Newspaper Clippings

[cms206]

Some of you will have seen these on my flickr, but they may be of interest to shiters at large - I find they're at their best stapled together and read on the cludge, longing over cars which you would've bought/avoided. These all date from November 11th 1988's Daily Record.

 

[Guest]

I have it on good authority that when Will Smith did that Miami song, he was on about the Yugo Miami special edition.

[warren t claim]

I quite fancy a Lada Riva "Swinger" for some reason.

[Father Ted]

Is it me, or does that Nova look like a Metro?

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

Specification includes radio, r. wash wipe, reclining seats and much more

[Shep Shepherd]

This topic is full of 1980s automotive win. I'd love to go back in time and buy something from the forecourt of Belmont

[Albert Ross]

Has anyone checked to see if any of the Bluebirds are still alive?

[cms206]

Has anyone checked to see if any of the Bluebirds are still alive?

 

 

I had a quick run through and bizarrely about five of the F-reg ones were actually Micras IIRC. Not done the AFG Hamilton advert yet with the used car regos.

 

There are more I've yet to scan in, smaller adverts with some real wrecks advertised, plus some other odds and sods like a full page advert for Scottish Ford Dealers' new model, the Escort Ecosse. I'll stick em up here at the same time as I update flickr over the next week or so.

[Vin]

GR9 Scans

 

Have never heard of any of those Panda editions/specifications though - Premier, Pulse, LE or SL....

[In The Pit]

I have it on good authority that when Will Smith did that Miami song, he was on about the Yugo Miami special edition.

 

"Party in the city where the heat is on all night on the beach til the break of dawn welcome to Miami" I love that song! from 1998 despite its very summer sound the record company chose to release it in December still went top 5 though.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHdmt9FxlYo

[Split_Pin]

Peat Road Motors. Melvins. Archers. Taggarts. AFG. These scans really are a blast from the past. 11.5 out of 10!!!!

 

I think the Lada Alpino was basically a raid of the 'Hella' catalogue and if i remember my Uncles D-reg Riva correctly it has spectacularly crappy 'Micardo' wheel trims.

[boobydoo]

 

Ooh! My Tagora was a Melvins demonstrator in 1981. It was registered May 11th so would have probably been one of their launch cars. They sold it a year later to an old boy who then died and it was locked in his garage for years.

You can just see the original number plates and window sticker.

 

[chaseracer]

 

"Scotland's FOURmost FSO dealers"?

 

But there's SIX of them...

[Albert Ross]

Jones, Taylor, Thorn, and what I perceive to be Castle. I see that as 4.....

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

£2695 for a C plate Arna. That's what I love, the spirit of optimism! Alfa dealers were punting 1.2SL's out for £2995 in 1987 to shift the remaining stock.

 

I used to buy and sell a few cars back then, In 1988, a W plate Metro in decent nick down the sales would have been about a grand, and £1300 to retail again. Escorts were a tad more.

 

Cheapest car I bought in 1988 was an '84 A plate Ambastardor 1.7HL in HAB. Filthy, 100'000 miles, HyDragArse down on one side and a broken rear 1/4 glass, it was under £300 which for a 4 year old car costing £7-8000 new was ridiculous. I minted it up, pumped up the jam, sorted the rear glass with a bit of craftily cut perspex, valeted the fucker to within an inch of it's life and stuck it back though the auctions. I think it made 600 quid.

They were utterly, utterly worthless. I car recall tidy Princesses selling for 30-40 quid.

 

I also recall the excitement of buying my first Sierra - HAB 1.6L on the Y plate, brown trim and very tidy. I paid £1250 for it in '89 and punted it for around £1700 iirc to some weird taxi driver.

[chaseracer]

Jones, Taylor, Thorn, and what I perceive to be Castle. I see that as 4.....

Good point, well made...

 

[AnthonyG]

1500 minimum part-ex on a 2995 Polonez - I wonder what the T & C's were: *£1500 Minimum part-ex prices applies to Fords and Vauxhalls under 2 years old only.

 

Interesting that Montys were on O% finance, always a sign of hard to shift metal, particularly back then.

 

The 'F reg Bluebird giveaway' has a feel of a fleet deal gone tits up, like a just gone bankrupt customer or something - Its not as if 'F' would be been about to be replaced, not in November.

 

Edit: Just noticed that more than one dealer is doing this Bluebird thing. I imagine heads must have rolled at Octav (Sp?) Botnar's Nissan UK (also owners of AFG dealer group). Relations between his Nissan UK and Nissan Manufacturing UK were poisonous apparently, due to Nissan's desire to buy him out and own their UK sales company. One casualty of the fallout was Nissan's market share, IIRC there was a bust-up over Primera princing at launch and so they came out very expensive compared to the competition and sales like for like over the Bluebird just collapsed. Don't know what happened in the end, all went to the courts I think, AFG went bust sometime around 1993 after trying to find a new franchise.

[warren t claim]

I think the early Botnar Primeras were badged differently.

 

Can we have more scans please? Preferably the classified ads.

[cms206]

I'll see what else I can find... thought I had more similarly aged papers about, but I can't find them now... I'll go look anyway!