Weird trim levels

[Pillock]

I'm waiting on an Astra Exclusiv which has been pushed through all the company car mags for fleet buyers. I think Joe Public can order one but probably won't with the Corsa's 1.3 CDTI engine, stop-start and just Bluetooth to stop you thinking you're the modern day Cried-When-Given-a-Maestro-man.

 

Short of giving it pedals I don't see how they can make it more stingy. I'll be very upset if it stings me on tax.

[Hendry]

I'm waiting on an Astra Exclusiv which has been pushed through all the company car mags for fleet buyers. I think Joe Public can order one but probably won't with the Corsa's 1.3 CDTI engine, stop-start and just Bluetooth to stop you thinking you're the modern day Cried-When-Given-a-Maestro-man.

Short of giving it pedals I don't see how they can make it more stingy. I'll be very upset if it stings me on tax.

Good luck with that. If the 60 plate Astra Exclusivs we had on fleet at work are anything to go by, the seats are some of the most uncomfortable I've ever came across, dull lower back pain after an hour, and the steering wheel is made of the cheapest shittiest plastic they could find, although at least they've now dropped the electric parking brake in favour of the good old fashioned handbrake on lower spec Astras

[Stroller133]

Our firm buy astra's but ask for Vectra seats so I've heard as many drivers complained about the seats in the first batch of cars. . It seems manufacturers will make changes if you ask and are buying in some kind of volume. We also ask for Bluetooth to be disabled, as our policy is not to use phones at all while driving.

[Station]

I hate sunrooves (sic). Anything that adds a huge amount of weight, adds more rubberyness to the car's chassis, leaks 50% of the time, and then makes the car more prone to rusting should never be seen as a bonus.

And the purpose. To be opened on a hot day to let even more burning sunlight in, and when moving at speed it either: a)turns the interior of the car into the insides of a Dyson or doesn't add any ventilation at all. Rubbish.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I hate sunrooves (sic). Anything that adds a huge amount of weight, adds more rubberyness to the car's chassis, leaks 50% of the time, and then makes the car more prone to rusting should never be seen as a bonus.

And the purpose. To be opened on a hot day to let even more burning sunlight in, and when moving at speed it either: a)turns the interior of the car into the insides of a Dyson or doesn't add any ventilation at all. Rubbish.

I love a sunroof me, these days it's quite hard to find cars with them fitted.

I've just come back from Stansted via M11/M25/M1. Aircon off,sunroof and window open, cruise set at 50, The River' on full volume. Just watching everyone else sealed in with a/c on and pained expressions on their faces, I was almost disappointed when I had to get off the motorway- sunroofs make me feel good. Extra weight and rubberyness are hardly an issue to me or my 300, we're both beyond help there.

[mercrocker]

Yes to the sunroof too....It makes my otherwise povo 190E 1.8 a very nice place to be in an M25 park-a-thon.   Can I still buy a quality RWD Keller-matic saloon car with no plakky coffin-plank inside, keep fit windows all round, electric tilt/slide roof, no aircon, bags, cat or rear headrests and still on steelies.   Thought so....I'll be keeping the Benz then.

[ProgRocker]

I've mentioned this one before...

 

My mates old S reg Escort 1.6 Finesse (with 'Halewood Motor Co' decals on the rear door triangles): pretty much like a Ghia spec with alloys, aircon, leccy front windows BUT lacks a rev counter.

[Felly Magic]

The Renner 19 GTS-X Chamade in the ebay bargains thread is an oddball, leccy sun roof, but keep fit everything else and ultra stripey seat trim

[bub2006]

I've mentioned this one before...

 

My mates old S reg Escort 1.6 Finesse (with 'Halewood Motor Co' decals on the rear door triangles): pretty much like a Ghia spec with alloys, aircon, leccy front windows BUT lacks a rev counter.

My wife had a w plate ford escort finesse when we first met. That didn't have the little badge on the rear quarter but it had air con,central locking,leccy windows,rev counter,alloys and power steering. Strangely though it had only a cassette player and no rear speakers nor wiring. The grills where there but nothing else. Even the head unit had just the front speaker connecters and nothing for the rears

[cms206]

 

 

My wife had a w plate ford escort finesse when we first met. That didn't have the little badge on the rear quarter but it had air con,central locking,leccy windows,rev counter,alloys and power steering. Strangely though it had only a cassette player and no rear speakers nor wiring. The grills where there but nothing else. Even the head unit had just the front speaker connecters and nothing for the rears

Our Motability-supplied T-plate 1.6 Finesse had electric front windows, alloys, power steering, central locking, rev counter, front fogs, boot spoiler and a 6-speaker CD6000 stereo from the dealer; I've seen some right weird specs on both Flight and Finesse models.

 

As an aside I really fancy a late model 1.6 Escort Finesse hatch 'cos I bloody loved that car. And I'm clearly not right inna head.

[AndyW201]

The Corsa C that FathaW201 had was a weird one. He got it from the car supermarket Motorpoint at a knockdown price. It had Opel rather than Vauxhall badges and was badged a GSi rather than the SRi which the UK spec 1.4 sports versions were. It had the engine, slightly lower suspension and larger discs of the 1.4 SRi, but had no air con, no sunroof and keep fit windows, so more like the spec of the 1.2 SXi of the time. When the car was in the yard, it had a football related sticker in the back window which read something like "Opel, Ireland's number 1 supporter", which was gone once it was prepared for sale. Must have been a cancelled Irish order obviously, strange because the Corsa C had only been launched a couple of months earlier.

 

Mrs W201's Mk1 Octavia was another weird one. It was an 05 plate, so quite a late one as the mk2 was already on sale by then, but wasn't one of the diesel powered 'taxi specials'. It had the 1.6 sohc motor and was in Classic spec, which meant non-remote central locking, keep fit windows all round, and manual mirrors. But it had 15" alloy wheels, side rubbing strips, VRS rear spoiler and air con, all of which were factory fitments. I spoke to the guy in the parts department of the Skoda dealer we got it from (and sold it when new) and he said the dealer ordered quite a few in that spec from the factory, when they knew the mk 1 was being run out.

[In The Pit]

I believe that with regard to the last of the Escorts it was the 1998 ones that had the 'Halewood' decals on the doors,  as these were that last of the full range Escorts as the Focus was launched in 1998 and production switched fully to Germany for that.  The Escort car range continued small scale up to July 2000 with just two models available the Finesse and Flight this was because Ford feared a repeat of the Sierra launch worrying that the Focus looked to modern and futuristic also that the Escort was a well loved British icon.  Van sales continued up until around 2002 mainly to fulfil contracts to utility companies etc.

[bub2006]

The escort we had was on estate. That alsohad front fogs and the silly lip spoiler on tthe top of the tailgate. I think it was a case of what was left in the parts bin!

[Richard]

Around the time of the Corsa C launch quite a lot of Vauxhall dealers lost their franchise. Some of them started selling Opel for a while, that might be where the oddly specced Corsa came from.

[Hendry]

One thing I've noticed with Escort Finesses was that the S reg ones had the same from bumper as the base Encore model but colour coded, the T, V, W and X reg ones had the Si/GTi bumpers with frot fogs.

 

The S reg ones also had multi spoke alloys, The T, V, W and X reg had a choice of either 3 spoke style wheels, or ones similar to those fitted to mk2 Mondeo Ghias.

 

My mum and dads neighbour had a motability T reg one as well, but it was a moon dust silver estate and looked really smart tbh.

 

Re the Opels, there were a lot of 2001 Opel Astras and Zafiras round here, I think they were brought in around the time of rip off Britain being in the news and Euro imports being branded the next big idea. There are also a lot of Opel Insignias around mostly on DX59 plates but oddly most have number plates from Greenhous, a Vauxhall dealer. I've also noticed a few Zafiras and Insignias with the Vauxhall grille badge missing and underneath on the grille backing is the outline of an Opel blitz, so they've obviously changed the Vauxhall badge just to hide the Opel outline on the grille to safe money.

 

Corsa Cs are weird spec as mentioned, early X and Y plate SXis had black and grey plastics and grey seat fabric and manual windows and door mirrors, 51 plates kept the 2 tone interior but gained electric windows and mirrors, then 02 plate onwards the trim, plastics and seats all became black, then in 2005 they stripped bits out, my 55 plate was missing the adjustable steering column, cig lighter and ashtray, 3rd rear head rest, map lights and split folding rear seats the earlier models had.

[bub2006]

The alloys on our finesse was the ones with a triangle in the middle with a couple of spokes in between each part if that understandable?!

[AnthonyG]

Motorpoint and a lot of other supermarkets bulk ordered cars from certain other European national sales firms around 2000/2001, I remember a lot of Renaults came through Belgium at this time, RHD as well. Ireland was another obvious source.

 

IIRC All GM Europe grilles have the Opel blitz built into them, Vauxhall badges just fit over I think.

[AnthonyG]

The alloys on our finesse was the ones with a triangle in the middle with a couple of spokes in between each part if that understandable?!

Early high spec Ka's had wheels of a very similar design.

[Hendry]

Been thinking about this a lot and electric windows seem to be a glaring omission from the spec of otherwise highly equipped cars, not sure why, some regulators/motors and switches can't be too expensive to produce.

 

Especially with other bits fitted which are high spec, to my mind and maybe my thinkings screwed up but I've always thought equipment should be added in this order: power steering, then central locking, then electric front windows, stuff like air con, electric mirrors etc should come after electric windows in order of suff a car gets first as the spec increases with each spec level.

 

I remembered another too, mk6 Escort Silhouette, features on it put it between Encore and LX spec. came with a passenger airbag standard which I'm sure was an option on even Ghia spec Escorts.

 

My cousin had an L reg mk5b Escort 1.4 L, it had injection instead of CVH, metallic paint, airbag, power steering, tilt and slide factory glass sunroof, alarm, but no central locking or anything else

[bub2006]

Not so much a weird trim level but i think its just plain pointless. My uncle owned a Volvo v40 estate. That had electric front windows and windy rears. The car had electric window switches on each door and on the centre console too. I am sure that some rover r8 series also had windy windows but electric roof,remote locking and power steering.

[Vince70]

I don't think it's a weird trim level to have electric windows in the front and windy windows in the back...

 

I think it was the norm for midrange base models back in the 90s, my old (ELW) base spec rep mobile A4 is the same.

[saucedoctor]

Early high spec Ka's had wheels of a very similar design.

 Known to some in the trade as the "Powerslave" alloy, a vague reference to the artwork on the 1984 Iron Maiden of the same name.

[bub2006]

Not the fact it had leccy front and windy back but the fact it had 2 switches on drivers door and one one passenger for front windows as well as two more in the centre console what also did the same windows.