1984 Tronda Acclaim HLS, bought

[flat4alfa]

Went to the Lincs/Notts border, to seek a car.  It's nice up there.

 

 

Found it had done 47k, fresh ticket, everything worked.  Drove it south, 120 miles, slurping unleaded through its twin carbs.  It still has its original dealer pressed plates.  And the interior is lush and like newish.  With sunroof and no leaks - excellent.

 

 

It's a 2-4-1 OTT

 

 

Whatever that means.

 

 

Thought about alloy wheeling it.  Would it make it look less Grandad and more Uncle?  Always quite liked the look of this BBS style back in the Eighties. These are the GM ummm... style copies from a Vauxhall Nova Luxe Plus, and unlike the pricier BBS examples they don't need offset adjustmenting.  Did look for a set of wheels from a Mk1 Prelude, but no. 

 

 

Though coming down from 80-profile to 65 has done the ride no favours.  Fresh rubber and dampering may be on the cards to compensate. 

 

(Lecture moment) The Acclaim was the second-best selling Triumph of all time, after the Herald 1200 (which was in production for three times as long) and was in the top ten UK sales list when current.  There are 233 left to drive about.  Crikey. It was also 'the very first volume-production car to be built in Britain in collaboration with a major foreign concern'.  Took a look at a Honda Civic MK2 and was surprised at amount of little differences.

 

 

Realised that if I re-badge this as a Honda I could triple my money.  J-tin is worth more coin.  Hmmmm.....

[Shep Shepherd]

An Excellent Purchase

[vulgalour]

Superb.

[Sigmund Fraud]

Brilliant !!! Those things are lovely to drive and are much, much faster than most people expect them to be

 

Next step is to buy a 44 gallon drum of waxoyl, as Acclaims (and Ballades) are infamously rust-prone.

[Rusty_Rocket]

That's lovely.  Nice to see one in JRG and not silver.. we have two silver ones at work and I'm always surprised at how well they go.

Personally, I'd keep it factory fresh and stick with the original steel rims.  I'd maybe go for slightly wider tyres though.

[flat4alfa]

Believe it or not, the underside on this has more metal than the 1996 XM owned until last month!

 

I think these were better than SD3 though, by a longshot.

[cort16]

That's really smart. I really wouldn't mind one of these at all. What's it like to drive? Is it quite nippy?

[brickwall]

I found these very forgiving to drive and they felt ever so slightly classier than it should be.

[Jim Bell]

Approved.

Me Likeys.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Very nice, not many cars from 1982 that you could comfortably do 30k a year in but you could in one of these no sweat. 

 

I must inform you that 'Alloy Wheel' is not a verb however

[Cavcraft]

DID U USE THE A2 ALLOT M8?

 

That's a fab car, in the day I recall they were actually quite highly rated by people who owned them, mechanically they were great.

[Faker]

Love it. Absolutely love it. A mate had a '82 gold yoi registered acclaim back in the day. It was fit to see off XR2's and my old samba s from the lights. From memory it only did about 90 to 95 flat out, but it certainly embarrassed a lot of folk. The vauxhall bbs style rims do nothing for it to be honest. It would look so much better on re-painted tin rims, on maybe a nice 165/70/13 or 175/70/13 tyre. Sorry but they just don't do it for me.

[mouseflakes]

I prefer the steelz.

 

Great cars these - I had one for a while and really liked it.

 

Wish they'd done an estate - I'd be looking out for one now. 

[KruJoe]

A 'Like' from me has been added to the long list. Do approve, very much so.

I agree with Faker on the wheel situation however. Each to their own.

[flat4alfa]

Quite pokey, yes.  Alloy OHC lump moves just 880 kilos   Five speed box makes all the difference on a run too, not quite as tall as my 33 QO, but fine.  It's got more driving character than say, a CVH Orion.  IMHO, obviously.  The steering  rick is quite tidy, compared to my Mum's dear old Colt Lancer box

 

Plenty of room in the engine bay, everything accessible without clouting knuckles or chamfering fingertips.  Quite a small tank slung under though, which gives it a worthwhile boot size - helped also has the ski hatch as is HLS spec.  Nice little Honda coin box to take you back in time

 

Built at Cowley.  Which means I could tell the Missus it was built where the Mini get built today, giving it certain household cred you just don't get with an Orion.

 

Alloy wheelage is the proper English, sorry about that.

 

Bad alloy wheelaging is easily removed.  It seems folk half me age get these and the first thing they do is rip the tin wheels off sharpish.  I was just trying to get back in the game, chortle. 

 

Estate?  That's an idea.  Didn't import the Civic II Wagons here though did they?   If they did, you could..., etc

 

 

 

ホンダã¯ã€Â家æ—Âã®人ã®ãŸã‚Âã§ã‚る  (Honda is for family man)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[trigger]

I love this car but you already know that Mr. Alfa.

 

[Station]

They're lovely. Do the wheels turn if you push the wing mirrors in?

[CortinaDave]

these things are gr9. I remember one that lay festering in a mates garden for years. it had sat for something ridiculous like a decade or more and was covered in moss and returning to the earth.

 

He finally got round to arranging for the scrappy to pick it up. We were digging it out of its long rest so the hiab could get in for it the next day and for shits and giggles put a battery on it.

 

Started on the second turn and purred sweetly, on decade-plus old petrol. 

 

Always respected them since then.

[Mr Livered]

I will add my voice to the "likey likey" chorus.

 

Mrs Livered and I go to France a lot, but almost always in the newest and blandest of the fleet. Coming back onto the ferry in Calais this year we followed a really lovely Acclaim just like yours: I was full of admiration not only for the car, but for the impressive balls of the people who actually took an interesting motor on a continental road trip. An Acclaim would be a great choice though, because as Mr_Bo11ox says it's a decently reliable little car which would be well up to the challenge as long as it's fairly sorted.

 

Last "interesting" car I took on a tour of France was a Fairway taxi, that went down very well with the locals, lots of thumbs up and appreciative (presumably!) tooting of horns.

[purplebargeken]

Great cars and they have a significant following on the Club Triumph forum. Well worth a look for advice and bits if needed. 

 

Check sills, rear wheel arch inners and so on for hidden rust.

[cms206]

Another like from me... loved these little Acclaims since my doctor had a kinda jade green one which was completely rotten one years ago. Looked so out of place in the medical centre car park. Doc wasn't a bad fella either.

 

Another "ditch the wheels" too... steelies look better.

[J-T]

My Mum had an A reg one of these when I was growing up. It was about 15 years old at the time and was the CD model, so came complete with 4 electric windows (all of which had to be manually pulled up/down by an inch or so), 2 rear wheelarches full of pog and red oxideded over and a front valance made of fibre glass and underseal. I also remember each (chrome) door handle snapping during frosty weather. I really was the envy of all my friends! Never broke down though despite receiving no maintenance at all.

 

It was killed by a shogun backing into the front corner in McDonalds car park and taking out the bumper, headlamp, grille, bonnet and wing.

 

Yours looks a fair bit better than that one though!

[Skizzer]

Oooh yes, that looks lovely.  Exceptionally well bought.

 

Everyone's been polite about it, and no offence, like, but frankly you need to get those RIMZ off immediately.  The steels on these are very pretty if you ask me (though I'm not actually sure you did).  

[flat4alfa]

Started on the second turn and purred sweetly, on decade-plus old petrol. 

 

Tuned to run on 2-star fuel, as old Hondas were.  When petrol sits, it must lose octane and get into tune.  Probably

 

Crikey this car's got response than my XM !   There must be something wrong. 

 

It does have some wob in the arches, not surprising, but they're not exactly an expensive way to experience wob

[Doctormop]

They're lovely. Do the wheels turn if you push the wing mirrors in?

 

Wasn't that a met blue HLS example with black mirrors like what I found under the xmas tree in 1984?

[jbz2079]

One interesting thing is the Accord that ran along side the Acclaim had a very diffrent engine.

The block looked the same, but the head was a very diffrent casting.

Acclaim's carbs were on the back and the Accords were on the front.

 

My mate had one that had a fault on the cold start (choke) and it bled fuel into the engine while running, it bloody swined fuel but,

The speedo markings stopped ay 100mph but we seen it point nearly straight down one night, it was bloody flying.

 

Unfortunatly it would not look at an emissions test, so we replaced the carbs to get it tested and it became economical again, but nowhere near as fast!

He ended up with two a nice red HLS that was rotten and a horrid beige coloured one that was solid but basic spec. Typical!

[flat4alfa]

These weren't Accords though, they were Civic series; a size downwards.

Accords ran a different series of 1.6/1.8 litre iron block engines during this period

 

I always found it interesting that the Prelude had the family looks of the Civic range, and looked nothing like Accord it was based on.

[Angrydicky]

That looks lovely! Another vote here to put the original wheels back on I'm afraid, I'm 22 and I think the alloys look dreadful.

[trigger]

As many of you may have seen in the 24 thread or on my Facebook i became the new custodian of this fine piece of automotive history today, After selling my Alto a few weeks back I've been looking for a daily drive which is retro, cheap to run and usable, due to a change in circumstances for Mr. Alfa he's had to let this go so he offered me it, after a few chats a deal was made and I drove the 110 mile to his house this morning, both of us with roaring hangovers and feeling sick...

 

Anyway after meting Mr. Alfa and his family for a cuppa and a chat, money was exchanged and we started to head home.

 

My 1984 Triumph Acclaim HLS by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

This was at South Mimms Services, it's drives really, really well, it has the most comfortable seats in the world, at 65-70mph the engine is super quiet and it has plenty of poky for tackling the M25 in.

 

It needs a few jobs, the front discs are wrapped and need replacing, the wheels need balancing, it's ticks over a little slow so could benefit from a little tuning but that all nothing for a car like this, and the 47000 miles feel very genuine too.

 

The bodywork needs a little TLC, it has a few scabs on the wings and the arches and on one rear quarter, the front valance needs a rub and paint which I'll do tomorrow, one of the rear aches has had some of the worse filler shaping I've seen and the underside needs a good coat of underseal to protect it for the winter but again from what i can see that's about it.

 

My 1984 Triumph Acclaim HLS by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

My 1984 Triumph Acclaim HLS by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

My 1984 Triumph Acclaim HLS by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

My 1984 Triumph Acclaim HLS by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr 

 

Come in to my luxurious interior... 

 

My 1984 Triumph Acclaim HLS by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

My 1984 Triumph Acclaim HLS by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

I just love that digital clock!.

 

My 1984 Triumph Acclaim HLS by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

Those arches, this is how it should look.

 

My 1984 Triumph Acclaim HLS by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

and this is how this one looks...

 

My 1984 Triumph Acclaim HLS by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

[fordperv]

that looks lovely, good buy that man