work in the garage, we expected it to be away for a number of months whilst the garage finally got around to it, so we needed a stop gap car to fill in the Volvo's day to day duties.

We needed something practical, a bit different (we hate boring cars), something that could sit on our classic car insurance policy and that could carry stuff without a fuss…basically exactly what the Volvo does. Luckily, we found Parky fairly locally and couldn’t resist his simple charms.

In the time we’ve had him he’s done all sorts from motorway runs up towards the Lake District, through carrying a mattress, three wooden pallets and some old flooring to the recycling centre and ferrying 40 shrubs and plants to a landscaping job – he’s that versatile!!

Anyway, we got the unexpected news that the Volvo is ready sooner than expected (WOO HOO) but this sadly means that we have to pass Parky on to a new owner.

Don’t worry he’s as good as gold and is very well behaved. He starts first time every time and just goes about his business without complaint. His temperature gauge never moves higher than just below halfway, and he bumbles along in modern day traffic quite happily. He isn’t a Ferrari, he isn’t a Rolls Royce but he is a charming runabout.

Nor will he win a concours competition as he’s been painted in the past on some panels (not overly well it must be said). He's not quite 50 shades of grey but he's certainly more than one ha ha!!! Overall he looks presentable enough if you aren’t picky but the main thing though is that he is SOLID…he is most definitely NOT a rust bucket!!!

Things we like about him:

•          Just 55,000 miles
•          Ultra reliable
•        Classic insurance (less than £100 pa likely, for us it was just £7 extra for the year to add him on)
•         Cheap car tax (c.£200 pa)
•         Good on fuel
•         4 x matching tyres with nearly full tread (years and years of motoring in them)
•         5 speed manual gearbox with one of the best gearchanges I’ve ever experienced. You change gear sometimes just to enjoy the shift action (sorry if that sounds sad)
•         Working Central locking
•         Working rear wash wipe and heated screen
•         Basic spec so little to go wrong. No Power steering, no electric windows, no sunroof to leak, nothing to cause undue bills and headaches!
•         Just been serviced with fresh NGK-R spark plugs and Shell Synthetic oil etc
•         So, so practical. With the back seats folded flat he’s like a miniature van or estate car!
•         Still turns heads because when was the last time you saw one on the road?
•         It won’t be that many years before he is tax and MOT exempt, as he’s 34 years old already!

-       Driving him is like going right back to the 1990’s when cars were light and just glided down the road instead of pummelling them into submission. The large glass house floods the interior with light which is nice.

As we say he isn’t a show queen but if you want a depreciation proof car to actually drive around in, what else can you buy in the classic car market for this money that is so solid and so practical? The answer is “hardly anything”, I know because I had a very thorough look around when we bought Parky and there were very few viable options under £3,000. Stick “classic cars” into the eBay search bar and set a maximum price of £2,000 and see what comes up to see what I mean!

So, grab yourself a cracker of a car for next to nothing that will probably see you out if you kept on top of basic maintenance!

No PXs thanks, just a straight sale.

Thanks for looking.