Cars that really were a stand out move

[Timewaster]

Noticing a pattern here.

Fords turn out the dullest low tech dumpling cars for decades, then a revolution  which becomes the next generations dull dumplings.

100e to Anglia followed by basically the same car for 20 years. Then mk3 or 4 or 5 or 6 Escorts followed by the Focus.

Each Focus became duller than the last....

Cortina was new and fresh in the beginning and drifted along for decades then SHOCK Sierra. 

Sierra plods on for generations until the Mondeo. Top notch drive and modernity that eventually becomes  byword for nondescript.

 

I'm sure other manufacturers do the same.

[sierraman]

Ford Focus Mk1. Set the benchmark for years to come for a good quality hatchback, it was a huge chasm better than the Escort, we’d had 10-15 years of some medium cars that really weren’t very good at all like the Escort Mk5 and the Astra Mk3. Really stodgy rubbish. 

[sierraman]

21 minutes ago, Timewaster said:

Noticing a pattern here.

Fords turn out the dullest low tech dumpling cars for decades, then a revolution  which becomes the next generations dull dumplings.

100e to Anglia followed by basically the same car for 20 years. Then mk3 or 4 or 5 or 6 Escorts followed by the Focus.

Each Focus became duller than the last....

Cortina was new and fresh in the beginning and drifted along for decades then SHOCK Sierra. 

Sierra plods on for generations until the Mondeo. Top notch drive and modernity that eventually becomes  byword for nondescript.

 

I'm sure other manufacturers do the same.

I don’t know, the Mk2 was a better car in a lot of ways, a bit inert to drive but it felt better put together - how many you see still on the road is testament to that. Mk3 still a superb car, just does everything well. All of them good in different ways.
 

The Mk1 Mondeo was good for it’s time but it was a wallowing old bastard when it had a few miles on the clock and they used to consume suspension components like no tomorrow, Mk3 felt like a quality car at last, the diesels were real game changers at the time - wouldn’t buy one now but nevertheless the 2.0 TDCI 130 was a cracking car when they were new. Mk4 I think had to be the absolute best, handled ok, went well enough and it was bloody durable.

[Urko]

3 hours ago, quicksilver said:

A couple of more left-field choices now.

Rover Streetwise: chunky plastic-clad 2wd crossovers are everywhere now, but Rover did it 20 years ago and got laughed at. If only they'd survived to take advantage of the trend, the Streetwise could be a best-seller.

Mitsubishi Space Wagon: the Espace gets all the glory for inventing the MPV, but the Space Wagon came first and offered much the same practicality in a smaller and more car-like package.

Often thought this about the streetwise - it had the added advantage hat barryboys could lower it (sorry slam der stance into da weeds fam) by fitting the standard suspension*.

* This probably never happened.

[sierraman]

13 minutes ago, Urko said:

Often thought this about the streetwise - it had the added advantage hat barryboys could lower it (sorry slam der stance into da weeds fam) by fitting the standard suspension*.

* This probably never happened.

That was typical Rover, wrong time, wrong place, wrong audience. 

[danthecapriman]

2 hours ago, Timewaster said:

Makes me think of my old gran. 

Long since dead, but would refer to any food more exotic than boiled carrots as "foreign muck!"

 

My grandad was the same. Wouldn’t eat ‘foreign muck’, wouldn’t drive foreign cars etc etc.

Cant really blame him though, as he was the generation that fought in WW2 and saw some very unpleasant things! It’s only natural to feel a bit ‘anti’ and bitter after that.

[sierraman]

5 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

My grandad was the same. Wouldn’t eat ‘foreign muck’, wouldn’t drive foreign cars etc etc.

Cant really blame him though, as he was the generation that fought in WW2 and saw some very unpleasant things! It’s only natural to feel a bit ‘anti’ and bitter after that.

I can imagine at the time perhaps if someone who 30 years earlier had an extended sabbatical assisting building a railway on a diet of a handful of rice a day and kept in a tin box in the sun might not be keen to be driving a Japanese car. 😂

[colnerov]

3 minutes ago, sierraman said:

I can imagine at the time perhaps if someone who 30 years earlier had an extended sabbatical assisting building a railway on a diet of a handful of rice a day and kept in a tin box in the sun might not be keen to be driving a Japanese car. 😂

Ditto German cars, a mate had an uphill struggle getting his father, an ex para, to buy a Merc 190 shortly after they first came out. He certainly knew how to bear a grudge.

[quicksilver]

17 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

My grandad was the same. Wouldn’t eat ‘foreign muck’, wouldn’t drive foreign cars etc etc.

Cant really blame him though, as he was the generation that fought in WW2 and saw some very unpleasant things! It’s only natural to feel a bit ‘anti’ and bitter after that.

Must be a generational thing. My paternal grandmother was much the same: she only ate very traditional British cuisine with meat and two veg or egg and chips as her staple diet, and she thought pizza was exotic foreign food. My step-grandad on my mum's side on the other hand was only a few years younger but very open-minded when it came to food: he'd try pretty much anything and was especially fond of a good curry, but then he'd been in the Navy and travelled the world whereas my grandmother had always stayed local to where she was born.

What really surprised me was my maternal grandfather, a Polish refugee who had spent the war in concentration camps and lost his parents there, buying a brand new Beetle. He would certainly be justified in having an anti-German grudge, but clearly didn't. Sadly I was still young when he died and I never got the chance to ask him why he made that choice.

[danthecapriman]

28 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

Must be a generational thing. My paternal grandmother was much the same: she only ate very traditional British cuisine with meat and two veg or egg and chips as her staple diet, and she thought pizza was exotic foreign food. My step-grandad on my mum's side on the other hand was only a few years younger but very open-minded when it came to food: he'd try pretty much anything and was especially fond of a good curry, but then he'd been in the Navy and travelled the world whereas my grandmother had always stayed local to where she was born.

I think it must be. He was always like it, but his kids weren’t bothered. My uncle had quite a few Japanese motorbikes. My mum had a Jap car as her first car.

On the other hand my dad who fought in the Falkland’s conflict does not like the Argentinians or the French! Again, it doesn’t bother me but then again it wasn’t me fighting them or losing friends because of them. It’s bound to leave people feeling animosity towards the former enemy.

 

[sierraman]

2 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

I think it must be. He was always like it, but his kids weren’t bothered. My uncle had quite a few Japanese motorbikes. My mum had a Jap car as her first car.

On the other hand my dad who fought in the Falkland’s conflict does not like the Argentinians or the French! Again, it doesn’t bother me but then again it wasn’t me fighting them or losing friends because of them. It’s bound to leave people feeling animosity towards the former enemy.

 

War does funny things to people, until you were in that situation and witnessing all sorts of atrocities it’s impossible to say how you’d react. 

[gtd2000]

54 minutes ago, sierraman said:

I can imagine at the time perhaps if someone who 30 years earlier had an extended sabbatical assisting building a railway on a diet of a handful of rice a day and kept in a tin box in the sun might not be keen to be driving a Japanese car. 😂

Back in the late 70's, there was an older gent that came round to do odd jobs in the garden for my parents. He'd been involved in the second world war and fought both the Germans and Japanese. 

He was chatting with me one day and said that he'd never buy anything Japanese but didn't have a problem with German products.

The reason for this was that when fighting the Germans, and the Germans were losing, they'd give up and that was the end of it.

With the Japanese they wouldn't give up, even although they were beaten and according to his experiences, had to kill the Japanese soldiers, much to his displeasure.  He said he could never forgive them, for what this did to him, as a human being.

[Urko]

Pre-Clarkson and pals some people felt a desire to try and help our fellow workers in the UK by buying homegrown products.  With the advent of Clarkson and cunts like him it became fashionable to hate anything and everything ever made here and to insist on stuff from somewhere else at all times and ridicule British workers.

In France they buy a lot of home grown and made stuff - but that's because they genuinely think it's superior in many cases.

[artdjones]

I knew two people who had spent time in Japanese captivity, one Dutch, and one Welsh, both gone now. They had bad experiences, but didn't allow it to embitter them, so were able to live happy lives.

The Dutchman (a friend's father) said that  the thing that brought his situation home to him was being marched along the road in a column of prisoners, and seeing his new V8 Ford being driven past by a Japanese officer. He always liked American cars. But when I knew him he was driving a Nissan Sunny saloon.

[IronStar]

25 minutes ago, Urko said:

Pre-Clarkson and pals some people felt a desire to try and help our fellow workers in the UK by buying homegrown products.  With the advent of Clarkson and cunts like him it became fashionable to hate anything and everything ever made here and to insist on stuff from somewhere else at all times and ridicule British workers.

Being member and reading UK based motoring forums since probably forever, and watching Top Gear & all - I never understood the hate for Rovers&co. They are held in high regard in my neck of woods, and I never heard anyone who had one complaining about it being shit. Always well equipped, comfortable, fun and nice place to be in. Having a Mini soured it quite a bit for me, but that’s 50 years old car, based on 70 year old design. Produced for way too long for this reason or the other, but it’s still around with amazing aftermarket support. How much complaints can I really throw at it? 

I’d have a ZR, ZS, ZT(T) or their Rover equivalents any day of the week, do a HG preventively if K series and daily it. I’m even thinking of getting a ZTT instead of 159. 
 

There’s too much don’t fix it, cube it mentally over there for my liking. I understand where it’s coming from, but I still don’t think that canning an otherwise perfectly fine car over 500£ bill is the best course of action. Anything non-exotic had no chance for survival pas 10 years if it was prone to an expensive weak point, even if it’s just one.
 

[Mally]

Very left field, Dutton Sierra.

Made a 4x4 looking 2 x 4, very affordable.

Took on the mighty Ford with the name, and won.

Yes they leaked, but fibreglass and fixable with stick on guttering. 

I built a couple, ran them both a couple of years, loved them, towed with them. and made a profit at the end.

I've had a few Phaetons too

[Eyersey1234]

5 hours ago, sierraman said:

I don’t know, the Mk2 was a better car in a lot of ways, a bit inert to drive but it felt better put together - how many you see still on the road is testament to that. Mk3 still a superb car, just does everything well. All of them good in different ways.
 

The Mk1 Mondeo was good for it’s time but it was a wallowing old bastard when it had a few miles on the clock and they used to consume suspension components like no tomorrow, Mk3 felt like a quality car at last, the diesels were real game changers at the time - wouldn’t buy one now but nevertheless the 2.0 TDCI 130 was a cracking car when they were new. Mk4 I think had to be the absolute best, handled ok, went well enough and it was bloody durable.

I've never driven a Mk1 Focus so can't comment if the Mk2 and Mk3 were better,  I feel the Mk2 was slightly sharper to drive than the Mk3.5 I have now, though the Mk3.5 is still very good, and is better built than the Mk2 IMO

[GeordieInExile]

23 hours ago, fatmanblue said:

Citroen DS.

Mind-blowing now, let alone in 1955.

Yep, that's what I came in to post. Directional headlights! In the 50s!!!

[sierraman]

15 hours ago, Urko said:

Pre-Clarkson and pals some people felt a desire to try and help our fellow workers in the UK by buying homegrown products.  With the advent of Clarkson and cunts like him it became fashionable to hate anything and everything ever made here and to insist on stuff from somewhere else at all times and ridicule British workers.

In France they buy a lot of home grown and made stuff - but that's because they genuinely think it's superior in many cases.

Rover did make some good products in the 60’s, then the SD1 still looks fantastic to this day but that’s about it, there’s no getting away from the fact by the 90’s they were totally ignoring what people wanted and kept on plugging on with naff crap like digital clocks inlaid in fake wood etc. Mad decisions like when they didn’t have enough to replace their mainstays like the 25 they’d be going off down some rabbit hole wasting money on fitting a V8 to the 75 or the one make racing series with the Qvale based sports car. 
 

They invited a lot of people to take the piss out of them because they ended up so out of touch. 

[Supernaut]

The Mercedes SLK.

It seemed to start a whole wave of folding hard tops for a few years in the early 2000s until everyone decided they were heavy and leaky, so went back to soft tops.

[GeordieInExile]

1 hour ago, sierraman said:

Rover did make some good products in the 60’s, then the SD1 still looks fantastic to this day but that’s about it, there’s no getting away from the fact by the 90’s they were totally ignoring what people wanted and kept on plugging on with naff crap like digital clocks inlaid in fake wood etc. Mad decisions like when they didn’t have enough to replace their mainstays like the 25 they’d be going off down some rabbit hole wasting money on fitting a V8 to the 75 or the one make racing series with the Qvale based sports car. 
 

They invited a lot of people to take the piss out of them because they ended up so out of touch. 

It's not like they were alone in dragging out a model's lifespan way beyond what most right thinking people would consider decent, but they took it even further than other manufacturers. E.g. the Metro survived for 19 years with basically the same interior and same body, which is even longer than the Polo mk. 2 and Fiesta mk. 1/2 or mk. 3/4. 

[sierraman]

16 minutes ago, GeordieInExile said:

It's not like they were alone in dragging out a model's lifespan way beyond what most right thinking people would consider decent, but they took it even further than other manufacturers. E.g. the Metro survived for 19 years with basically the same interior and same body, which is even longer than the Polo mk. 2 and Fiesta mk. 1/2 or mk. 3/4. 

They had some very creative people to hand but all the wrong ones were just given an open leash. Issigonis for example should have had a one way ticket in the early 60’s (I don’t mean issuing a contract out on him 😂 but sacking him off). Instead they wasted Christ knows how much keeping him on as a consultant until the 80’s with pointless projects. Clarkson also made a good point though in that there was no brand rationalisation either, making the same crap across multiple brands appealing to a too similar bunch of people. 

[quicksilver]

5 minutes ago, sierraman said:

They had some very creative people to hand but all the wrong ones were just given an open leash. Issigonis for example should have had a one way ticket in the early 60’s (I don’t mean issuing a contract out on him 😂 but sacking him off). Instead they wasted Christ knows how much keeping him on as a consultant until the 80’s with pointless projects. Clarkson also made a good point though in that there was no brand rationalisation either, making the same crap across multiple brands appealing to a too similar bunch of people. 

The lack of brand rationalisation and amount of internal competition played a big part in BL's downfall, like the utter redundancy of making the exact same cars with both Austin and Morris badges instead of combining the dealer networks, but at the same time also making different cars in the same sector with nothing in common like the Allegro/Marina/Dolomite. Then there was insanity like totally redesigning the Allegro to fit the E-series engine when it would already fit in the Marina, and getting Triumph to design an all-new 2.6 for the SD1 when they already had one (the E6). And yes there absolutely were certain people like Issigonis and William Lyons who had far too much influence so there must have been constant power struggles that didn't help with coherent product planning.

By splitting them across FWD and RWD, I actually managed to come up with a rationalisation plan that kept all the inherited brands but gave them their own place in the market and allowed platform and engine sharing. So much more sensible than the absolute madness of reality. but it's always easier to see where things went wrong with hindsight.

[comfysofa]

35 minutes ago, sierraman said:

They had some very creative people to hand but all the wrong ones were just given an open leash. Issigonis for example should have had a one way ticket in the early 60’s (I don’t mean issuing a contract out on him 😂 but sacking him off). Instead they wasted Christ knows how much keeping him on as a consultant until the 80’s with pointless projects. Clarkson also made a good point though in that there was no brand rationalisation either, making the same crap across multiple brands appealing to a too similar bunch of people. 

This. Issigonis should have been given a carriage clock and a handshake after the Maxi, he was a brilliant designer but an autocrat with some strange ideas and not big in the way of teamwork or listening to other people's opinions. I can only assume that there was a  "well, he did the Mini and that sold well, the Minor too...maybe we owe him?" mindset in play at BL.

[Urko]

16 hours ago, Mally said:

Very left field, Dutton Sierra.

Made a 4x4 looking 2 x 4, very affordable.

Took on the mighty Ford with the name, and won.

Yes they leaked, but fibreglass and fixable with stick on guttering. 

I built a couple, ran them both a couple of years, loved them, towed with them. and made a profit at the end.

I've had a few Phaetons too

Didn't Rickman do this first with the Rickman Ranger though?

[danthecapriman]

35 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

The lack of brand rationalisation and amount of internal competition played a big part in BL's downfall, like the utter redundancy of making the exact same cars with both Austin and Morris badges instead of combining the dealer networks, but at the same time also making different cars in the same sector with nothing in common like the Allegro/Marina/Dolomite. Then there was insanity like totally redesigning the Allegro to fit the E-series engine when it would already fit in the Marina, and getting Triumph to design an all-new 2.6 for the SD1 when they already had one (the E6). And yes there absolutely were certain people like Issigonis and William Lyons who had far too much influence so there must have been constant power struggles that didn't help with coherent product planning.

By splitting them across FWD and RWD, I actually managed to come up with a rationalisation plan that kept all the inherited brands but gave them their own place in the market and allowed platform and engine sharing. So much more sensible than the absolute madness of reality. but it's always easier to see where things went wrong with hindsight.

This!

Wasnt it Issigonis who was told by Pressed Steel when they started stamping out Mini shells that they’d looked at the design and there were several flaws and serious rust traps in it and they could put them right. Only to be told by Issigonis to shut the fuck up and do as your told… or words to that effect!

Thats the problem with BMC/BL/MG Rover. Incompetent management. Instead of getting on their soap box and giving it the big ‘I AM’ they should have been working together and making the most of the people, experience and assets they had. 
If Pressed Steel were allowed to correct the flaws in the Mini imagine how good it could have been. 
You can only imagine what was being said around the table at Ford’s place after they got themselves a Mini and found every car wasn’t making any profit!

The final nail in the coffin was selling out to foreign companies. Some fat cat here makes a shed load of money from it, Johnny Foreigner gets to hoover up a competitor, asset strip it then run it down.

[sierraman]

5 minutes ago, comfysofa said:

This. Issigonis should have been given a carriage clock and a handshake after the Maxi, he was a brilliant designer but an autocrat with some strange ideas and not big in the way of teamwork or listening to other people's opinions. I can only assume that there was a  "well, he did the Mini and that sold well, the Minor too...maybe we owe him?" mindset in play at BL.

Unfortunately as much as we like to think previous work guarantees you perpetual immortality, work is purely a transactional exchange of your skills for money and there’s no sense of ‘we owe xxxxx for the work he did 2 years ago’. Once you’ve peaked and you are no longer offering value at that level you are gone. The issue was until you got people like Harold Musgrove in they just didn’t have any acumen and people seemed to survive on schoolyard reputations. But by that time the coffers were empty and it was a case of when it all collapses not if.
 

It was just limiting the reputational damage as much as possible with outdated things like ‘the craftsman’s touch’. By this point people were wanting brushed aluminium, those dark quality Matt black plastics the Germans did really well, dynamic ability and strong residuals. Rover couldn’t offer any of that - they might have tried with Product Drive to do this but it was pitiful and desperate by this point - look at the naff aftermarket stereo in the last 75’s. 

[quicksilver]

BL never gave the impression of even attempting to be a homogenous corporation. It was more like a group of independent rival companies doing their own thing with minimal supervision by corporate management, some of which were more powerful than others, and there was fierce competition between the ex-BMC and ex-Leyland factions. They kept coming into conflict but management seemed reluctant to get involved and wanted to let them resolve their differences themselves, which just resulted in the powerful ones bullying the weaker ones into submission. One has to wonder what great things it could have done if its brilliant people were forced to pool their talent and work together on a coherent plan instead of sniping at and undermining each other.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

19 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

This!

Wasnt it Issigonis who was told by Pressed Steel when they started stamping out Mini shells that they’d looked at the design and there were several flaws and serious rust traps in it and they could put them right. Only to be told by Issigonis to shut the fuck up and do as your told… or words to that effect!

Thats the problem with BMC/BL/MG Rover. Incompetent management. Instead of getting on their soap box and giving it the big ‘I AM’ they should have been working together and making the most of the people, experience and assets they had. 
If Pressed Steel were allowed to correct the flaws in the Mini image how good it could have been. 
You can only imagine what was being said around the table at Ford’s place after they got themselves a Mini and found every car wasn’t making any profit!

The final nail in the coffin was selling out to foreign companies. Some fat cat here makes a shed load of money from it, Johnny Foreigner gets to hoover up a competitor, asset strip it then run it down.

Fair point, Dan. If communication between BL and Issigonis had been effective, things would inevitably have panned out differently. 

There's an interesting article on Issigonis here:

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/features/he-made-the-mini-and-broke-the-mould-301594.html

For all his foibles, I still rate the fella's design flair for creating these...

I'd definitely have an example of each in the barn when I win my millions. 

[danthecapriman]

8 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Fair point, Dan. If communication between BL and Issigonis had been effective, things would inevitably have panned out differently. 

There's an interesting article on Issigonis here:

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/features/he-made-the-mini-and-broke-the-mould-301594.html

For all his foibles, I still rate the fella's design flair for creating these...

I'd definitely have an example of each in the barn when I win my millions. 

Absolutely! 
To the guys credit he was a talented designer. It’s just unfortunate his personality meant he wouldn’t take any constructive criticism or allow anyone else to cast a critical eye over certain things with a view to correcting things he might have got wrong. 
By all means, design a great looking car that works well. But then an engineer needs to look it over to make sure it’s going to last and work properly.  It’s no good having a great looking product if it rusts and leaks like a sieve just so some guy can fuel his ego.

Too late now of course!😆