The most overestimated shite of all time

[Bear]

The O-series probably had a lot to do with it, but I think the criticism of the Marina's dynamics etc. comes from later hindsight - my dad reckoned his 1.8TC was brilliant - certainly enough to go for a second one, and that one was bad because build quality was dreadful, rather than dynamics.

 

But Leyland were stopped from developing it, ADO 77 was the facelift that explored the "why the hell didn't they" route of the coupé with four doors, like the use of the short doors always hinted was on the cards. Fastbacks were big news in Europe, and they turned away from what should have been a real money machine - fastback style, rugged RWD underpinnings. Sort of like the early Hyundai Pony.

[D Spares & Tyres]

I have never driven a Marina so I can't comment, but I've had an Allegro which despite the press hating I really enjoyed owning.

 

It may be that my demands on it were less as I had it as a classic rather than as a brand new car

[rml2345]

Vauxhalls. They're supposed to be shit but I've driven a few and they were actually quite decent, if a bit numb in the steering department.

Should we start a thread on cars which exactly met our expectations?

[xtriple]

Been thinking about this a fair bit today (bored, doing the hoovering, having a conversation with the dog...)  and I think it all comes down to expectations.

 

My idea of 'overestimated' is stuff like the inside of that Ferrari door, you have an expectation that it will be a quality product and to find shit like that really lets the side down. I said XJ-S and JensOn and such because I had massive expectations of them being utterly superb and 'mind blowing' to drive/own etc. The reality was that they were a massive let down. But, if you accept them as flash cars then they were actually pretty good at being 'flash'...

 

I had a shit load of Skoda and Yugo cars that I sold decades ago and I actually thought they were really good. But expectations were low and they exceeded them by a handsome margin whereas posh stuff often fails to even live up to expectation and rarely exceeds them.

[needforspeed]

For me it is the Beetle, had 1 for a week while my mate was on Holiday, what a heap of tinny, rattly shite! Never again!

[PhillipM]

Pretty much anything that's always talked about and popular applies I suppose - landies, beetles, buses, escorts, etc, etc - because at the end of the day they're all still just an old car, and people hype up the good bits over time and forget the bad.

Having said that. I see no reason that we should have to suffer Capri's. They have nothing going for them. Nothing. Burn them

[Adrian_pt]

Had a blast in a very swish, stripped-ou, Ferrari a few years ago. Thought it quite tame, a little bit docile, exactly the right car for a slightly dim playboy to pose in. Later that day, tried out a friend's utterly shagged MGBGT with practically zero brakes and a gearchange which sounded like Tom Jones vomiting. Grin lasted for hours. 

[dugong]

The best 'bait and switch' car I can think of is the Triumph Stag, (with a few mitigating circumstances).

Yes, it was a perfect SL competitor; softly sprung and vague. The Michelotti styling is wonderful and the engine sounds gorgeous. Yes, I realise its V8 was signed off before Triumph became part of BL and that fitting the Rover unit wouldn't have been possible because of the voracious demands of the Range Rover.

 

Stags promise a great deal, but never quite deliver. All this purple talk of the V8 being 'better' than the Rover is nonsense. Fine, it's revvier - but the manual Stags have a horrible gear change (yay, pre-war gearbox) with a yawning chasm between second and third; the 3 speed auto fitted as lord gears is ill-matched to the engine. Stags with the four speed ZF 4HP22 from an XJ40 are way nicer to drive. I'm sure you can get the cooling system to behave nowadays, too - but that engine wasn't worth tooling up for. It wasn't powerful for its weight and was chronically under developed. GTs don't have to be quick, granted, but the Stags I've driven are all mouth and no trousers in the performance stakes. If you want to shout that loud, you'd better deliver.

 

Then there's the steering. Why is it so numb and over-assisted? Why do you have to turn in twice to place the car into a bend? Stags seem to vary wildly between 'passable' and 'even worse than a PCF equipped Rover 800 on Mogadon'. You can have a soft edged car with accurate steering; the 504 Convertible managed it. Why couldn't Triumph?

[rml2345]

Triumph and Rover were part of Leyland Motors before the BMC merger so I think it was complacent Leyland managers and "Not invented here" syndrome at Triumph that allowed the cobbled V8 to reach production. In saying that, the Leyland 800 series V8 also came out half baked so perhaps Leyland as a whole just couldn't do V8s.

[New POD]

Marina/Ital. They're overestimated these days with people seeing them through rosy goggles.

 

When launched they were an outdated update of a Moggie thou, very poorly assembled and laughably pitched as competition for the Cortina. The first new car I sat in was a 1.8 saloon that the old man's mate bought....get this...as he drove it away from the dealers it was pulling to the right when braking so he turned round and went back. He was told it was just bedding in and would be ok after a few miles. It wasn't. That evening he came round with it and took Dad & me to their mate's garage to have a look, he was having to steer left when braking. Once up on the ramp the problem was obvious, the car had been assembled with an o/s front disc & caliper and a n/s front drum brake. There's shit, right there, straight from the factory.

 

Years later I owned a Marina van, a 1.7 HLS and a 1.3 Ital, mostly because at the time I was very skint and they were very cheap. And shit. Trying to make progress down any road with bends is like trying to run downstairs with a double mattress.

 

Fuck 'em, they're a bag o' shite.

One of my lecturers at Polytechnic, Roger Perks was his name, used to work for a brake company who were NOT Lucas, and he was called into the factory by BL, demanding to know why damm it, are all the Marina's brakes pulling to one side.

He "may" have later demanded to know why damm it, they were total fuckwits. Basically they had a pallet either side of the assembly line and one was a drum and the other was a disc.

[Sigmund Fraud]

FWD Lotus Elan. Until you've driven a good one, you won't believe just how good these were. I sold these as new cars band they were just incredible. 

 

I agree they're a brilliant drive, but their build quality is rubbish.

 

Sometime in the early 00's I borrowed a friend's M100 Turbo to take a particularly fit young lady out on a date. Everything was going well, when the bloody clutch cable decided to unhook itself from the pedal. Spending half an hour contorted in the driver's footwell didn't do much for my mood, spending the same amount of time freezing on the hard shoulder didn't do much for hers.

 

She still agreed to see me again, though. Which she definitely regretted when I turned up at her house in my stylish and reliable Lada Riva.

[purplebargeken]

All over-estimated cars become wonderful when they reach the magic 300 quid mark and are featured on Autoshite with a For Sale or Raffle tag.

[andrew e]

But, the Focus was a metric fucktonne better than the Escort before it. Admittedly, there are some virulent STDs that are preferable to a Mk 5/6/7 Escort depending on what level of carnerd you're talking to. We can skip the whole "mark whatever" by simply saying "The Escort that nearly ruined Ford Europe".

 

And I'd still have a cheap convertible one, because car.

Meh Richard, post '95 Escorts (mark 7) handled and went very well. It's just that by 20k of thrashing they needed new wishbones. I bought a 16v one 6 months old in 97' (had lost about 40% of list!) and a mate had a similar aged 306, run rings round it. Said 306 XSI owner then bought a 1.8 Escort (Ghia X no less!) I did think it was maybe an off 306 until the wife bought a 16v cabriolet, which also was shite. Beautiful but shite.

 

So I nominate the Peugeot 306, for actually not being wonderful (except for the whole upholstered upper glovebox phase one thing).

[PhillipM]

I think perhaps your 306's were shagged. Wonderful chassis for a wrong wheel drive.

Mind, buying a wobble cabriolet in anything is not often a recipe for greatness...

[andrew e]

Not saying they weren't great (rubber cabrio not included) but that I really don't think they were 10 x better than the opposition as everyone says now. Nobody ever mentions how bloody small the Focus boot was either [/tangent]

[PhillipM]

Well, I'll admit the escorts I've drove have been sheds and my 306 was sorted front to back, but the thing was pin sharp, still miss it.

[andrew e]

To be fair, unless lumbered with a heavy lump, nearly all PSA products of the 90's were precise steering cars.

[D Spares & Tyres]

Even with the heavy lumps they were great.

 

Unfortunately the front arm bushes are practically a service item and soon spoil the handling

[Junkman]

A lot more cars mentioned in this thread are on my shopping list, than cars mentioned in the 'underestimated' thread.