Average Cars From The 70's & 80's

greenman7

My first car after passing my test in 1975 was the Morris Minor 1000; they were good cars and ran very well but seemed a bit prone to rust. So I had a succession of them keeping one for spares, they were easy to work on unlike today's cars. ~I also had a Morris Traveller; the woodwork on that easily went rotten. They were cheap cars to run with good mpg. I also had a Morris 1000 van where it was very difficult to see out the back.
I also recall a Hillman Minx I bought with an auto box so I could teach my wife to drive. I thought it was a bargain at £50 with 31k on the clock but the gearbox did not last very long, only a few hundred miles.

BillTrac

God I feel old...:rotfl:

My first car was a Hillman Avenger. Then a Toyota Celica (now that was a great drive for the time), a few minis, a few Vauxhall Vivas, A Ford Granada, Capri, Escort.

Seemed to spend more time under them than driving them

Luckily I then got company vehicles so the days of driving crap cars were over...:T

Flyboy152

birkee wrote: »

Your Father laughed because the Sunbeam Talbot was a disaster.

The Rootes group had a long strike, where cars were stored on airfields in their raw metal state.
When the strike ended, and they got them painted up, you could have one of their cars from brand new, and have rust coming through on ALL panels within 12 months.
Worst affected was the Avenger.
Get a dinged front wing, and you had to remove it, this made the front panels fall apart, so you removed those, and this made the other wing fall apart.......So a wing dent on an Avenger meant a completely new front end.
(Have you ever seen a car that blooms into rust on the roof, within 12 months of purchase?)

One of the main reason for epidemic rust on cars built in the seventies, was the source of the steel used. It was imported from places like Poland etc. where their steel export industry had been based on reclaimed metal. After the war, their fields and cities were littered with scrap metal from Nazi military vehicles; troop carriers, tanks, aircraft etc. These were melted down into blocks and stored on the dock sides for decades. Until someone from British Leyland came along and bought it for a pittance (all it was worth) and used in the manufacturing of cars.

Flyboy152

BillTrac wrote: »

God I feel old...:rotfl:

My first car was a Hillman Avenger. Then a Toyota Celica (now that was a great drive for the time), a few minis, a few Vauxhall Vivas, A Ford Granada, Capri, Escort.

Seemed to spend more time under them than driving them

Luckily I then got company vehicles so the days of driving crap cars were over...:T

I had a Hillman Super Minx. :beer:

mikey72

I had a Marina van, a couple of Hillman Hunters, Talbot Alpine, Rover SD1, VW Golf mk2, and a Daimler as early cars in the 70s/80s.

Out of those the Alpine rusted, and the Golf's paint fell off.
The rest I ran until I fancied a change, then sold on.
I don't remeber any being particuarly unreliable, but I do remember all the Japanese cars starting to come over.
Must be no rain or salt in Japan, they came over, and if you didn't strip them down and underseal, and Waxoyl them, they were rusting from the spray as they came off the boats.
British cars weren't a lot better, but they all started to improve in the 90's.

jackieb

My parents had a Vauxhall VX/490 (sporty version of the Victor I think - was in the garage almost every week, and it was rusted through at 4 years old!), a couple of Ford Cortina's, a Datsun Bluebird (180B ), and a Renault 11. They also had another one but for the life of me I can't remember it's name. That was a good one too - I learnt to drive in it. Remembered it! It was a Triumph Acclaim.

This was similar to the Datsun we had - exact same colour as well. I really liked it. http://www.flickr.com/photos/78002012@N00/2197512350/

maninthestreet

Austin Allegro, Austin Maxi, Morris Marina.

LandyAndy

I started driving in the mid 70's. Between 1975 and 1985 I owned.

MG 1100 (1964), Austin 1100 (1967), Triumph 1300 fwd (1970), Chrysler Sunbeam (1978), Rover SD1 3500 (1977), Triumph TR7 (1981), BMW 320 (1981).

Rust and unreliability were pretty much the order of the day although no worse than other makes/models of the time. Of those cars the BMW was probably the worst.

vikingaero

My Dads cars were:

Triumph Toledo
Triumph Dolomite
Assorted other junk British cars
Volvo 340
Then he woke up and bought:
Toyota Starlet
Toyota Carina II
And found he could finally have a reliable car.

benjus

The cars I remember from growing up in the 1980s were:

Talbot Alpine
Austin Rover Montego
Nissan Bluebird
Renault 21 (IIRC)
Vauxhall Cavalier