My life in cars - now with added Vauxhall!

[Cavcraft]

On 17/04/2025 at 20:13, Bmwdumptruck said:

When these Mk2 Cavaliers first came out my Dad still had his garage in Luton.  I’d have been 17/18 ish.  He had a customer / friend that got an early 1.6SR, before they made them 1.8Fi’s.  So it looked sporty but was only standard 1.6 power.  This guy was a rep and quickly put 100k on it, by which time it was guzzling oil so one of the last jobs my dad did before closing the garage down (in Maggies recession) was to fit a brand new crated vauxhall replacement engine, as they were still too new for recon untis from the more normal engine suppliers.  At the same time dad had another cusromer, one of the last hat factory families in Luton, where the dad had just bought an early BMW 323i that was just so nice, and his younger son who was their company rep, had a new 2.0 mk5 Cortina Ghia which looked great but was so antiquated compared to both the Cavalier and the BMW, and woefully finished and unreliable.  For me Ford certainly rested on their laurels through most of the 80s.  Don’t actually think much changed until the first Mondeos. 

My dad had a 1.6SR as a company car, he didn't want to hang on for another few weeks to get the 1.8 SRi.