Jan '85 Contents

[forddeliveryboy]

 

 

Thanks to C1am for posting this through a few weeks ago, I managed to have a proper read at last this morning. It reminds me of how much motor journalism has changed into the laddish stuff we (don't) buy today. As well as the loss of our indigenous mass industry and worship of all things shiny, plasticy and electronic, instead of oily, chromed and well-engineered.

 

Here's a snippet about the Sierra and a rear-engined Cit with an ad or two between.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Thats interesting about the FIRE engine, I didnt know PSA had anything to do with it

[forddeliveryboy]

Due to unprecedented* demand for more, here is a CAR Giant Test:

 

 

 

[sierraman]

Is anyone on here looking for old car magazines, namely 1980s CAR magazines, old road tests, brochures from 1970s onwards. I ask as I'm in touch with a chap who has a veritable library of Car mags and brochures 1970s onwards, he's looking to sell them though it would be collection from Sheffield. He does have some seriously interesting stuff however.

[sierraman]

Is anyone on here looking for old car magazines, namely 1980s CAR magazines, old road tests, brochures from 1970s onwards. I ask as I'm in touch with a chap who has a veritable library of Car mags and brochures 1970s onwards, he's looking to sell them though it would be collection from Sheffield. He does have some seriously interesting stuff however.

[Skizzer]

There are generally several takers on here when 1980s copies of CAR come up - sometimes including me, although I've got most of them now (and I'm unlikely to pass Sheffield any time soon).  Suggest posting details and seeing what happens, like C1am does from time to time.

 

It reminds me of how much motor journalism has changed into the laddish stuff we (don't) buy today. 

 

Big +1 on this.  CAR in those days was often beautifully written and always stunningly photographed, as has often been said on here before.  It's fashionable now to sneer about how the 1980s were brash and tasteless, but they were an arcadian age of elegance, intelligence and sophistication compared with everything that's descended from Loaded, S Club 7 and the Saxo VTS.

[sierraman]

It was appealing to the intelligent with its obscure writers such as LJK Setright.

[forddeliveryboy]

There was good reason it sold the world over, in large numbers. Quality always sells. And it wasn't afraid to tell it straight, even if that meant saying how bad an expensive or upmarket car was.

 

They were the only people who dared admit what a fine car the 2cv was, returning to it with any excuse. Setright wrote a fine piece about its engine, suggesting it was arguably one of the best motors to have ever powered a car.

[Jerzy Woking]

Much the same with Motorcycle magazines. Look at any copy of Bike or Superbike back in the mid 80's to see how mainstream journalism has changed. My (ex) wife chucked my collection of said two magazines (from their first issue to 1996 because she had "nowhere to put her clothes".

[Talbotman]

If Ier recall this was the last copy of Car magazine to be stapled together. Remember buying all of these when current and still have them all up in the attic. From an era now sadly gone where cars were considered on engineering merit not power nor badge and where you could put a Skoda Austin or a Vauxhall on the front cover as much as you could a Porsche Lambo or a Ferrari. When motoring journalism catered for genuine car nuts and not "aspirational" lifestyle prats.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

These old CAR mags are really wonderful, they are like a book in that you can just come back to them whenever and they never date even if the cars in them are all long gone. They are just rammed with amazing insight, high-level techincal stuff beautifully explained, politics, opinion, and all sorts of stuff on the 'periphery' of the car world that is always interesting. They just seemed to hit on a recipe and little cluster of staff that took the quality of the magazine to a level that has never been bettered. I'm talking the sort of early-mid 80's to mid-90's period. I love them.

[oldcars]

Rialto saloon, any chance you could scan in the artical about it please?

[sierraman]

As I recal they were big fans of the Citroen Visa.

[plasticvandan]

they werent big fans of the Rialto....

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I remember a great article from after the 'good' era of CAR when they got Gordon Murray to do a back-to-back between the smart car and a Reliant (must have been a very late model), I reckon late-90's. He certainly didnt take the piss out of the reliant, seem to recall him admiring how much of a complete car you got for such a very low weight

[forddeliveryboy]

They were fascinated by the "less is more" concept - not an easy one to explain. Setting aside a massive test piece suggesting how the motor car was steadily being dumbed down/getting less good was pretty bold, too - from memory it compared the Sud with the 33, GS with ZX, Ro80 with the facelifted 100 as well as two Jags.

 

I remember struggling at first over the casual and liberal use of suspension descriptions in explaining how a car went, but the highlight of every month was usually when CAR appeared on the shelf. Reading it was like being invited to a masterclass on motoring which was as fascinating and educational as much as it was inspiring and amusing.

[jonny69]

Loving the ECO 2000 project. 90mpg was a pretty big ask back then! I don't think any production car has ever got close to that figure other than the series 1 Honda Insight, has it? There was a guy on OcUK who had a manual one for a while and he said he could find a sweet spot at about 70mph where it was in 'lean burn' mode and would sit at about 100mpg if he didn't move his foot. Proper hypermiling!

[Alexg]

Funnily enough, the tail of the ECO2000 looks just like a Honda Insight.

[forddeliveryboy]

I see echoes of the GS's roofline and other elements in the Insight. If anyone understood airflow round car bodies, it was Citroën as was. I've yet to find another vehicle which is so sweet even at high speed in strong, gusting sidewinds - both the CX and GS were awesome in nasty, windy weather. I had to laugh when modern Citroen gave the C6 a concave rear screen - did they really understand fully why the original was as it was?

[forddeliveryboy]

.

 

Here's Ronald Barker from the same issue -

 

[Skizzer]

Rialto saloon, any chance you could scan in the artical about it please?

 

Trigger has already performed that service for us - here's a link to the Rialto etc Giant Test in his epic road test scan library on Flickr.

 

 

As I recal they were big fans of the Citroen Visa.

 

Indeed they were.  It was a standing member of their annual top 10, as in this one from 1987:

 

CAR top ten 1987 - Citroen Visa 17RD by Skizzer, on Flickr

[Jon]

I really enjoy my 1980's issues of CAR and have gathered a few locally. That said, I do like what I reckon is the Aussie equivalent, WHEELS magazine. It's rammed with local and imported content and they're pretty scathing of such things as 3 speed manual XD Falcons when the rest of the world had moved on, though some Aussie models passed muster. 

 

With CAR's love of the Visa, was there ever an article written about the GTi and if so, what were their findings? I've got a What Car? article and have seen the others posted by Trigger but I've not seen a CAR one. 

[forddeliveryboy]

I can't post a scan quickly but from memory they mostly adored it, praising it more highly than the other small PSA GTi especially on less than perfect roads. They laughed at its shonkiness, but reckoned that if you could ignore the pre-production feel and oddball looks it was both more stable and chuckable than the 205.

[Jon]

That pretty much sums up my feelings too. The Visa's much more comfortable than the 205 and the seating position is much lower/bulkhead much higher, which gives the impression of being encapsulated in it, rather than sitting in the flat, firm seats of the 205, looking out the wider, lower windscreen. That's the theory, anyway; there's probably millimetres of leeway in all the dimensions I've mentioned but they do make a discernible difference. To my eyes, the Visa GTi is pretty in a quirky sense (and ugly in my wife's eyes and probably those of everyone else), the 205 GTI much more conventionally tasty, hence why both are still sitting on the driveway after the 205's been replaced.

[cros]

It was appealing to the intelligent with its obscure writers such as LJK Setright.

I was a 'car' reader from the mid 1960's and must point out that the revered Mr Setright was sometimes a complete twat. Latterly his spoutings were aired on Radio 4 and he had a "column" in a wank mag, unlikely though it may seem. Across the pond a letter in 'Road and Track' put it simply  'Setright is a pompous ass- get rid of him'.

Entirely fitting that 'Car' magazine is now entirely devoted to motoring porn and Autoshite does it better.

[sierraman]

He looked fucking odd as well.

[MrFarkinBasz]

LJK Setright also had a column in a hi-fi magazine, which is where I first heard of him.

 

And I couldn't understand what he was on about when discussing turntables, either.

[cros]

Blimey he did get around. I suppose you can't spend all your time writing about Bristols.