Ridiculous trim designations

[Dobloseven]

Brother in laws first new company car was a Renault 19 Be Bop. Dark blue with stickers of a musical persuasion IIRC. Sister in law referred to it as the "M reg",boasting that they had a new car, as opposed to the ancient Sherpa minibus and Peugeot 504 estate we ran at the time. Think it was a 1.9 diesel(the Be Bop). When it was replaced with one of the first Priuses, they bought it from the firm and my SiL ran it for a good while after, eventually replacing it with a City Rover, when the engine started playing up. Happy days. Sadly my BiL, a year younger than me is in a poor old way, with kidney failure and mental health issues and definitely won't be driving again. 

[Mr Pastry]

Morris Marina Jubilee, 1974.  Greeny-yellow, with a black vinyl roof.  This was to celebrate 60 years of Morris, but I don't recall it raising much interest at the time, and it didn't have a Jubilee badge on it so nobody would know anyway.

 

[sierraman]

3 hours ago, Rod/b said:

That being said - do you remember the Fiesta XRV?

I don’t think that was an official thing though was it? 

[adw1977]

6 hours ago, warren t claim said:

Remember when Talbot raided their back catalogue of names to sell the Solara Minx and Rapier?

According to the brochure, Minx and Rapier were the new model names, with Rapier being the higher spec, each available as a saloon (formerly Solara) and a hatchback (formerly Alpine).

In practice the badges on the cars seem to have still said Solara and Alpine!

[Yoss]

Another poster I had on my wall. It wasn't really a poster, just a brochure but it was a poster to me.

The Escort Harrier.

It's weird as when I started driving I was drawn towards Leyland but as a kid I knew more about Fords. I think perhaps Bristol Street Motors were much happier to give their brochures away to 12 year olds than Wadham Stringer were.

I had piles of these things from all the dealers in Southampton. My mum threw them all away when I was about 16, deciding I was too old for such things. I'm sure she wouldn't now if she knew how much they go for. Especially anything Escort related.

[adw1977]

Fiesta Firefly and Granada Chasseur 

[MiniMinorMk3]

What does a chicken farmer drive on his days off?

.

.

.

.

.

.

A Sierra Chasseur

[MiniMinorMk3]

For all you boys arguing about the M badge, there is only way to have an exclusive top of the range BMW and that is to get one with a name that starts with an A.

[quicksilver]

1 hour ago, MrGTI6 said:

That reminds me, a colleague used to refer to his car as "the AMG". The vehicle in question was a Mercedes A180d AMG Line powered by a 1.5-litre diesel engine also found in cars such as the Renault Kangoo and Dacia Duster. 

He had lots of issues with that car. The only reliable bit was the Renault engine! 

Numbers that imply a different engine size are another ridiculous aspect of modern trim levels. A uni friend had a Mercedes SLK200 so I assumed according to Mercedes' flawless German logic* it was a 2-litre. Turns out it was only a 1.8 but Merc decided to pretend it had a bigger engine to make it look more upmarket. As Shania Twain put it, "that don't impress me much".

[sierraman]

Just looked it up, there was such a thing as an XRV, every day is a school day. The XR2/3 was a bit limp anyway, imagine the indignity of a Cosworth badge of fucking everything like they’ve admittedly done on the ST. The M badge would have been about ‘equivalent’ to Cosworth in the range. Anyway I’ll shut up about it now, I can see it’s wounded enough pride by saying the M sport is anything but an absolute pedigree motorcar. 

[grogee]

25 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

Numbers that imply a different engine size are another ridiculous aspect of modern trim levels. A uni friend had a Mercedes SLK200 so I assumed according to Mercedes' flawless German logic* it was a 2-litre. Turns out it was only a 1.8 but Merc decided to pretend it had a bigger engine to make it look more upmarket. As Shania Twain put it, "that don't impress me much".

Yep. Aldi '35', '40' etc can get in the bin. Presumably they are/will be doing the same for 'lectric versions, pretending that a battery powered motor has some equivalence to a IC engine. 

Mind you, didn't Volvo start this with the P1800 which was a 2.0?

[cort1977]

16 hours ago, twosmoke300 said:

The golf umwelt was an economy / green model wasn’t it ? Didn’t it have some primitive start / stop tech and a mega high 4th gear that was called E rather than 4 

My now wife's first car was a 'Formel E' vw polo, the bread van type on a B plate. It had that stop start system but I didn't know, confused the hell out of me when I first drove it. That system worked quite well, shame about the brakes...

[twosmoke300]

Ahh yea discs up front and no servo ? How did that get signed off ?

[grogee]

11 hours ago, Mr Pastry said:

How about a 1980 Cortina or Escort Huntsman?  They were a sort of maroon colour with gold stripes.  

 

I find this really interesting: a regional special edition, exclusive to the 'South East'. Halogen driving lamps and overriders are just too sophisticated for northern folk.

Presumably this conglomerate of SE dealers persuaded Ford UK to produce this spec? Just weird that Ford didn't think to offer it elsewhere, even with a different name: 'Tartan', 'Tetley', or 'Whippet'.

[grogee]

5 minutes ago, twosmoke300 said:

Ahh yea discs up front and no servo ? How did that get signed off ?

Good* enough for the Fiesta! 

[cort1977]

5 minutes ago, grogee said:

I find this really interesting: a regional special edition, exclusive to the 'South East'. Halogen driving lamps and overriders are just too sophisticated for northern folk.

Presumably this conglomerate of SE dealers persuaded Ford UK to produce this spec? Just weird that Ford didn't think to offer it elsewhere, even with a different name: 'Tartan', 'Tetley', or 'Whippet'.

My memory is a bit vague but I think in the 90s there were 'Thames Ford' limited editions just for the sophisticated London elite. Mostly shitty aftermarket sunroofs hacked in and some stripes.

[Mr Pastry]

6 minutes ago, grogee said:

I find this really interesting: a regional special edition, exclusive to the 'South East'. Halogen driving lamps and overriders are just too sophisticated for northern folk.

Presumably this conglomerate of SE dealers persuaded Ford UK to produce this spec? Just weird that Ford didn't think to offer it elsewhere, even with a different name: 'Tartan', 'Tetley', or 'Whippet'.

It's very odd, and you wonder what the dealers were thinking to deliberately limit it to 500 cars when it wasn't so special anyway.  They would have been a bit stuck if sales really took off.  I never saw a Cortina version, but the Escorts did look quite smart.

[dozeydustman]

1 hour ago, adw1977 said:

Fiesta Firefly and Granada Chasseur 

 

1 hour ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

What does a chicken farmer drive on his days off?

.

.

.

.

.

.

A Sierra Chasseur

The spiritual successors to the Escort and Cortina Huntsman editions but with a more exotic* French name? (Chasseur being French for hunter/huntsman)

[Rod/b]

1 hour ago, sierraman said:

I don’t think that was an official thing though was it? 

Yep, it was

[Mr Pastry]

 I once had a Renault Clio Biarritz.  I think this was a run-out model at the end of the MK1.  It was a normal Clio with the following  unique exciting features:

 1.  Special shade of navy blue paint, just a bit darker than standard,  which didn't match anything you could get in a spray can.

 2.  Cheap nasty pop-out glass sunroof, which leaked because no drainage provision and half the fixing bolts were missing.  The rainwater collected inside the roof liner, and ran through unexpectedly onto the driver, via the immobiliser.

 Other than that, is was actually a pretty good car.

[SRi05]

Renault Clio MTV.  It had a couple of stickers and a CD player. 

Bonus bizarre TV ad:

 

 

[Yoss]

39 minutes ago, Mr Pastry said:

It's very odd, and you wonder what the dealers were thinking to deliberately limit it to 500 cars when it wasn't so special anyway.  They would have been a bit stuck if sales really took off.  I never saw a Cortina version, but the Escorts did look quite smart.

Admittedly I never knew it was a regional thing until yesterday. And like you, nobody has ever seen a Cortina one. Did they really exist or was it just a publicity stunt? Admittedly the Escort is more visible because the gold stripe is far more prominent. The Cortina had a much thinner one lower down.

Actually one might still exist as I've just googled them and every picture on the internet is of this one car.

Though the most recent picture is still eight years old.

[MiniMinorMk3]

This can only be driven at night. They were not sold in the UK.

[dozeydustman]

Never really understood why Renault used the designation ‘Campus’ for some of its lower spec Supercinqs, or were these just poverty-spec run out models after the Clio was launched?

[Noel Tidybeard]

7 minutes ago, dozeydustman said:

Never really understood why Renault used the designation ‘Campus’ for some of its lower spec Supercinqs, or were these just poverty-spec run out models after the Clio was launched?

aimed at student types?

[D.E]

Shortly before the introduction of the first Corsa, there was...

 

...the Kadett Corsa:

 

[sierraman]

The Sierra Chasseur if I remember correctly was just an LX with metallic paint. 

[mk2_craig]

4 hours ago, quicksilver said:

Numbers that imply a different engine size are another ridiculous aspect of modern trim levels. A uni friend had a Mercedes SLK200 so I assumed according to Mercedes' flawless German logic* it was a 2-litre. Turns out it was only a 1.8 but Merc decided to pretend it had a bigger engine to make it look more upmarket. As Shania Twain put it, "that don't impress me much".

A few instances of this happening the other way round, wife had a 2004 E46 320i which had a 2.2 litre engine.

[timolloyd]

US manufacturers do regional variations too.

Last year I hired a Dodge Ram with the hemi V8. But this one was a Lone Star edition, exclusively* for Texas.

As far as I can make out this amounted to a different grill and some Texas badges?

[grogee]

9 minutes ago, timolloyd said:

US manufacturers do regional variations too.

Last year I hired a Dodge Ram with the hemi V8. But this one was a Lone Star edition, exclusively* for Texas.

As far as I can make out this amounted to a different grill and some Texas badges?

I can see more sense in different models for different states/regions. After all, what works in Massachusetts probably won't go down well in Missouri. 

There's more climate variation too so a 'dry/hot' car could be useful as well as a  'snowy/cold' one. 

UK only has one weather setting: drizzle. (I'm bitter as I left the washing out last night).