80’s and 90’s stuff that was unsalable

[brownnova]

On 2/25/2020 at 8:17 PM, CortinaDave said:

 

Wouldnt see a 14 plate car looking that knackered today

 

Have you ever been to Cannock?? 

[brownnova]

Back in 1986 Yugos has received a panning in the American press. Dealers were struggling to shift them. Most Yugo dealers were also dealers for other brands, so one ingenious dealer came up with buy a Cadillac and get a Yugo free!!!

 Very few if any of the customers took up the free Yugo... 

[155V6]

On 2/26/2020 at 5:10 AM, dozeydustman said:

This one?

 

I remember one episode of this where a woman sold a car to scrap dealer & sometime BTCC privateer Hamish Irvine.It wasn't this one ,but there was Ford Puma content instead ?

[Richard_FM]

27 minutes ago, brownnova said:

Back in 1986 Yugos has received a panning in the American press. Dealers were struggling to shift them. Most Yugo dealers were also dealers for other brands, so one ingenious dealer came up with buy a Cadillac and get a Yugo free!!!

 Very few if any of the customers took up the free Yugo... 

I read on one American site that someone had a test drive in one & the radio fell out of the dash in the middle of it.

[brownnova]

There are many Yugo tales like that!

 One time a woman was blown off a bridge in her Yugo in high winds!! 
 

*note to self don’t take my Yugo to Anglesey in a storm... 

[Amishtat]

18 hours ago, trigger said:

I won't show you the follow up feature where he strips it for banger racing then!

Ah go on... 

[sierraman]

17 minutes ago, Richard_FM said:

I read on one American site that someone had a test drive in one & the radio fell out of the dash in the middle of it.

My brothers Lada did that. To be fair they were very cheap to buy, you knew you weren’t getting a BMW for three grand or whatever new. A lot of the elderly folk that had them seemed very satisfied with them. 

[dozeydustman]

Yugo, Lada and pretty much anything eastern bloc was considered unsaleable in the 80s and 90s for a number of reasons - cheaply made, varying quality, somewhat unrefined or a rehash of an already 20-30 year old design. BUT they were useful cheap transport for those who couldn't afford a contemporary more popular model, or just wanted to spend a mingebag amount on a new car. Some weren't actually horrific to drive, and some are now appreciating cult classics - Skoda Estelle, Lada 1200/Riva for example.

The 1990s crap that still won't be saleable for another few years would be the cheap & cheerful Malaysian & Korean stuff. Again not necessarily dreadful to drive, but like their 80's communist counterparts, a bit unrefined compared to contemporaries, although tended to be screwed together pretty well. I can't see the Kia Pride or the Asia Rocsta appearing in an all-white showroom with £££££ price tag for a long while.

[Skut]

The Chrysler Sunbeam was banger fodder about 5 minutes after they stopped making them. I remember me and my dad looking round a garage forcourt in the late 80s and sat at the back behind Astras and Escorts was a decrepit pale yellow base spec Sunbeam. Even then it felt like something from a different era and it was probably only 10 years old at most. 

[JeeExEll]

A bit of irrelevant advertising by Yugo.  Worth a try.

Most definitely.

Still didn't buy one.

[dozeydustman]

1 hour ago, Skut said:

The Chrysler Sunbeam was banger fodder about 5 minutes after they stopped making them. I remember me and my dad looking round a garage forcourt in the late 80s and sat at the back behind Astras and Escorts was a decrepit pale yellow base spec Sunbeam. Even then it felt like something from a different era and it was probably only 10 years old at most. 

The Sunbeam is another mega-underrated car. The Avenger engine was a great power plant, same for the 928cc Imp unit, the gearbox snicky and slick (with a proper second gear noise) and rear wheel drive shenanigans. Only real comparator would be the Chevette, which looked a bit more modern despite being launched a year prior, again another unsellable banger in the 80s and 90s.

 

[Richard_FM]

2 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

The Sunbeam is another mega-underrated car. The Avenger engine was a great power plant, same for the 928cc Imp unit, the gearbox snicky and slick (with a proper second gear noise) and rear wheel drive shenanigans. Only real comparator would be the Chevette, which looked a bit more modern despite being launched a year prior, again another unsellable banger in the 80s and 90s.

 

Thanks three other rwd supermini from that era is the original Toyota starlet which some customisers have stuck bigger engines into.

[dozeydustman]

23 minutes ago, Richard_FM said:

Thanks three other rwd supermini from that era is the original Toyota starlet which some customisers have stuck bigger engines into.

I totally forgot about the original Starlet having a proper drivetrain.

[Richard_FM]

Just now, dozeydustman said:

I totally forgot about the original Starlet having a proper drivetrain.

Thanks they have been popular for making into pocket rockets like the older British rwd cars when they became cheap.

While we got the starlet from 1978 there was an earlier version which wasn’t imported.  Instead the publica aka 1000 was the base model in the uk.

[JeeExEll]

A mate of mine started an apprenticeship at a garage in 1986 aged 17 and the works 'pool car' for going out for local parts, picking up customers, short-term loan car for customers, etc, was a really tidy burgundy coloured X-reg Renner 30 manual with the thirsty 2.7 V6 and metric TRX tyres.  It had been on sale for over a year parked on the forecourt and no-one wanted it so the garage started using it rather than putting it to auction. What a car to wheelspin in the wet if you gave it the beans. (And it did get given beans, lots of beans). Gorgeous interior. I don't remember the price but it really wasn't expensive for such an impressive car.

Eventually it went to the manager's wife to tow a horsebox and the inside used to get loaded with bales of hay and horsey stuff.

[Richard_FM]

Metric tyres were one of those innovations which didn’t catch on.  As well as Renault, BMW & some Metros used them.  

The Metro ones had a non standard bead to make finding replacement tyres even harder.

 I imagine a lot of owners replaced them with the nearest imperial sized wheels once the realised how much hassle they could be.

[JeeExEll]

Metric sized tyres was such a pointless exercise, I don't know what they were trying to achieve. Some car adverts used metric TRX wheels as a selling point - why not just make them 15 inch instead of 14?  

Do the tyres grip better because they conform to Le Metrique Systeme? It's all just numbers on a piece of stick.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

30 minutes ago, Richard_FM said:

Metric tyres were one of those innovations which didn’t catch on.  As well as Renault, BMW & some Metros used them....

....also Citroën and Jaguar. 

Trouble with metric tyres apart from eye-watering expense is the perceived rapidity with which they go "off"/hard when they've aged a bit. First 12 months: grand. After that, all bets off 

[artdjones]

7 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Trouble with metric tyres apart from eye-watering expense is the perceived rapidity with which they go "off"/hard when they've aged a bit. First 12 months: grand. After that, all bets off 

I think that's more a characteristic of Michelin tyres,which most metrics were.They don't half like to go out of shape.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

9 minutes ago, artdjones said:

I think that's more a characteristic of Michelin tyres,which most metrics were.They don't half like to go out of shape.

Avon Turdospeed CR28 metrics didn't have much grip even when new.

[Tamworthbay]

15 minutes ago, artdjones said:

I think that's more a characteristic of Michelin tyres,which most metrics were.They don't half like to go out of shape.

I am sure that is now they wear so well! I had a set of Michelin’s on my old Orion and got 50,000 miles out of them, they were close to new when I got the car so had done 55,000 miles ish when changed. When I put new tyres on it was a different car, the grip was amazing compared to the Michelin’s. They seem much better in that respect over the last decade but don’t last as well.

[Madman Of The People]

I worked for a Honda dealer here in the US back in the late 1990's. We had several of the final Preludes gathering dust and bird poop on our lot which we couldn't shift to save our lives.

The Accord Coupe cost less, could be optioned with a V6 engine and had more room inside.  No prizes for guessing which car was in much higher demand.

We had to massively discount those Preludes just to get rid of them.

 

[artdjones]

I had a 205/55/16 Michelin go bad on me about 6 months ago.It had done about 12000 miles,so not a total disaster.A section of the tread went S-shaped, which I've seen happen on them before.

 

[Cooper1]

Mercedes W210 purely for the fact you could hear them rusting when it rained. ?

[Richard_FM]

4 minutes ago, Madman Of The People said:

I worked for a Honda dealer here in the US back in the late 1990's. We had several of the final Preludes gathering dust and bird poop on our lot which we couldn't shift to save our lives.

The Accord Coupe cost less, could be optioned with a V6 engine and had more room inside.  No prizes for guessing which car was in much higher demand.

We had to massively discount those Preludes just to get rid of them.

 

I did wonder why Honda made both the prelude & accord couple,  at one time they seemed to have a few odd gap filling models like the integra & aerodeck.