Average Cars From The 70's & 80's

Gloomendoom

regprentice wrote: »

You dont see many older british cars knocking about (with the exception of jags and the occasional well looked after motor) simply because they were badly designed, poorly built, made of low quality materials and , in a word, crap.

That pretty much describes all cars from the era, regardless of where they were made.

mikey72

Gloomendoom wrote: »

That pretty much describes all cars from the era, regardless of where they were made.

I don't see much at all from the 70's or 80's knocking about, apart from my hairstyle.

Flyboy152

birkee wrote: »

Oh my word!

Not wishing to be offensive, you REALLY didn't know much about cars, did you?

Did I miss something? Did these cars not exist?

Flyboy152

daveyjp wrote: »

My grandfather had lots of Datsuns His first was a Datsun Laurel 2.0 in about 1978. He then went on to have a Bluebird, a 120Y, a Cherry, a couple of Sunnys and his last in about 1988 was a Bluebird.

My dad had Triumph 1300, Viva, Avenger before starting 25 years of Fiesta ownership - every mark except the latest.

Unlike today German marques were uncommon. I remember a neighbour had a Merc W123 and another with an Audi 80, but that was it.

A friend who was a company director only ever got Escorts as his company car.

Austin Maxis, 1800s etc were common.

But the top trump for pecularity were some very good friends who had a series of Wartburgs and then topped it with a Polski Fiat!

Actually that would have been far from common, extremely rare in fact.

Mark_Hewitt

bigjl wrote: »

I reckon by average the OP means, average family car, a Fiesta though popular isn't an average family car, even though they are well up to the job if you live in a City or only do low mileage.

My Dad did around 20k a year, I do similar, it's well up to that job.

Flyboy152

JCB.Com wrote: »

No wonder with the likes of the Princess which was too big to fit on the track at Longbridge and was driven across the road unpainted.

Body panels were and still are, painted before assembly.

birkee

Flyboy152 wrote: »

Did I miss something? Did these cars not exist?

No flyboy....
it was a suggestion that these were among the cars to avoid.

vax2002

1986 Opel Manta GTE, it was built like a german tank, 130,000 miles of trouble free, quiet smooth motoring, never broke down once, never spent a penny other than servicing , unlike the car I replaced it with a Citroen BX, The AA had a nick name for it they knew it so well.

birkee

Just as an aside, back around 1972, I used to work with Nigel Mansell.
For some reason I always seemed to get out of the car park first, and the first couple of miles or so were spent with him trying to get round me in my Austin Cambridge, and him driving his old green Austin 1100.
(No, I wasn't racing him, just the way it used to happen.)

skiddlydiddly

We had some of the old sheds mentioned in the thread:

Morris Marina(engine set on fire on motorway)
Austin Princess
Vauxhall Viva
Ford Cortina
Austin Maxi
Hillman Imp

Most embarassing from my POV was a tan Lada and most obscure was a Wartburg something or other.