Reply to: Thatcher did not destroy Britains manufacturing

[ZARDOZ]

Phew...good thing my 1800 isn't it there. Mind you I think its a fantastic car. gonna put it back on the road this weekend.

Looking for a Triumph for the wife. She likes rag tops.

The classic car market has gone nuts in recent years. Quite mundane stuff is going for silly money, as yet though Triumph Stag prices haven't moved so much. Never has been a better time to buy a good restored one.

[DodgyAgent]

[QUOTE=lilelvis2000;1728989

Looking for a Triumph for the wife. She likes rag tops.[/QUOTE]

Would it not be a triumph for her if she could find a man who could afford to buy her a decent car?

[Sysman]

One of my regular taxi drivers in the early 90s had a Maestro diesel turbo and he loved it. It was not only cheap to run but pretty swift as well.

[ZARDOZ]

I had a 1983 MG maestro,despite some gremlins from the talking computer (which it didn't really need) it wasn't a bad car at all and quite nippy. Certainly had worse cars from Manufacturers still going.

[lilelvis2000]

Lets face it, British Leyland was ****ed.

Phew...good thing my 1800 isn't it there. Mind you I think its a fantastic car. gonna put it back on the road this weekend.

Looking for a Triumph for the wife. She likes rag tops.

[Sysman]

You are talking utter tulipe - why post when you don't know what you are talking about?

There was an estate model of every Granada. Fact.

I will admit I made a mistake saying Mk II when I should have said Mk IÌI. Now corrected in my original post.

The Mk II estate was hugely popular but I don't recall ever seeing a Mk III estate. If it did exist it certainly didn't sell.

Ah, found the Parkers entry, which clearly shows that:

a) the Mk II estate was in production from 1981 to 1988
b) the Mk III hatchback was introduced in 1985. There was no corresponding Mk III estate version at that time.
c) the Mk III estate was in production from 1992 to 1994

That's a gap of 4 years for any estate, 7 years if we are talking about the difference between the hatchback introduction and the estate version. Like I said, that was enough for owners of the Mk II estate to look elsewhere.

I don't count the Mk III 5 door hatchback as an estate. I had one and estate car it was not.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

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



And then BMW brought out the XS.



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 II
* 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.

You are talking utter tulipe - why post when you don't know what you are talking about?

There was an estate model of every Granada. Fact.

[Sysman]

I also had a Volvo 360 GLT it was awful, the ride was bone hard and jittery. I replaced it with the best car I ever had a Saab 900 8valve turbo.

A rich Yank friend had a 900 Turbo and it was my dream car for many years afterwards.

The seats were wonderfully comfortable for the time.

A great shame they didn't manage to keep up.

[DodgyAgent]

My mother had a DAF though I can't remember whether it was a 55 or 66.

Quite nippy on country roads and the Variomatic gave you full revs all the way up when you were accelerating hard.

A neighbour had a Volvo 340 which was painfully slow. The Dutch police had a 2 litre version which was apparently quite swift.

I also had a Volvo 360 GLT it was awful, the ride was bone hard and jittery. I replaced it with the best car I ever had a Saab 900 8valve turbo.

[Sysman]

just reminded me of one of my favourite old cars.

Volvo 66 & 340 - DAF Owners Club

The mighty DAF, trying to look cool queueing uphill in Dorking with a steaming radiator and slipping belts.

My mother had a DAF though I can't remember whether it was a 55 or 66.

Quite nippy on country roads and the Variomatic gave you full revs all the way up when you were accelerating hard.

A neighbour had a Volvo 340 which was painfully slow. The Dutch police had a 2 litre version which was apparently quite swift.

[vetran]

Mine also overheated and no amount of radiator flushing was totally effective.

A bit of a bummer in summer when I needed to keep the heating on full blast to keep it cool.

just reminded me of one of my favourite old cars.

Volvo 66 & 340 - DAF Owners Club

The mighty DAF, trying to look cool queueing uphill in Dorking with a steaming radiator and slipping belts.

[Sysman]

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

Mine also overheated and no amount of radiator flushing was totally effective.

A bit of a bummer in summer when I needed to keep the heating on full blast to keep it cool.

[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.

[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]

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.