March 1990 Sa'fend Car adverts

[Jim Bell]

I love OTHER MAKES sections.

Top threading!

[EssDeeWon]

Brilliant stuff Trig!!

 

I remember reading those car ad's in the (Southend) Evening Echo as a kid on a Friday. My dad always picked up the Echo on a Friday for the cars section..... He would phone up about something on the Friday evening and plan to view it on the Saturday, but most of the time we didn't even bother to stop and get out because you could see the all the rust around the bottom of the Cortina/Granada/SD1 etc from 20 yards away...

 

I guess with adverts like this you never really knew what would be greeting you when you arrived...

 

85% of those cars for sale are still knocking about in Southend today. See A.Dicky's and my Saafend spotting threads

[sierraman]

I'll have the £395 Talbot Solara.

[Adrian_pt]

Lada Riva vans for me .... never even knew they existed.

[sloth]

any mk1 cavalier or a maxi

[martc]

I spotted an F reg Proton and Talbots with "sun hatches".

[EssDeeWon]

I just phoned up about the Granada 2.3L V reg for £950 in the classifieds...............

 

But its gone

[Vin]

I would rock over to Kingswood Motors, whop my wad on the counter and leave with the Y reg Argenta and A reg Santana...

[skoda_fan]

Only on Autoshite could someone be rooting around in the boot of a Dolomite and find a 1990 newspaper! Love it.

[JohnDeere]

With these old ads, it always astonishes me just how much cheaper cars are now.

 

The year-old povo spec Fiesta is £5995 in the Trimoco ad (more than £13k in today's monee).

 

A quick look just now on the Ford website shows plenty of year-old base Fiestas around £7k... that's basically the same price but 25 years later. And bearing in mind that base spec now would put a 1990 Ghia to shame.

[JohnDeere]

And the other big change of course is that franchised dealers these days never sell "other makes" on their used lot.

[cort1977]

I grew up in Chingford so used to see a lot of these Essex dealer cars around.   SMAC group used to outrage me by putting massive stickers on the paint instead of a proper blue and clear sticker in the back window.

 

Mate's dad got a twin cam G plate Sierra Ghia in Magenta from Trimoco.   I thought it was the bollocks as a 12 year old.

[Hendry]

And the other big change of course is that franchised dealers these days never sell "other makes" on their used lot.

They still do in Scotland, I'd say most franchised dealerships up here have about a 65/35 mix of franchise stock to other makes, because a lot of them if they just sold what they held the franchise for wouldn't last long.

 

I've bought all but 1 of my Vauxhalls from Renault main dealers and my 2 Renault's both from Citroen main dealers for example, I find you generally get a better condition, 1 local owner, looked after well maintained car that's likely been bought mewz cherished for 3 years then chopped in for a brand new car of the other make, whereas the used frnachised stock is usually all originally daily rental/hire cars sold by the dealer at 6-9 months old, not looked after then traded in 3 years later for another of the same model, weird as it sounds.