I am a bad person for laughing at this

[Welsh wheels]

I have been in one when one of the rear wheels lifted, it was a terrifying moment, but I have never heard them called Robin Reliants before.

Yeah my bad!

 

[Paulus]

I had a Robin. A blue one, it was called Christopher. I rolled it on a bend once. Bit worrying. Very easy to roll.

I rolled my one then it caught fire, very strange to see a car melt. It was a regal, same colour as this---

 

[subaqua]

Could have also been a Rialto .

My favourite reliant was the Scimitar.

 

[ColinJ]

A mate of mine had a 'Bond Bug' back in the early 1970s. It looks ridiculous (and scary!) now but we thought it was pretty cool at the time.

 

[KneesUp]

I remember being driven back from Liverpool on the M62 one dark, wet and very windy winter evening (in the relative luxury of our Allegro 1500) as we overtook a Robin that was being tossed about like a cork on the sea. It had four people in it, and all of them were hunched forward to get as much weight as possible over the front wheel. We got a good look because my dad was so amused by the spectacle that he slowed down as we passed. The occupants of the Robin were all smiling and gave us a wave, but the whole thing looked terrifying.

 

[simon the viking]

My uncle had a few Regals and Robins in the 70s and 80s.. Once when parked up at his inlaws in Liverpool he came out to find it on its roof.. He rolled it back over. Topped the battery up as a lot of acid had come out, bump started it and drive it a hundred miles home with no issues...

However his biggest fail was a roof rack he made. He thought himself a bit of an engineer.. Bit heath robinson but an engineer.. He'd seen roof racks for Reliants based on suckers and door clamps and thought why waste money so he made fe the parts and welded them to an old roof rack... Unloaded it was solid.. Loaded was a different matter.. We got a hundered yards down the road before the roof rack came off and slipped off the roof down the windscreen and bonnet... Landing in the road in front.. The air was a bit blue I seem to recall...

Not to be beaten he got box section and attached a towbar to chassis and from angle iron, ply wood and mini hubs and wheels he had built a trailer.. He towed it around for years after that with camping stuff...

He did have a few other cars that would now be considered cool and retro.. But to my mum and dad they were just old bangers.. A Morse Jag, a Ford Zodiac the model with Fins.. Mark 2 cortina...

 

[midlife]

A mate of mine had a 'Bond Bug' back in the early 1970s. It looks ridiculous (and scary!) now but we thought it was pretty cool at the time.

Complete with fake bullet holes in the windows

 

[Chris S]

No, no no. Robin Reliant is in regular usage in English and thus becomes part of the language. This may make it one of the few (or unique?) irregular nouns.

This may be due to to the fact that most people associate Reliant with the Robin and struggle, without a good think or a google search, to name another model that Reliant made. (Yeah I looked them up and the other models are obvious after the fact)

Patsy on 'Absolutely Fabulous' referred to them as 'Robin Reliants' and the name seems to have stuck.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

A guy tried to sell me a Scimitar once. He arranged to bring it round but it broke down "just around the corner" so him and his mate pushed it to my door. "Probably something minor" he said. "Probably" said his mate. I told them to fix it and I'd probably have a look. Never saw them again.

Talking of Bonds, a girlfriend's dad had an Equipe

Very nice except his wife had lined the entire interior with orange faux fur.

 

[Smokin Joe]

Reliants were still very common in the seventies. There were three main dealers within my area of easy travel and my first car was a Regal Estate (Or Supervan 3 as Reliant called it).

A very handy little motor when you only had a motorcycles licence.

 

[colly]

Once had the dubious pleasure of travelling from Leeds to Beverley in a in a colleague's Reliant Robin
The snow the night before left two clear tracks with a hump of snow/ice inbetween.
50 miles of the front of the car either heading into oncoming traffic or into the hedge or wall at the side of the road.

Sat with your legs at about 30degs
to one side, engine clattering about 100dB and no heater.

Nightmare stuff.

 

[Dayvo]

[pedantic] Reliant Robin....[pedantic]

But to be accurate: UNReliant Robin.

We called them Robin Reliants back in the day in Essex.

 

[Jenkins]

Useless information, but I was passed by a sky blue Scimitar this afternoon.

Don't forger that Reliant also did the Kitten which was a Robin that couldn't roll over as easily.

 

[DRM]

As kids it was fun Reliant baiting, stand on a small roundabout, shout abuse at the driver about how cr*p his car was, hopefully he would try to turn sharply around the roundabout in order to chase us, a few times they fell for it, going too fast around the roundabout causing anger to become fear, quickly followed by a "brown trouser" moment and sudden braking.

 

[Electric_Andy]

Could have also been a Rialto .

My favourite reliant was the Scimitar.

My neighbour has a Scimitar, I didn't realise it was a Reliant. Lovely sounding car and quite nice looking in a 70's type way