Thatcher did not destroy Britains manufacturing

[AtW]

I think our Euro cretin is burning the google servers to oblivion as we write

Which one?

[DodgyAgent]

Which one?

Not you AtW darmstadt

[Sysman]

Gas was much much cheaper.

Ever so much cheaper.

Until it's all gone, then it's ever so much more expensive.

I didn't understand at the time why Thatcher wanted the price of gas "to be the same as electricity".

I would have thought that she as a graduate chemist would have understood that a primary source of energy (gas) has to be cheaper than a secondary source (electrickery).

But no.

Of course at that time I hadn't seen the privatisation of gas coming.

Cheaper electricity to heat our homes?



Yeah.

Right.

Eon eyes closure of gas-fired power plant - FT.com

Certainly not once the free market can slip an extra layer of middle men in.

The Economist reckoned that she paved the way for the disaster than was Enron.

[Sysman]

Because Renault, Peugeot, Citroen were never (quite) as shoddily designed and built as a lot of the BL stuff. As for Italian, have you tried to buy a Lancia here lately?

BL were hived off to Honda originally, that didn't last long.

Didn't Honda get somewhat upset about the way BL suddenly got rid of the agreement?

Is it just co-incidental that BMW bought Land Rover, brought out the X5 (their first 4WD) then got shot of it?

The real laugh was when BMW sold Land Rover to Ford.

They took the designs and intellectual property with them and Ford only found it had gone once they took over.

Oops.

And then BMW brought out the XS.

Ford bought Jaguar to widen their sales appeal to the luxury car buyer (think Lincoln or Lexus)

Don't forget, Ford needed a hand given their track record with the Granadas.

* they handed the large estate car market to Volvo by not providing an estate with the Granada Mk III
* the Scorpio thing that replaced the last Granadas looked plain ugly. From the rear it looked like it was going to burst into tears at any moment. Proof that standardising with Yank models was a dreadful idea, I never saw more than a handful on the roads, and I felt sorry for the owners of that handful.

[Mich the Tester]

ROVER SD1 2300 series

Gosh.

I can remember my neighbour pouring powersteering fluid into the reservoir & wondering where it was all going.

No sign of a leak, but start the engine & the reservoir emptied.

Quick squint under the bonnet revealed a rack gaiter that looked like a balloon.

He rented sommat else to go on holiday.

At the time, my mother had a Fiat 126, a tiny, cramped little thing that leaked in the rain and could hardly manage 60 mph. Imagine my consternation when we packed our bags into the Fiat to go to Italy on holiday and left the larger, more comfortable Rover behind at home. My father explained 'we can set off in style or we can get to Italy but we can't do both'.

[Sysman]

I had a Renault 5 Gordini I just loved it.

I had a GTL or something. It was essentially the turbo with a larger engine but no turbo.

Great roadholding and it could surprise quite a few other drivers off the lights. It ran out of steam at higher speeds though.

The pain with it was when you zipped past a larger car that was faster, they'd take affront and want a race.

Which wasn't good when you had 200 miles to go and the other chap was just running his wife down the shops.

[DodgyAgent]

I had a GTL or something. It was essentially the turbo with a larger engine but no turbo.

Great roadholding and it could surprise quite a few other drivers off the lights. It ran out of steam at higher speeds though.

The pain with it was when you zipped past a larger car that was faster, they'd take affront and want a race.

Which wasn't good when you had 200 miles to go and the other chap was just running his wife down the shops.

Mine did not have the turbo, but it had fantastic handling and performance. More of a poor man's Golf GTI

[Sysman]

My father's SD1 was a 2300. Althought it's possible 200 had fallen off before it left the dealership. It was a company car; he had it for about 4 months of which most of the time was spent in the dealer's workshop, then his (American) boss demanded all the Rovers were taken back and refunded and he got a BMW instead, which was perhaps the most positive bit about having a company Rover; you knew it would be replaced by something better.

Didn't they also do a model with only something like 2000 cc? Perhaps not available to the public, this was a fleet lease job that a mate had.

It was painfully underpowered.

[DodgyAgent]

Didn't they also do a model with only something like 2000 cc? Perhaps not available to the public, this was a fleet lease job that a mate had.

It was painfully underpowered.

A bit like Mitch then

[Sysman]

ROVER SD1 2300 series

Gosh.

I can remember my neighbour pouring powersteering fluid into the reservoir & wondering where it was all going.

No sign of a leak, but start the engine & the reservoir emptied.

Quick squint under the bonnet revealed a rack gaiter that looked like a balloon.

He rented sommat else to go on holiday.

Noted problems with the 2600 the boss had were a starter motor failing to disengage thus burning itself out and an electric window which wouldn't wind up.

Both timed for maximum inconvenience on long trips of course.

The power steering took some getting used to as well. Get to 30 or 40 and it was way too light.

The Vanden Plas version he finally got was actually very nice to drive when it was working.