Base spec absolute misery

[Isaac Hunt]

10 hours ago, bunglebus said:

I think vans have had the biggest areas of improvement in terms of driver comfort.

VW - single instrument, card liners on the doors, vinyl bench and the headlight bowls looking at you. Still sylish.

 

 

60s Transit

 

Even into the 70s Bedford didn't give you much

 

 

Buy a new Transit Custom however...

 

What is it with satnav’s that they couldn’t be arsed to design it into the dash ‘proper like’.  It reminds me of yesteryears poverty spec cars where to fit a radio, you had to add a binacle pod of some sort.  Progress eh

[ETCHY]

52 minutes ago, Richard_FM said:

It was last taxed on 17 February 2001 so might be in a garage somewhere.  21 years on the road is good going for a car from that era.

Cool ta for the info'.

To be honest it was a really solid motor apart from a dodgy back valance (that I filled), the paint was a bit faded being metallic but otherwise it was cool.

It was 1990  that I sold it, so to know it ran for 11 years longer is impressive !

[GrumpiusMaximus]

56 minutes ago, RoadworkUK said:

I feel that I should mention the original base spec Ford Ka in this thread... because it was the most sensibly specced car in the whole world.

Instruments: Just a speedo, fuel gauge and some idiot lights.

Heater: sensible three-speed fan and rotary stratification controls.

Stereo: Ford Model 1000, FM only plus cassette. Actually sounded terrific.

Hand-cranked windows were fine 'cos you could easily reach over to open the passenger side if you needed to. Seats had masses of fore / aft sliding adjustment so even certifiable freaks like me could fit behind the wheel. Dashboard floodlight illumination was beautifully judged. Rear seat had a 50/50 split fold and you could set the squab in two positions to allow a bit of extra bootspace in exchange for the plebs in the back sitting bolt upright. Also had incredibly well-judged hard-wearing yet not uncomfortable seat fabric. Huge door bins; a handy shelf / tub in front of the passenger; a carpeted cupholder thing behind the gear selector. And the very most beautiful interior clock of the 20th century.

It was just the very manifestation of "you'd need to be mad to want anything more". 

Except for rustproofing, obvs.

I had a base-spec one.  S434 LCW.  Ended up lasting until 2013 (we PX'd it in 2010) when rust finally caught up with it according to the MOT.  Great car except for two things.  Being 6'2", on long journeys I'd get a numb right foot from the driving position - even with the seat right back (probably my 'configuration') and the lack of air conditioning during the summer of 2006, stuck on the M25 for four hours in about 35C was utterly, utterly hellish.  

Nothing has come close around the country lanes though.  I could crank it up to silly speeds and it handled like an absolute dream.  

I once got a drum kit, guitar amplifier, guitar and 3 people in mine to do a gig.  At college they called it 'Car Tetris'.  It's amazing how much you could get in one.  The gearing was good, too - so when I was doing a theatre gig I brought back most of my gear in one go.  To the point where I couldn't use first or third because there was a drum stool in the way.  Still drove fine and was quite decent with only 2, 4 and 5.

[DavidB]

Those old van interiors are amazing, they're so classy looking.

The modern one, there's no other word to describe it ...

[ETCHY]

5 minutes ago, DavidB said:

Those old van interiors are amazing, they're so classy looking.

The modern one, there's no other word to describe it ...

Hideous gets quite near..

[Richard_FM]

1 hour ago, ETCHY said:

Cool ta for the info'.

To be honest it was a really solid motor apart from a dodgy back valance (that I filled), the paint was a bit faded being metallic but otherwise it was cool.

It was 1990  that I sold it, so to know it ran for 11 years longer is impressive !

You are welcome, I’ve been checking out all the pictures of cars in the literature I’ve recently bought to see how long they lasted.  Most seemed to last around 10 years but there have been some surprising ones that have been a lot longer or shorter than I expected.

[N19]

Really don't like the new style transit driving position. Moving the gearstick onto the dash rather than in the usual position means a) I grasp around for it every time I try to change gear, b) my knee bangs into the dash mount it sits on. 

Also, with the car-style interior, I wonder what they'll look like in 10 years time and whether they'll stand up to the abuse? 

[HMC]

Wierdly I found the long floor mount sprinter gear shift more comfortable to use than the supposedly upgraded dash shift on the later one i had. I think @83C found similar on his.

[Zelandeth]

3 hours ago, RoadworkUK said:

I feel that I should mention the original base spec Ford Ka in this thread... because it was the most sensibly specced car in the whole world

 

Amen!

A car I really want to own one day.  Only thing I'd do?  Fit the milled alloy gearknob from a Puma.  With that fitted, perfection in an interior.

[Sir Snipes]

The high mount gear lever was one of the things I liked about the transits I had to drive for work. That's a facelift dash, the earlier version is a riot of buttons.

[Zelandeth]

3 hours ago, DavidB said:

Those old van interiors are amazing, they're so classy looking.

The modern one, there's no other word to describe it ...

Best van interior...though I'm obviously biased!

The seat covers and shag pile carpet are courtesy of the coachbuilder who made the camper body, and the cab carpet will hopefully be replaced with something slightly more sensible soon, but the Merc T1 cab is a thing of beauty to me.

No stupid dash mounted gear levers here!

Instrument panel is exactly what you need.

Yeah... I'm biased.

Edited March 10, 2020 by Zelandeth
correcting autocorrect (again)

[Mrcento]

42 minutes ago, HMC said:

Wierdly I found the long floor mount sprinter gear shift more comfortable to use than the supposedly upgraded dash shift on the later one i had. I think @83C found similar on his.

It's sister vehicle, the VW LT kept the floor mounted dildo stick (and original sprinter dash) through it's entire production run until about 06.

[83C]

49 minutes ago, HMC said:

Wierdly I found the long floor mount sprinter gear shift more comfortable to use than the supposedly upgraded dash shift on the later one i had. I think @83C found similar on his.

Indeed. Floor shift much preferable to the vague hope-its-found-a-forward-gear dashboard mounted version.

[Richard_FM]

Some low spec Fords & Vauxhalls still had column shifts until the late 1960s at least.

Vauxhall Victor FDs also had just 3 gears in the lower spec levels.

[ChinaTom]

A 1.8 L Carlton is an austere place to be. Almost all of us traded down to a CD spec Cavalier or 316 BMW; for me it was a GLSi spec Sierra. 

[New POD]

I have no.photos.

Dad was made redundant. His series 80 cortina estate was taken back by the company and he bravely went out and bought a new car with half the redundancy. 

Phoned around all.the Northwests Ford dealers. His requirements a new Sierra estate. 1.6.  Any colour. Any spec. Available and ready to go.

Brand new biege base Y reg estate, 15 miles on the clock. Dangly mirrors.

No head rests. no stereo, no rear seat belts. No carpet in the boot.  Very little rust proofing.  12 shades of brown interior. From.a mokka dash to sand carpet. 

It was in the family for years. We all.learnt to drive in it.

My sister had it  eventually and sold it on with 160k on the clock. 

[sierraman]

My dad had the Sierra with the fleet spec EMAX engine in. Very similar to this but without the black tide mark. 

[sierraman]

Anyone remember the special base ones they did for BT, usually a base Sierra or Escort Estate in telecom yellow? 

[jmsguzzi]

On 3/7/2020 at 8:51 PM, AndyW201 said:

I've experienced the joy of base a few times,

The Metro I had as my first car was one of the early base models, just had miniMetro on the boot, not even a City logo. One door mirror, no rear wash wipe, not even a heated rear window, 135 section tyres on its 12" wheels and front discs but no servo. Someone before me had taken out the vinyl seats out though and fitted MG ones, complete with the red carpets.

That was followed by an A plate MK3 Escort 1.1 popular in misery-spec China blue. By 1984 though, Ford had at least replaced the low back vinyl seats with cloth trimmed ones with the A frame headrests. The dash had gained centre vents and the absolute luxury of the centre pod mounted radio speaker. One wonders how much money Ford actually saved on the de-specced dash of the earlier base MK3.

The last truly base 1.1 MK3 I saw was back in 1991. I very nearly bought it; REF 76X, complete with that early dash and headrest-less vinyl seats. Even the colour was dull non-metallic grey, to which the owner/seller had added some jazzy Stylistick 'Escort' logo'd graphics down the side to try to make it look less depressing. I got the Metro instead...

When I went through my phase of owning Mercedes 190s, most of them had had a lot of the option boxes ticked. One though, stood out.

K281 OBK was a 1.8 with manual box. Brown paintwork, steelies with original 190 wheel trims, keep fit windows all round, beige cloth trim with none of the niceties my other 190s had like front arm rest or rear headrests. Only boxes ticked were (manual) sunroof, electric aerial and a dealer-fit Blaupunkt Casablanca radio cassette. A complete opposite to my other 190s but I loved it!

My Dads much missed Kreg 190E was this spec in burgundy with grey cloth minus the electric aerial, it did however have some cassette holders fitted at the bottom of the centre console instead of the cubby space, which was inconveniant as he'd fitted a CD player!

[JeeExEll]

14 hours ago, New POD said:

Dad was made redundant. His series 80 cortina estate was taken back by the company and he bravely went out and bought a new car with half the redundancy.

Around this time you could order a 'business-pack' Cortina '80' 1600 estate.  It had gas rear shock absorbers and HD springs and 185/70 tyres. Probably some more details I've forgotten, I used to have a brochure pic but long gone now.  Maybe someone else has a scan.

Around 1970/71 you could order a 'base' Mk3 Cortina 2000 estate with vinyl seats and not much more.  No column-change Mk3 Cortinas built to my knowledge, but I'd very much like to be proved wrong.

[Liggle]

The most miserable spec I've had was a 1993 Polo Fox 1.0. K67CRX 

No radio, central locking, PAS, lower centre console. Didn't even get the clock nevermind a rev counter, you did get some LGBTQ+ coloured seats that were surprisingly comfortable though! It was the breadvan shape too so really spacious. 

My Clio RL Liberte was a close second, a special edition which meant metallic paint and a temp gauge but bugger all else. RN spec Renners were pretty miserable too.

[Richard_FM]

The 1990s seemed to have a lot of odd special editions,  often these would consist of some colourful decals, alloy wheels & fancier radio but normally nothing mechanical was upgraded.

The French manufacturers seemed to create a lot of these with a tv campaign to sell them.

[ProgRocker]

12 hours ago, New POD said:

I have no.photos.

Dad was made redundant. His series 80 cortina estate was taken back by the company and he bravely went out and bought a new car with half the redundancy. 

Phoned around all.the Northwests Ford dealers. His requirements a new Sierra estate. 1.6.  Any colour. Any spec. Available and ready to go.

Brand new biege base Y reg estate, 15 miles on the clock. Dangly mirrors.

No head rests. no stereo, no rear seat belts. No carpet in the boot.  Very little rust proofing.  12 shades of brown interior. From.a mokka dash to sand carpet. 

It was in the family for years. We all.learnt to drive in it.

My sister had it  eventually and sold it on with 160k on the clock. 

Did it have the grey grille?!!

[NorfolkNWeigh]

2 hours ago, JeeExEll said:

Around this time you could order a 'business-pack' Cortina '80' 1600 estate.  It had gas rear shock absorbers and HD springs and 185/70 tyres. Probably some more details I've forgotten, I used to have a brochure pic but long gone now.  Maybe someone else has a scan.

Around 1970/71 you could order a 'base' Mk3 Cortina 2000 estate with vinyl seats and not much more.

Hope this is readable, I can’t do scans so here’s a photo. 

Sorry! No idea how to change them , anyway the Sierra business pack ups the tyres to 195/70 13. That was because estates already had 185/70s instead of165s. When I was a spotty youth I’d always request hire Sierras were estates because I convinced myself they handled better, just because of that. God knows how any of those hire cars survived me at 18-20years old.

[Three Speed]

Sometime in the mid 80's my brother's Capris was nicked. He needed to get a car quick - but apparently did not need a quick car - so a P-reg base spec 3 door Chevette appeared. Faded red with black tide mark and mahoosive oil leak. I've tried hard to forget my acquaintance with this thing but I seem to recall it was a Chevette E. One sun visor and I think it had bare hardboard door cards - could that be right? Around the same time my mate's mum had a base spec Escrot Mk 1 and it may have been that one that had the hardboard door cards - one of them did. Ugh.

[Datsuncog]

On 3/10/2020 at 6:12 PM, Liggle said:

The most miserable spec I've had was a 1993 Polo Fox 1.0. K67CRX 

No radio, central locking, PAS, lower centre console. Didn't even get the clock nevermind a rev counter, you did get some LGBTQ+ coloured seats that were surprisingly comfortable though! It was the breadvan shape too so really spacious. 

Heh, I owned one of those too - almost vindictively basic spec from VW.

No glove box lid either, or trip counter below the odometer, and the courtesy light only worked on the driver's door - just a blanking grommet in the passenger side door frame rather than a plunger switch. Harsh.

The technicolour seats and door cards were a sight to behold, indeed!

Mine were horribly oil stained so I threw a set of Lidl seat covers on, and blu-tac'd an old Casio F91W digital watch onto the sparse instrument binnacle. I wasn't sure if the rear parcel shelf was AWOL or deliberately left out at the factory like the base Metros, but I bunged in a slab of MDF anyway, and wired in an old Blaupunkt head unit. Someone had also attempted to wire in an aftermarket 12v socket/fag lighter, but it wasn't connected up.

Luxury.

I'd previously owned a lovely high-spec Genesis model which was stolen and recovered (but never the same car again), and the difference between the two was considerable.

That said, I grew fond of the Fox's primal nature and found it an eager enough little go-kart of a thing to drive, and chuckable on the twisty stuff - which is to say it felt fast enough at 40mph.

The main issue was its habit of brake fade, which I'd never experienced before and don't much fancy again. It also had a large rust hole in the bulkhead under the battery tray, which only came to my attention when I noticed my right leg was often oddly wet.

MrsDC hated it because it broke down literally within five minutes of buying it, causing us all sorts of problems, and made no secret of her hostility.

However, it remains the only car I have ever sold for more than I paid for it.

Dubbers are weird.

[JeeExEll]

From above, interesting price lists for Ford geekers ( like me).

 

[chaseracer]

Can't believe we've made it this far without a 50s 2CV...

 

[chaseracer]

On 3/7/2020 at 8:51 PM, Richard_FM said:

Vauxhall had an oversupply of viva 2 door saloon body shells & to shift them produced a ultra stripped down trim level at a knock down price which sold better than they expected 

Ah, the Viva E...!

It was even better than that.  The E saloon only happened after GM had used up excess Firenza shells in 1975 with the E coupe.

[Talbot]

It always frustrated me throughout the 90's that the vast majority of cheap 80s diesels on the market were only available in poverty spec.  Most models of car only had one diesel engine available in the lowest trim specification.

The Talbot Horizon, which was just about the only XUD-engine'd car I could afford was the perfect example.  If you were happy to live with awful fuel economy and the cacophony of tappet-rattle from the simca petrol engines, there was a fair range of moderately-decent trim specifications to choose from.  You could get PAS, electric windows, Central locking, rev counters, fuel computer, cruise control, decent wide alloys, nicely trimmed seats and all sorts of other niceties.  If you wanted an XUD (which I did) then you got none of the above, which I found hugely irritating and despite half-arsed efforts to do so, I never did succeed in transplanting many of these niceties into an XUD-equipped one.

I did consider dropping the XUD from one of my rotten Horizons into a far-better equipped car, but it turned out that the shells are sufficiently different that I couldn't easily do so.

More recently I've discovered that in Spain you could get far better equipped Horizon Diesels, even as far as having AirCon available.  I kinda want one now!