80’s and 90’s stuff that was unsalable

[sierraman]

Probably Range Rovers/Discos etc. Cost and chance of a big ticket item going wrong is fairly high and would wipe out any profit 

[Timewaster]

Small engined automatics are probably still forecourt ornaments I imagine. 

 

 

[spartacus]

I think there's a market for them, there's a small dealer in Sheffield who specializes in small autos.

[Richard_FM]

Diesels possibly after the bad press & independent mechanics not liking them when owned by people who do only a few thousand miles a year & wonder why the engines are all clogged up with soot. 

[HMC]

Top gear 1991 and QW says avoid stuff like this at auction...

Any one of which is and would be centre stage here....

[Richard_FM]

41 minutes ago, HMC said:

Top gear 1991 and QW says avoid stuff like this at auction...

Any one of which is and would be centre stage here....

I remember top gear seemed to have a thing about hillman avengers being a non classic around the time a lot of 70s cars became minor classics

[HMC]

More advice on what’s hard to sell and what to avoid buying..... from our man in the trade QW this time it’s 1997....

“Blah blah I drive an e32 7 series and it’s shit hot. “

“These 6 are not.....”

[Tamworthbay]

Nissan QX, the Far East 5 series (or possibly not). I looked at a 3.0 auto going for pennies, it drove ok and was stupidly cheap for what you got. For some reason I just couldn’t make myself buy it. I seem to remember that the 2 litre v6 did the same mpg as the 3 litre v6 but was amazingly slow, something like 14 seconds to 60mph. I would have a 3.0 now I think.

[Tamworthbay]

3 hours ago, Justin Case said:

Is there a modern equivalent?  All the Eastern European shite has gone, and now they make other countries  models in their factories.  Some cars like the Fiat Tipo appear to lose value alarmingly but you could get the basic model for £10k a couple of years ago, so the present price of £7k means a loss of only 30% in the real world. So is there anything still available new today that is so grim that dealers run into their portacabins and hide behind their bunting when one looms up on their forecourt?

I have been looking at Tipos  as they seem ok in estate form and I like an underdog. There are some proper bargains out there, especially at auction. 50% depreciation in three years is very common and high milers, although rare, are stupidly cheap when they do appear. I doubt many dealers will be champing at the bit to get hold of a 3 year old 80,000 mile Fiat for their forecourt.

[AnthonyG]

Companies seem wise to poor selling models dragging down the brand these days - particularly the smaller companies - and no hopers like the Suzuki Kisazki (sp) get canned very quickly now.

Even the big firms will have a purge of lemons now and again - I think around 2012 Renault basically stopped selling anything bigger than a Scenic in the UK. 

 

[Timewaster]

  Doing the exact opposite of whatever QW says is not a bad way to live your life. 

 

 

[artdjones]

Base model cars are not that saleable now.My wife's car is a 2013 Mégane Sports Tourer,an Expression plus,which is one level above absolute base.It was bought at 4 years old for €6000 with high mileage (118k miles).I think it had been a Chubb service engineer's car,and had had 1 owner for 8 months in Ireland.The equivalent model was about €21000 new at the time,so about 70% depreciation in 4 years.At the same time a Dynamique,1 trim level up was 8½ -10k euros,2-4000 more,which was the same as the price difference when new,with no erosion by depreciation..To sell base cars,they must be cheap,or no-one wants them.

Having said that an Expression+ is probably equipped to the level of the top of the range MK1 Mégane, except for not very plush looking seats.It has a/c,remote locking,4 electric windows,and parking sensors.So modern base models are much nicer than the old ones used to be.

[Richard_FM]

Dacia seems the most likely brand these days to lose value quickly, especially how basic spec they can be.  I remember looking at their site not long after they launched in the UK & almost every creature comfort seemed to be a hidden extra when speccing a car.  Also being made from hand me down Renault parts adds a bit of Daewoo aspect to them.

[bramz7]

There's a feature in an old Top Gear magazine I have where they got given £500 to buy a taxed and tested car, each of the 5 staff taking part had to buy a different body style of car. 

It seems to me that 25s were worthless as they passed on a V6. 

And they also passed on an E23. I think it was a dog though. 

Oddly one of them bought a CX in more or less spotless condition, and bizarrely it's still on the road now, 24 years later. 

I bet an early 166 was like poison to some dealers. To be fair they aren't worth vast amounts now. 

[Burnside]

The Fiat Strada MK2/3.

My Dad brought a last of the line 88 E reg MK3 Strada 70CL Team back in 1991. He owned it for 8 years and you could count on one hand, how many others we saw on the road in the time he had it.

Would love to get another, but they are almost extinct here. 

Another more modern vehicle.

The Mercedes Vaneo based on the A class.

Back in 03-04 I worked as a valeter at a Mercedes Dealer. They had a Met Blue Vaneo sat in the showroom for over 18 months. Nobody and I mean nobody came to view it, they couldn't even get anyone to take it out for a test drive.

They were so unsellable they were stuck with 7 of them at there storage yard. Amazingly though a salesmen in fleet sales, managed to sell 4 of them at a discounted price to some hipster art company in London. He was treated like royalty after that. 

The other 3 though are probably still unsold.

The other car they hated at the time, was any secondhand 600 SEC. They were considered as landmarks and salesmen would do anything they could to avoid taking one in px. 

We had two stuck on the forecourt which never sold while I worked there either. 

 

[Split_Pin]

8 hours ago, Richard_FM said:

Dacia seems the most likely brand these days to lose value quickly, especially how basic spec they can be.  I remember looking at their site not long after they launched in the UK & almost every creature comfort seemed to be a hidden extra when speccing a car.  Also being made from hand me down Renault parts adds a bit of Daewoo aspect to them.

I disagree.

Dusters hold their value very well and when I had to give mine up last year due to redundancy I ended up with a small profit, even after WBAC took off their nonsense tax.

Change 'hand-me-down' to 'proven mechanicals'. Nissan 1.6 petrol and diesel engines, Clio MK2 floorpan. Renault sold them under the Dacia brand as the Renault name has taken a bit of a doing in the UK in the last decade.

The only issue is that there are a lot of them on the 2nd hand market but it doesnt seem to have impacted the price.

[Richard_FM]

4 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

I disagree.

Dusters hold their value very well and when I had to give mine up last year due to redundancy I ended up with a small profit, even after WBAC took off their nonsense tax.

Change 'hand-me-down' to 'proven mechanicals'. Nissan 1.6 petrol and diesel engines, Clio MK2 floorpan. Renault sold them under the Dacia brand as the Renault name has taken a bit of a doing in the UK in the last decade.

The only issue is that there are a lot of them on the 2nd hand market but it doesnt seem to have impacted the price.

That’s interesting I remember when they were being launched there was a lot of concern about them losing value because they were a generation behind but that doesn’t seem to have happened.  Quite a few new brands have started by using parts from established manufacturers so I guess it’s not a problem as long as you know what you are doing.

Also many Dacia franchise holders are also Renault dealers so they didn’t have to start from scratch building up a dealer network.

[sierraman]

9 hours ago, Timewaster said:

  Doing the exact opposite of whatever QW says is not a bad way to live your life. 

 

 

When that program was put out (maybe 1997?) the Metro and the Serena were actually genuinely shit. Nobody in their sane mind was going to pick the Metro over the Punto, Corsa, 106 etc. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

8 hours ago, bramz7 said:

There's a feature in an old Top Gear magazine I have where they got given £500 to buy a taxed and tested car, each of the 5 staff taking part had to buy a different body style of car. 

It seems to me that 25s were worthless as they passed on a V6. 

And they also passed on an E23. I think it was a dog though. 

Oddly one of them bought a CX in more or less spotless condition, and bizarrely it's still on the road now, 24 years later. 

I bet an early 166 was like poison to some dealers. To be fair they aren't worth vast amounts now. 

E23s - the few that survive - are now worth a bit more. 10 years ago, £1500 would have given you a very decent late 1984/5 735i, but now it's more like £5000. I think it's partly because E24 6s are no longer affordable.

Like CXs, though, you really have to want one. They just don't have that general appeal.

[HMC]

10 hours ago, bramz7 said:

There's a feature in an old Top Gear magazine I have where they got given £500 to buy a taxed and tested car, each of the 5 staff taking part had to buy a different body style of car. 

It seems to me that 25s were worthless as they passed on a V6. 

And they also passed on an E23. I think it was a dog though. 

Oddly one of them bought a CX in more or less spotless condition, and bizarrely it's still on the road now, 24 years later. 

 

I loved that feature. Some bloke ended up with a Volvo 265 and another a wolseley 16/60

If memory serves there was a rare Datsun coupe @Spottedlaurel that was looked at too.

[bramz7]

Yep that's it, along with an early Uno (B plate) and an Alfasud Sprint. The latter broke down. 

To be fair, early TG magazines often had cheap car stuff going on. Quite a few of the buyers guides make fascinating reading now. 

[Datsuncog]

Heh, I kept that edition of TG mag - probably the only one I held onto.

I think that was the one where the editorial team went banger racing (airborne Chevette on the front cover?), and gave away a scrapyard find Marina Coupe as a competition prize. I entered the comp but didn't win though.

The gold E23 had borked power steering, as I recall - something about "after listening to it clonking away, we left".

The C211 Datsun Skyline was something else, though. Shame the pics of it were rubbish.

[HMC]

Yes- IIRC the cx buyer (editor Kevin blick) also viewed a 70s xj6 series 2 that had a “crazy paving paint job” WOULD

Looking back at 1995s £500 classifieds And their wading through them would be fascinating.

Anyone got a scan of it?!

[HMC]

15 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

Heh, I kept that edition of TG mag - probably the only one I held onto.

I think that was the one where the editorial team went banger racing (airborne Chevette on the front cover?), and gave away a scrapyard find Marina Coupe as a competition prize. I entered the comp but didn't win though.

The gold E23 had borked power steering, as I recall - something about "after listening to it clonking away, we left".

The C211 Datsun Skyline was something else, though. Shame the pics of it were rubbish.

I also entered the marina competition for DUR***K - it’s pretty sad I can remember most of the reg but I really wanted to win it. You had to send a postcard explaining why you deserved it.

[lesapandre]

5 hours ago, Richard_FM said:

That’s interesting I remember when they were being launched there was a lot of concern about them losing value because they were a generation behind but that doesn’t seem to have happened.  Quite a few new brands have started by using parts from established manufacturers so I guess it’s not a problem as long as you know what you are doing.

Also many Dacia franchise holders are also Renault dealers so they didn’t have to start from scratch building up a dealer network.

Nothing wrong with a bit of knife and folk tech. Cars seem often over-complex these days so low tech still will find buyers?

Datsun 240K Skyline were lovely cars - coupe 2.4-6 similar engine to the 240Z -very revvy. Drove beautifully but...rust! They sold a few and there were quite a few on the second hand market for peanuts around 1990 from about £50 upwards. Must be very few left as rust was chronic on those I owned. The cills would come away in handfulls. Pity.

[sierraman]

It’s funny how anything 70’s was deemed really naff in the mid 90’s then suddenly everyone was mad for a bit of seventies action. We shouldn’t have wasted money on pensions we ought to have been busy filling barns with all the 70’s tin that was giveaway at the time. 

[Richard_FM]

20 minutes ago, sierraman said:

It’s funny how anything 70’s was deemed really naff in the mid 90’s then suddenly everyone was mad for a bit of seventies action. We shouldn’t have wasted money on pensions we ought to have been busy filling barns with all the 70’s tin that was giveaway at the time. 

Yes I remember rwd fords were low 3 figures for a rough example that could just about get through an MOT.

[Bradders59]

22 hours ago, HMC said:

Top gear 1991 and QW says avoid stuff like this at auction...

Any one of which is and would be centre stage here....

If Im not mistaken the one on the left is a Hyundai Stellar ? My Dad bought an auto one of those about 20 years ago for some unfathomable reason.  What was even more unfathomable was that he thought it was a superb car and a real flying machine ! He started it up to let me hear the beast of an engine running, and it really did sound like a skeleton having a wank in a biscuit tin. I was convinced the camchain tensioner would be in the bottom of the sump within 10 miles, but it did carry on for about a year after that.

[sierraman]

The Stellar was the de rigour mini cab back in the day, presumably because you could get two for the price of a used Cavalier. 

[Out Run]

I remember a good Stellar piece on Deals on Wheels. Sold for buttons, and was to become a mini cab.