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My mum's old Astra - and her new Astra


bunglebus

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My Mum's had a '91 MK3 Ashtray 1.4i GLS manual since about 2000 when she sold her Dolomite.

It was low mileage but getting crusty despite being garaged, so I bought her a '93 MK3 Astra 1.4i GLS auto which had been owned by an old lady about a mile away, but had been through the hands of two of my friends as a stop-gap car for the last couple of years (and sat unused on the drive for all of the second year).

It worked out really nicely as my mum wanted to go to auto as she's getting on a bit (hope she doesn't read this), and it meant she didn't have to get used to a different car as well as a different gearbox.

Bizarrely not only had it come from about a mile away, it had almost identical mileage.

 

Here they are;

 

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T25%20005_zpsz9bwnhic.jpg

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You know when you say a word loads and it stops sounding like the word and just becomes abstract?

 

Well I've just looked at these pictures of Astras loads and now they've stopped looking like Astras. They look like some kind of strange concept car time blip.

 

Anyhow, carry on.

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These are starting to look really smart now. Never really liked them. When new, they looked too giffer after the 'E' (I was glad when they brought out the 'G') and they were mostly driven by old people or really scrutty poor people for years. However, the fact that these are no longer the standard car of choice for a family of 6 from (insert worst council state in your area here) with a gobby fat lass in leggings driving it with no insurance whilst smoking a Superking (which is to be fair the destiny of most Vauxhalls) means that they are starting to look pretty smart to me.

 

Glad to see these survived and in this condition. 

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You don't see them much anymore.

I had a scruffy Estate about 9 years ago with 200k on the clock and a mismatched drivers seat but I don't remember the last one i saw.

I guess the mk4 got so cheap so quickly that the mk3 became worthless.

 

My mate had a 1.4LS which I believe was available in 2 power outputs (single vs multi point injection?)

I forget the exact numbers but I think it was 60bhp or 75bhp.

When asked which his was, he replied "Dunno, but if that is the 75 then God help anyone with a 60!"

In fairness he had just got rid of a troublesome and financially ruinous Cavalier GSi.

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Does it have wonderful veloooour?! 

 

Of course - swapped some of the interior trim out of the red one, purely because it was easier than cleaning it! 

The interiors are identical but it's interesting to see the under bonnet changes on two "identical" cars two years apart. Red one has a dizzy and separate coil pack, blue one has a big coil pack where the dizzy used to live.

PAS pump is in a different location, on the red one it's in an awkward place behind the timing belt cover which makes doing the belt a turd. Looks like Vauxhall also felt it was a PITA and moved in to a more conventional location. 

Even the wiring plug for the electric mirror switch was different for some reason.

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