RE: Vauxhall Chevette HS: Spotted

[aeropilot]

Devil2575 said:

I remember 20 years back there were plenty of these in the classifieds in C&CC. Now they're like hens teeth. Ugly but I have a soft spot for them as my dad had a Chevette about 30 years ago.

I used to cycle past Mamos Motors, a local large Vauxhall dealers in West London on my way to school in the late 70's, and can remember seeing half a dozen of them parked up on the forecourt, all still in pre-PDI condition.
Can remember seeing unregistered maroon DS Sportshatches there as well a year or so earlier, I think Mamos did a special edition of these for a while, IIRC.

[mr2man]

J4CKO said:

mr2man said:

J4CKO said:

I worked in a garage at the end of the eighties and we took a tuned Sunbeam Lotus in PX, reputedly 200 bhp, I was taken out in it and good god it felt quick, felt not far off a 911 Turbo I had been in.

My Sunbeam ended up with a c.220 BHP high revving engine built by hillclimber and engine guru Richard Hickman. Nothing for a hot hatch today, even though fragile and stupidly expensive. But it only weighed 880Kg and with short gearing/diff. was very quick. Quicker than many Porches and Ferraris at tracks like Curborough at the time; late 80s.

Then went to the Isle of Man and I think got developed even higher and was used on rallies and sprints. Wish I had kept it.

My abiding memory is acceleration and noise, remember it had a very fast gearchange, remember it ran out of gears before it ran out of road, remember someone saying it was only geared for 110/115 mph and it really didn't like to idle and the clutch was deeply unpleasant.

Sounds right! Did it also have a rear end that wanted to bounce the car off the road on any bumpy surface, not minding which way it went? Mine did

Noise wise, when we fitted the Works exhaust manifold and system it was just fantastic, the sort if sound you craved for bridges and tunnels to go through. Immature, but it was hard to resist. A gorgeous yet aggressive race engine sound, way better than the more powerful HSR.

[aeropilot]

mr2man said:

Sounds right! Did it also have a rear end that wanted to bounce the car off the road on any bumpy surface, not minding which way it went? Mine did

Mine didn't.

Mine did have Humber road works comp dept supplied Billys, springs and bushes though......and a Quaife diff.....and proper magnessium Minilites

[OldSkoolRS]

y2blade said:

135bhp would have been awesome back in the day, I'd imagine pretty disappointing now though.

That's the problem for me...I have the 110BHP RS2000 and it's been off the road for years as I needed to repair the inner wing/strut top from rust and wanted to do a proper job rather than a plated bodge. However, family, DIY and general apathy have stopped me from working on it. Back when I got it (1995) it was the fasted car I'd ever driven (I know I lead a sheltered life ), but these days my daily driver diesel 320d probably isn't any slower to 60 and beyond that would leave the RS behind. I'm hoping to get it back on the road this year, but I just know that it isn't going to have the same excitement it did on that first drive in 1995.

[aeropilot]

OldSkoolRS said:

That's the problem for me...I have the 110BHP RS2000 and it's been off the road for years as I needed to repair the inner wing/strut top from rust and wanted to do a proper job rather than a plated bodge. However, family, DIY and general apathy have stopped me from working on it. Back when I got it (1995) it was the fasted car I'd ever driven (I know I lead a sheltered life ), but these days my daily driver diesel 320d probably isn't any slower to 60 and beyond that would leave the RS behind. I'm hoping to get it back on the road this year, but I just know that it isn't going to have the same excitement it did on that first drive in 1995.

It will

Unless excitement for you is purely speed.

You will just need to adapt back to the fun of lower speed fun, which in this day an age is no bad thing.

The RS will feel more alive at 50 than your 320d feels at any speed.

900odd kg and a mildly tweeked Pinto, LSD and narrow 185/70 tyres = big smiles.

Just go and watch a few old episodes of The Professionals to get the RS bug back.

[OldSkoolRS]

aeropilot said:

It will

Unless excitement for you is purely speed.

You will just need to adapt back to the fun of lower speed fun, which in this day an age is no bad thing.

The RS will feel more alive at 50 than your 320d feels at any speed.

900odd kg and a mildly tweeked Pinto, LSD and narrow 185/70 tyres = big smiles.

Just go and watch a few old episodes of The Professionals to get the RS bug back.

I don't know...being pissed on my modern diesels doesn't seem much fun to me (I was getting pissed on by fairly mundane cars even back in 1995 to fair though). Perhaps I'm more interested in speed since I also have a Z3 3.0 which isn't a great handling car (though not as bad as some would have me believe) and I enjoy the performance/sound when I get chance to accelerate hard.

However, just to come over a bit 'anorak' for a minute the RS2000 doesn't have an LSD, though mine may end up mildly tweaked, but in a way that would be reversible as mods tend to reduce the value when time comes to sell it.

[aeropilot]

OldSkoolRS said:

I don't know...being pissed on my modern diesels doesn't seem much fun to me (I was getting pissed on by fairly mundane cars even back in 1995 to fair though). Perhaps I'm more interested in speed since I also have a Z3 3.0 which isn't a great handling car (though not as bad as some would have me believe) and I enjoy the performance/sound when I get chance to accelerate hard.

However, just to come over a bit 'anorak' for a minute the RS2000 doesn't have an LSD

I know, I've had 3

But, they were an option when new and they are a necessary bit of kit to have proper fun with them.

I don't get the being pissed on by modern diesels bit I'm afraid, it's an almost 40 year car, to be enjoyed as a fun classic car, which is what it is, and a not unvaluable one these days either, not some silly boy racer tool.

[OldSkoolRS]

Maybe I'll get the excitement back when I get it back on the road, but I'm just agreeing with the post further back about how 135BHP isn't so exciting these days. I suspect that I'll end up selling it and buying something else, though for what the RS should be worth I should get a decent TVR with the money. I'll have owned it for 20 years this November, so maybe it's time to move on.

[fondelli]

Great car - My dad had one when I was about 12. It was an ex dealer team recce car that was used by pentti airikkala . It still had a cage/halda/bilsteins/full harnesses etc, so was quite a cool everyday car. I used to drive it up and down a farm lane as hard as I could for my early power oversteer education. I think after dad sold it the new owner wrote it off within 2 weeks!

[200Plus Club]

For my money the Sunbeam Lotus and Chuvvit Hsr represent proper value for money over any mk1 or mk2 escort these days. Faster and rarer and loved by afficionados of the era just as much.
You dont need 200bhp in a sub 900kg hatch and they properly whizz along. Cant wait for spring to get mine out again!

[Baz Tench]

fondelli said:

Great car - My dad had one when I was about 12. It was an ex dealer team recce car that was used by pentti airikkala . It still had a cage/halda/bilsteins/full harnesses etc, so was quite a cool everyday car. I used to drive it up and down a farm lane as hard as I could for my early power oversteer education. I think after dad sold it the new owner wrote it off within 2 weeks!

RRH said:

A pal of mine bought the ex-Pentti Airikkala HSR in the mid-late 80s.

What a hairy chested thing that was!

[mr2man]

aeropilot said:

mr2man said:

Sounds right! Did it also have a rear end that wanted to bounce the car off the road on any bumpy surface, not minding which way it went? Mine did

Mine didn't.

Mine did have Humber road works comp dept supplied Billys, springs and bushes though......and a Quaife diff.....and proper magnessium Minilites

Ours had the Tarmac spec. Suspension - neg camber X member, Bilsteins etc. And a ZF(?) LSD, AP brakes and such like. Just felt very light at the back, no surprise I suppose given there was nothing there, and I always felt it sat too high. That would have been the next step, but the attention shifted to the faster Chevette. It did have fantastic, direct, roll free steering and turn in though.

Shows how things have changed when 13" wheels were the norm.

Do you remember the circuit racers of the late 80s at all. Very quick. Then there is Joss Ronchetti's beast. How I would love that car.

[aeropilot]

mr2man said:

Do you remember the circuit racers of the late 80s at all. Very quick.

I knew a fair few of them from the Falken and Toyo Tyres series. Most of them had engines built by Steve Greenald & Dave Wills from Lotus Servicecentre in Ilford who I also knew very well back then.

[mr2man]

aeropilot said:

mr2man said:

Do you remember the circuit racers of the late 80s at all. Very quick.

I knew a fair few of them from the Falken and Toyo Tyres series. Most of them had engines built by Steve Greenald & Dave Wills from Lotus Servicecentre in Ilford who I also knew very well back then.

I've been racking my brain to remember some of them, I recall Rob Beaumont and his rival Jonathan... something beginning with L... just can't get the name back, a Lotus employee with a car featured in CCC many moons back. And Barry Ely. We used to follow the series around to tracks like Cadwell, Mallory and Donington and saw some excellent battles.

[aeropilot]

mr2man said:

aeropilot said:

mr2man said:

Do you remember the circuit racers of the late 80s at all. Very quick.

I knew a fair few of them from the Falken and Toyo Tyres series. Most of them had engines built by Steve Greenald & Dave Wills from Lotus Servicecentre in Ilford who I also knew very well back then.

I've been racking my brain to remember some of them, I recall Rob Beaumont and his rival Jonathan... something beginning with L... just can't get the name back, a Lotus employee with a car featured in CCC many moons back. And Barry Ely. We used to follow the series around to tracks like Cadwell, Mallory and Donington and saw some excellent battles.

Yup remember them. I thought the name of the guy who worked at Lotus was Jon Woodwood or something like that???
There was Andy Clarkin who had a very nicely prepared red car, which he won the Falken series in around 1990/91 ish?
Neil Hassler was another guy who I knew well and raced in the Toyo series.

[mr2man]

That's it, Jonathon Woodwood.. No wonder I couldn't get it thinking of an initial L.

[mr2man]

,

mr2man said:

That's it, Jonathon Woodwood.. No wonder I couldn't get it thinking of an initial L.

You also jogged my mind re. Neil Hasler and Dave Clarkin. A long time ago... Used to chat Sunbeams and specs. To them at the tracks between races, intending to take mine further before the plans shifted. Makes me wonder what it could have been if I'd stuck with it instead of moving from car to car too much..

[sideways man]

Always lusted after one of these. Still have the original autocar magazine road test. About 10 yrs ago,I was looking to buy either chevette or sunbeam lotus,ended up with the sunbeam as they were less rare. Mine was a skip brown roadspeed model with 180 bhp,bilstiens,vented discs and a lsd. A great car,genuinely quick with a fab noise and very chuckable handling, wheelspin/sideways action pretty much on demand,its probably my favourite car and wish I still had it. Sold because the cost of the engine rebuild it needed was then a lot more than it was worth!

[s m]

[andyps]

y2blade said:

135bhp would have been awesome back in the day, I'd imagine pretty disappointing now though.

It isn't about the ultimate power, it is the way it is delivered and the power to weight ratio. Older cars seem to have more immediate response due to the carbs rather than injection, and as they weigh so much less and ultimately have less grip they can be a lot more fun on the road. Try a basic 998cc Mini and tell me that it is disappointing in terms of fun.