Vauxhall Brochure 1979

[Richard_FM]

[adw1977]

I've got the whole of this brochure scanned.

Flickr link

[Bren]

There are no fuel consumption figures for the royale.

For the best really.

[Uncle Jimmy]

I can't remember ever seeing a droop snoot Carlton in the flesh and have certainly  never seen a 4dr Royale.

[adw1977]

5 minutes ago, Bren said:

There are no fuel consumption figures for the royale.

For the best really.

The Royale had it's own brochure.

Fuel consumption figures here:

[Richard_FM]

12 minutes ago, Nibblet said:

I can't remember ever seeing a droop snoot Carlton in the flesh and have certainly  never seen a 4dr Royale.

The early Carltons were rare by the early 1990s, & the only 4 door Royle I remember was one I used to see on my paper round.

[Spiny Norman]

I had a couple of 4 door Royales, lovely cars. Fuel consumption was about 15mpg, rising to mid  20s on a gentle run.

[Bren]

The carb on ours was fooked. Cue lots of black smoke and sub 10 mpg.

[Marsh]

First Carlton was quite rare, a neighbour had a yellow one in the mid 80s which looked quite smart. 

There was one on eBay a while back.

Near me there is a Y reg Viceroy (even rarer) sat festering on a driveway hasn't moved for years.

[junkyarddog]

The viva range was looking positively ancient by then.

 

[Richard_FM]

1 hour ago, junkyarddog said:

The viva range was looking positively ancient by then.

 

Yes the design was a decade old by then, & wasn't too different to the HB dated back to 1966.

The lower spec Vivas must have been one of the last cars with a ribbon speedometer.

[ProgRocker]

The Royale saloon my parents owned in 1985/6 was identical to the one in the brochure. The reg was KEX 460V. 2.8 litre carb engine minus air conditioning.

Sadly not kept for long as the fuel cost was severely impacting their spending on cigarettes and other pointless crap. Instead of downgrading to a 2.0 litre car like the mark 1 Granada that preceeded it, they bought a 1980 Talbot Horizon 1.3 LS. A Chrysler 180/200 would have been cooler!

[JimH]

2 hours ago, junkyarddog said:

The viva range was looking positively ancient by then.

 

It looked absolutely ancient by then mainly because it was absolutely ancient. The blue estate on the left looks from another generation with its dog dish hub caps and oblong headlamps. However, the last of the line, got to get the bits used up GLS saloon next to it looks pretty sharp now with its Magnum bits and bobs. I would have argued that it has aged much better then the spangly new Cavalier below.

[Spiny Norman]

7 hours ago, Bren said:

The carb on ours was fooked. Cue lots of black smoke and sub 10 mpg.

They usually were, on the first one )gold car, above)  the auto choke would stick on and yes, sub 10mpg was the reward.

The second one came with a bill for £700 for a new Solex  carb and it managed the dizzy heights of 17mpg.  Sometimes had to chuck a pint of petrol down its throat to get it started if it had been sitting a while though.

[Bren]

Do you remember hometune?

We had a guy out to ours - the look on his face when he took the air filter off the carb was a sight to behold.

Suffice to say it was quickly put back and no money changed hands.

1990 was a long time ago.

[Spiny Norman]

I do.
My tame mechanic back then was an American car nut and was quite used to dealing with 4 barrel soup plates with all sorts of pipework and he usually managed to keep it fairly sweet but the auto choke defeated him in the end and he recommended we fit a manual conversion kit. It was a pig to start from cold after that sometimes but it ran better once it was warmed up.
They used the same device on some BMWs before they all got fuel injection, which helped the big GM engine massively. I had a shot in a Monza once and it felt like a completely different car.