Top Gear - Eastern Bloc cars road test (1986)

[ProgRocker]

Sorry if this has been posted before but I thought that this would be of interest.

 

Top Gear Road test by William Woolard (Jeremy Clarkson's predecessor). Skoda Estelle 105S vs FSO 1300, Lada Riva 1300 & Yugo 45A

 

William stated that the Yugo was well put together - must have been a rare treat to test a decent one not built on a Monday morning or Friday afternoon.

[pandamonium]

Excellent! Thanks for posting that.

 

I use my Lada daily, and for long business trips too, and have to say - it is hell on wheels.

Just as well I love it isn't it!?

[Shep Shepherd]

Back in the days when TG was earnest and informative, as opposed to a car-based comedy show. Good stuff

[pandamonium]

[Negative Creep]

Wow, they all look epically miserable inside. If I were in 1986 there's no way I'd be considering these over something like a mk.1 Golf.

 

 

 

Actually if this were 1986 I'd be buying as many 2 door mk.1 Escorts and VW campers as I possibly could

[Pillock]

If it was 1986 you'd be looking at a mk2 Golf new at substantially more than those, or a secondhand Mk1.

However, the Mk1 isn't actually that much better than those cars, the dashboard is downright ugly and they really didn't start to get much of their quality image until the mid 80s. The engines were shit, they rust like a good'un and even the colours were disgusting.

[eddyramrod]

Blimey, did someone who isn't me just say something less than adulatory about the VW God, sorry Golf? Thank you so much, Pillock! I thought I was the only one...

 

I had my first Lada (which was 7 years old) in 1984, and in 86 had a Polski estate, and soon after that, a girlfriend who had a Yugo. Later I had several more Ladas and an Estelle (not to mention the two well-documented Polonezes). When you're buying at the bottom of the market, these things are brilliant value, and unlike any VW ever built, they are within reach! Well they were then. Now of course they've all either been scrapped or repatriated, so they're rarer than Ferraris. I must get a pic of the dead orange Lada I've seen in a nearby village...

[Andrew353w]

Ah ha, east European cars and their dated bad design... Yes, they're crude, basic and old-fashioned, BUT if you're a British working man in the late 70s/early 80s, watching the prices of home-grown cars going up almost weekly then the only way to buy a new car was to buy one of these! I've owned all of these at one time or another and would rate them thus: Lada first (comfort, speed, build quality and overhead cam motor) Skoda second (ok comfort, bit noisy, good economy) FSO third (harsh engine but very comfortable if you get a cloth upholstered one; vinyl seating's terrible-smells weird!) Yugo last (too small, built as a LHD conversion, whereas all the others are RHD builds from design stage, appalling instrumentation)

 

That all said. when compared with the antics of B.L. in the late 1970s, with strikes, lack of any form of quality control whatsoever and delivery dates of months, any of these 4 on't look too bad....

[barefoot]

My Uncle replaced his Sunbeam Rapier IV with a brand new P registered Lada.

He was absolutely thrilled with it at the time & kept showing me the tool kit

& telling me that it was guaranteed to start down to absolute zero*

 

 

 

*this bit may not be 100% accurate,

[lovejoy]

guaranteed to start down to absolute zero*

 

 

- he probably meant " Absolut Vodka" .....

[Tayne]

.

[Split_Pin]

I will probably sound boring, but if TG was still like that today, I'd probably still watch it.

 

I keep wondering though, if Lada's are meant to be of such poor quality, why do the Russians love them so much? Any car that can withstand their winters must be made of sterner stuff. Just look at all the abandoned cars over the last 2 weeks of 'snow chaos' and I'll bet there's plenty of 'quality' makes. It was certainly like that round my way!

 

FSO 1300 for me please though

[eddyramrod]

+1 Iain! That's part of the secret, these things are built to stand up to Siberia, so anything a UK winter can throw at them, they just laugh. They were cheap when new because their homelands wanted the foreign currency, so subsidised them; as a result, they were bought by people who mostly didn't care for them. Rapid decline + discounted start price + outdated design = early scrap. If you find an example of any of these models that's been looked after even slightly, it should be strong and capable for many years to come. I've posted this baby before:

It's one of several that I know of over here, and I've made it plain to the present (and first) owner that I want it! I haven't seen one on the road, so yet again I'll have the distinction of "the only one on the road in Paphos." And yes, it will most certainly be used on a regular basis.

 

Where I lived in England, I remember a taxi operator buying a large fleet of white Rivas brand new. I saw some of them being stripped at no more than four years old, but I guess four years of taxi work is worth a couple of lifetimes to the rest of us.

[nigel bickle]

I've a recently acquired lil 'Yugo 45as my winter tool.

 

Its a bit like a lovable rescue mongel- always starts, eager to please.

 

I'm suprised how well the outsides built,and how badly the interior is screwed together.

 

Cheap? Virtually free.

[pandamonium]

 

Says it all really.

 

My car likes the snow!

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

What's going on with the back wheel, have you put M+S/winter tyres on?

[Pete-M]

I will probably sound boring, but if TG was still like that today, I'd probably still watch it.

 

They'd lose close to 320 million viewers, but hey... you'd enjoy it.

 

As for former Eastern Bloc tat, I get to experience that stuff whenever I go to Czech, far more than I'd choose to. It tends to be mechanically simple and reasonably sturdy, but bloody awful to drive with few exceptions.

 

I had a Lada 1500 many moons ago, it was shit. I swapped it for a cheap tape deck.

[pandamonium]

What's going on with the back wheel, have you put M+S/winter tyres on?

I did, but one tyre decided it didn't like winter after all (or didn't like being on a Lada!)

[Richard]

I will probably sound boring, but if TG was still like that today, I'd probably still watch it.

 

They'd lose close to 320 million viewers, but hey... you'd enjoy it.

 

I'd enjoy it too. Why the fuck should a car show appeal to people who don't like cars?

[warren t claim]

Lets not get too carried away by their apparent cheapness here. Lets say back in 1985 a Comecon car costed £3500. Now adjusted for inflation that works out at nearly £8000 in todays money.

 

With a bit of decent haggling that £8k would get you a decent new car today. Or a Corsa.

 

If somebody reintroduced a full sized car based on third hand technology for that money now it would die on its arse.

[pandamonium]

Really?

 

May I present the Chevrolet Tacuma.

 

The engine is from a Mk2 Cavalier, and the injection system is from a Mk3 astra.

[Pete-M]

I will probably sound boring, but if TG was still like that today, I'd probably still watch it.

 

They'd lose close to 320 million viewers, but hey... you'd enjoy it.

 

I'd enjoy it too. Why the fuck should a car show appeal to people who don't like cars?

 

They've tried it. It didn't work.

 

The old TG format worked for years, but it wasn't exactly popular. None of the 'non-entertainment' car shows are. So channels don't commission or show 'em. Old TG was axed, mainly because it wasn't being watched by anyone other than anoraks, schoolboys and those who didn't know how to work their 'new-fangled' remote control.

 

Ok, there are a hardcore of petrolheads who'll watch anything with cars in, but personally, an hour of William Woollard, Chris Goffey and Michelle Newman being all earnest and 'informative' would be enough to put most of the nation in a coma, myself very much included. Don't get me wrong, I used to watch it, but only because it was the only car show on. The days with Mason, Willson, Clarkson, Berry, Tiff and VB-H were the best of the old TG for me as they were beginning to be entertaining.

 

Take that one with the fat bloke about Classic Cars. Jason Dawe? It's shite. He's got some quality tat on there, and the show is dull as fuck. Fat bloke with Allegro, should at least raise a chuckle, but no, he goes on about it being some sort of misunderstood snapshot of the 1970s. Zzzz.

 

Then there's Drivel, with the gurning chimp that is Mallory comparing cars chiefly by the size of the glovebox and the number of cupholders. Zzzz.

 

a clip of the gurner on 'Classic Gear' with a few million quids worth of old Jag. I love Jags, but this clip is about as interesting as watching wallpaper fade. The interviews are pretty good, but I had trouble staying awake long enough to check it out. Cranberries 'Zombie' is not the music to play when there's a Le Mans Jag on screen, ffs. Clueless.

 

Another way of doing it wrong is by getting the mockney chump that is Mike Brewer involved, sorry but using trade contacts and a lorry load of bodges to turn a blatently staged profit from a load of old dogs does not an interesting tv programme make. Fail.

 

The

from the One Show, he had a go as well. That was shit too. As was that bollocks with Jason Barlow.

 

Panic Mechanics? Anyone remember that? Shite it was.

 

Used Car Roadshow. It'll be entertaining in 15 years.

 

Even the WRC coverage is bollocks nowadays, when it's actually on. Bollocks enough to have pretty much killed the sport for anyone other than manufacturers.

 

I like TG. I'm actually looking forward to their xmas specials. It's tv that is fun and involves cars, but it makes them interesting. Shows that are just about cars tend not to be. Which is why it's the biggest show the BBC does, by a mile.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

What's going on with the back wheel, have you put M+S/winter tyres on?

I did, but one tyre decided it didn't like winter after all (or didn't like being on a Lada!)]

 

Fack. They must be pretty old, they're not Stomils are they?

[Shep Shepherd]

Despite it being totally unlike the Top Gear of my youth, I do enjoy the current incarnation of the show, especially the challenges, which tend to feature the cars I'm interested in i.e. obscure old tat. Pity that not all of them survive to tell the tale, though!

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

The challenges are the only interesting bits, even then they're becoming ever more contrived.

[Shep Shepherd]

What's going on with the back wheel, have you put M+S/winter tyres on?

I did, but one tyre decided it didn't like winter after all (or didn't like being on a Lada!)]

 

Fack. They must be pretty old, they're not Stomils are they?

 

My dad had a set of Stomils on his 1981 Austin miniMetro 1.0L back in the late 1980s. Crap tyres for a crap car

[Richard]

They've tried it. It didn't work.

 

The old TG format worked for years

[Shep Shepherd]

The challenges are the only interesting bits, even then they're becoming ever more contrived.

 

The earlier challenges were far better and rather less silly than the most recent ones, although the budget Italian supercar one was great fun

[Pete-M]

They've tried it. It didn't work.

 

The old TG format worked for years

 

Ok, I should have made it clearer. Just for you.

 

The old TG format survived because it was the only car programme on television. If it was brought back it would last about three episodes and then be canned. Which is why they won't bring it back. They have tried plenty of times to make something similar - 5th Gear was a shameless copy of the last of the old TG, and it was and still is, crap. New TG has, thankfully, changed motoring television forever.

 

If you think you can do better than new TG, then please, go ahead. Grab your video camera and show us how its done. Make an interesting programme about cars.

[eddyramrod]

Come on guys, why haven't I seen a word in praise of Scrapheap Challenge? Proper Job! Yeah ok, the cars involved do die for their moment of glory, but at least it's fun along the way. I can do without the endless recapping though. My attention span is long enough to remember what they did at the beginning, and what the challenge is. The recaps are only useful if I come in after the start and need to catch up (but I can usually figure out what's going on sooner or later anyway).

 

Sorry, I just realised, I'm contributing to thread drift here...