Cars that really were a stand out move

[sierraman]

There was a thread a while back about Issigonis House, plenty of jokes in that about how he’d have designed a house that if it fell on you and killed you it was your fault alone. 😂

[horriblemercedes]

On 07/08/2024 at 22:46, Timewaster said:

We had a very early one as a hire car at work. Memory tells me it was on a W reg, but that may be wrong.

First one I ever saw.  I've never seen a car create so much interest. 

People came out of neighbouring offices to have a look, it drew a crowd at petrol stations, people stared at traffic lights. Everyone wanted to take it out.

And it was genuinely great to drive.

I think it must have been earlier than W-reg. The Focus came out a few years before that and was a very common sight by W-reg time, so nobody would've taken a second glance.

 

I think they came out on an S-reg

[warch]

I'm not absolutely sure which car* was the root cause of this during the 90s and early 00s but I'll opt for;

Peugeot 306 DTurbo and  Volkswagen Golf MkIV GTTDI. Both popularised the performance diesel concept, the latter especially could make quite a few much bigger engined or supposedly more performance oriented petrol engined cars look a bit limp wristed because of the massive torque figures. Did 45-50 to the gallon too. 

*Could make a case for the similar to the 306 ZX Volcane as well.

[martc]

How have we got this far without mentioning the Peugeot 205?

Not only did it save Peugeot who were struggling selling old fashioned models but in GTi form was the envy of many other manufacturers, made Peugeot a household name and poster star in many teenagers bedroom. It was also considerably more modern than many of its competitors.

 

[Eyersey1234]

1 hour ago, horriblemercedes said:

I think it must have been earlier than W-reg. The Focus came out a few years before that and was a very common sight by W-reg time, so nobody would've taken a second glance.

 

I think they came out on an S-reg

Yeah the first Focuses/Focii/whatever the fuck the plural is came out in late 98 on a S reg

[warch]

23 minutes ago, Eyersey1234 said:

Yeah the first Focuses/Focii/whatever the fuck the plural is came out in late 98 on a S reg

Focii, Focum, Focarii 

[artdjones]

3 hours ago, sierraman said:

There was a thread a while back about Issigonis House, plenty of jokes in that about how he’d have designed a house that if it fell on you and killed you it was your fault alone. 😂

Sounds like most architects.

As regards BL, it all went wrong from the BMC merger in 1952. Merge Morris and Austin, then put someone from Austin in charge. Someone who used to work for Morris who had a grudge against them and a vindictive personality.

[Urko]

Boeing McDonnell Douglas - merge a cost cutting finance-based manufacturer with an engineering-based manufacturer.  Move HQ away from factory to finance city.  Fire all the engineers.

[Mally]

5 hours ago, Urko said:

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

No.

 Rickman's came later, and was better, but they had something to improve on. By then Dutton had swamped the market.

I've also had a Rickman Ranger, but I didn't build it.

There was another, based on the Hillman Minx I think,  Ginetta GRS. This was probably the best of all IMO, but used the wrong doner and very late to market.

Edit, Hillman Hunter was the Rickman  base. Not enough scrap ones about at the time. 

[DSdriver]

22 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.

Not sure how true any of this is:

I was once told that the French government made a regulation that all Japanese cars had to be imported through a small port on the west coast which had very limited facilities. This limited supply without having to actually set import tarrifs or quotas.

Much in the way that Japan tried to piss off British manufacturers by setting a width limit on car imports. One company got around this by building a big press and squeezing their cars the half inch needed to avoid the restriction.

[Urko]

14 minutes ago, DSdriver said:

Not sure how true any of this is:

I am quite old and can therefore recall people having actual debates about the merits of buying or even driving "foreign" cars, before people like Clarkson popularised hatred of anything UK made.  It wasn't just cars either.

[Timewaster]

4 hours ago, horriblemercedes said:

think they came out on an S-reg

I think you are right, it must have been an S.

I was trying to think of the earliest focus I could picture.

[Yoss]

On 08/08/2024 at 17:16, IronStar said:

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.
 

I've still never been to Serbia because it seems to be impossible, or at least very difficult, to arrive there by train from another country but on my fairly regular travels around central/eastern Europe I always see at least one Rover 75 on every trip. Usually in that dark blue colour. Even in Romania. 

It always makes me wonder what the dealer network was like and how brave a decision was it to buy one new in Hungary or Croatia. How many Rover dealers were there?  Where did you get spares? 

[IronStar]

1 hour ago, Yoss said:

I've still never been to Serbia because it seems to be impossible, or at least very difficult, to arrive there by train from another country but on my fairly regular travels around central/eastern Europe I always see at least one Rover 75 on every trip. Usually in that dark blue colour. Even in Romania. 

It always makes me wonder what the dealer network was like and how brave a decision was it to buy one new in Hungary or Croatia. How many Rover dealers were there?  Where did you get spares? 

I don’t remember the dealer network, probably a singular dealer, as is the case with many / most manufacturers here.

Spares availability was never a concern though. There’s a few places in Belgrade stocking Rover parts to this day, and independent garages have access to international catalogues of OEM and 3rd party parts via biggest local suppliers and importers i.e Wint / Inter Cars / Kit Commerce / Euro07 / Gazela, cross out the ones the garage doesn’t work with directly. A few other places exist with access to niche bits or specializing in local stock of a particular type of parts. Between them, if the part can’t be ordered, it doesn’t exist or it’s NLA anywhere save for a NOS in some owners club member garage. Think we found a brand new halfshaft for ABS equipped BX 1.8TZD in Inter Cars warehouse in Bulgaria and had it in garage within 48h level of availability. 

[reb]

10 hours ago, warch said:

I'm not absolutely sure which car* was the root cause of this during the 90s and early 00s but I'll opt for;

Peugeot 306 DTurbo and  Volkswagen Golf MkIV GTTDI. Both popularised the performance diesel concept, the latter especially could make quite a few much bigger engined or supposedly more performance oriented petrol engined cars look a bit limp wristed because of the massive torque figures. Did 45-50 to the gallon too. 

*Could make a case for the similar to the 306 ZX Volcane as well.

I had an R reg GTTDI, it was only the 110hp one but coming from a 1.9D polo it felt like a rocket ship. It wasn't exactly exciting to drive, but it made good progress on any kind of road and could be driven around town in 5th gear if you so desired.

Mine was a bright red 5 door that I bought for £300 on 190k and scrapped less than a year later on 220k. I think it's the most miles I've done in a single car, certainly in such a short time.

[Barry Cade]

On 08/08/2024 at 22:23, GeordieInExile said:

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

Tucker had that in the 40s!

[Barry Cade]

6 hours ago, Timewaster said:

I think you are right, it must have been an S.

I was trying to think of the earliest focus I could picture.

Yes, it was 98. I worked for Ford at the time, and remember the transporter pulling up with one for the showroom. We all stood with our mouths open amazed at what it was compared to the horrible Escorts we were dealing with. Everyone in the garage took the Focus for a run up the road and came back with a huge smile. The service manager put an order in for one that afternoon as his own car to replace his 95 Cavalier SRi. 

Ford nailed it with the way it drove, then the usual Ford accountants got their way again. My lad has a mk2 and it's good but no mk1. I had a mk3 and it's OK, but no mk2. The new ones are shit.

[RichardK]

10 hours ago, martc said:

How have we got this far without mentioning the Peugeot 205?

Not only did it save Peugeot who were struggling selling old fashioned models but in GTi form was the envy of many other manufacturers, made Peugeot a household name and poster star in many teenagers bedroom. It was also considerably more modern than many of its competitors.

 

Because the 205 was basically a reskinned Visa which was a reskinned 104 instead of a pure Citroen. And PSA have dragged each platform for well over a 21 year 3 x 7 model cycle by 'basing' each iteration on a predecessor. 

So 205 innovation is styling and marketing, and not a bold move at all. Now, the 104 and 104ZS...

[RichardK]

14 hours ago, Supernaut said:

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.

It was also a return to the original 190SL dimensions and form factor, and was well engineered - and for all the rust issues, they're like cockroaches and still plentiful, cheap, reliable used cars 28 years after launch...

[NorfolkNWeigh]

On 08/08/2024 at 15:24, 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. 😂

You’d think. My history teacher in Secondary School was Mr Mathews, he was a walking skeleton and because kids are cunts we called him Boney M.  He was a survivor of The Burma Railway and drove just about the only Japanese car in our small Welsh town, a purple Mazda 818.

He never mentioned the war and because of the curriculum wasted his time trying to get us to be interested in seed drills and prison reform.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Anyway back on a Rising Sun theme.

Lexus LS400, made the W126 Merc feel like a vintage car , even the e32 7 series and XJ40 both only a couple of years old instantly felt dated. I’m sure I’ve bored the group before with the story of how I drove 500 miles on my first evening test drive of one . 

Of course the MX5, Previa and NSX managed pretty much the same in their markets at around the same time.

[artdjones]

10 hours ago, RichardK said:

Because the 205 was basically a reskinned Visa which was a reskinned 104 instead of a pure Citroen. And PSA have dragged each platform for well over a 21 year 3 x 7 model cycle by 'basing' each iteration on a predecessor. 

So 205 innovation is styling and marketing, and not a bold move at all. Now, the 104 and 104ZS...

That's not completely true, because the rear suspension of the 205 rear suspension is transverse torsion bars, and completely different from the Visa and 104, which used rear coil spring struts. The front suspension on them all was generic McPherson strut.

The 104 etc. handled well, but the 205 is on a different level.

[warch]

There were smoll light four wheel drive off road cars before the Jeep, but the original vehicle invented by the American Bantam Car Company (and refined and manufactured by Willys and Ford) was a real game changer. In addition to Jeep’s own range it was directly copied by Rover, Toyota, Nissan, Suzuki and Daihatsu and created a whole new concept.

[martc]

10 hours ago, RichardK said:

Because the 205 was basically a reskinned Visa which was a reskinned 104 instead of a pure Citroen. And PSA have dragged each platform for well over a 21 year 3 x 7 model cycle by 'basing' each iteration on a predecessor. 

So 205 innovation is styling and marketing, and not a bold move at all. Now, the 104 and 104ZS...

Not sure about that, the 104 was a Talbot Samba was a Citroen LNA.

The 205 was the next class above (super mini?) and had absolutely nothing to do with the Visa - details of it's deveolpment here - https://www.aronline.co.uk/cars/peugeot/205/m24-development-story/

The Visa was a completely separate development to replace the Dyanne and Ami but carried on some of their features (eg the flat twin air cooled engine. Later Visas did use Peugeot engines though. The Visa had no relationship with either the 104, Samba, LNA or 205.

[Asimo]

23 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

The final nail in the coffin was selling out to foreign companies.

Oh yes. British Aerospace.

https://www.aronline.co.uk/history/rover-and-bae/rover-group-and-bae-part-one-the-background/

[adw1977]

6 minutes ago, martc said:

The Visa had no relationship with either the 104, Samba, LNA or 205.

The usually reliable Citroenet says the Visa used the floorpan and suspension from the 104.

[RichardK]

13 minutes ago, martc said:

Not sure about that, the 104 was a Talbot Samba was a Citroen LNA.

The 205 was the next class above (super mini?) and had absolutely nothing to do with the Visa - details of it's deveolpment here - https://www.aronline.co.uk/cars/peugeot/205/m24-development-story/

The Visa was a completely separate development to replace the Dyanne and Ami but carried on some of their features (eg the flat twin air cooled engine. Later Visas did use Peugeot engines though. The Visa had no relationship with either the 104, Samba, LNA or 205.

The Visa development to replace the Dyane etc. as a separate project was shitcanned, and the Oltcit/Axel that resulted from the original are different specifically because the Visa styling was forced onto existing Peugeot platform components.

And if you're going to link stuff to support an argument...

It was designed to sit on the 104’s platform and use the existing Douvrin four-cylinder X-engine and transmission-in-sump drivetrains

But from a PR point of view the Visa was a newer release than the 104 - so PR at the time mentioned the 205 being derived from the Visa. In turn the AX was mentioned as being derived from the 205...

I spent a lot of time crawling about under/in PSA cars and it's very obvious where the hardpoints and architecture are shared and re-used. Next you'll tell me that the 2002 Ford Fiesta has nothing to do with Mazda 😂

[Asimo]

12 minutes ago, martc said:

The Visa had no relationship with either the 104, Samba, LNA or 205.

Wrong

[Conan]

18 hours ago, DSdriver said:

Much in the way that Japan tried to piss off British manufacturers by setting a width limit on car imports. One company got around this by building a big press and squeezing their cars the half inch needed to avoid the restriction.

I believe the only case of this was the Mk.3 Cortina which the width was 2mm over the threshold that made the road tax/excise around 80% extra, so the importer pressed the fender flares in very slightly, less than 3mm each side?

[Eyersey1234]

6 hours ago, NorfolkNWeigh said:

You’d think. My history teacher in Secondary School was Mr Mathews, he was a walking skeleton and because kids are cunts we called him Boney M.  He was a survivor of The Burma Railway and drove just about the only Japanese car in our small Welsh town, a purple Mazda 818.

He never mentioned the war and because of the curriculum wasted his time trying to get us to be interested in seed drills and prison reform.

Liked for the fact he survived the Burma Railway. I'm surprised he drove a Japanese car to be honest given what they had done to him