PH Heroes: Vauxhall Firenza HP 'Droopsnoot'
Fast Fords are lauded but their Vauxhall equivalents languish - unfairly going by the Firenza HP
Vauxhall might also have sold a few more examples of this, the Firenza HP, or Droopsnoot as it is affectionately known. As it happened, however, the oil crisis did intervene and Vauxhall shifted only 204 examples, despite, perhaps over-optimistically, originally hoping to sell 1,000 a year.
Then again, we perhaps can't blame the oil crisis entirely - OPEC's decision to get cheeky with its prices didn't kill the Essex V6-engined version of the Capri, after all.
Only the good die young?
What I do know is that the Droopsnoot's ill-starred fortunes could not have been anything to do with the way it drives. I have never driven a Capri but am reliably assured, both from reading contemporary reviews and chatting to friends and colleagues who have, that its Cortina underpinnings mean comparisons of both the porcine and canine variety are entirely justified. And yet Ford sold them by the bucketload and continued to do so right through to the tail end of the 80s.
At first glance you might think the Firenza would be the same. It has that same narrow-tracked, tip-toe appearance that all but the most exotic cars used to share, while a live rear axle, rear drum brakes and an iron cylinder head and block, although entirely par for the 1970s course, don't exactly scream epic driver's car.
Hints of greatness
Look at the spec sheet more closely, however, and there are a few hints that it could be just that. The 2,279cc slant four, for example, was breathed on by Bill Blydenstein (creator of the awesome V8-Powered Baby Bertha racer), with hand-finished combustion chambers, inlet tracts and valve throats bringing an extra 21hp over the standard engine. The ZF gearbox, meanwhile, was the first five-speeder to be fitted to a Vauxhall and helped the sleek-nosed HP duck under the 10-second barrier in the sprint to 60mph - another Vauxhall first.
Plonk your backside onto the rather upright and unsupportive seats and you're back to wondering just whether it'll be any good at all. Sure, the deep-dished steering wheel looks and feels lovely, and there's a sort of Europeanised muscle car feel to the cabin that is curiously beguiling. But the gearlever sprouts from the transmission tunnel at an odd angle and that weird seating position is initially a little unsettling.
Driving away any doubt
Any doubts about its abilities melt after a few minutes of driving. You realise that the gearshift is angled that way so that it's in the right place for your hand. That dogleg ZF 'box is a thing of joy, too. It moves around the gate with a well-oiled sweetness and a gentle resistance that many more modern gearboxes would do well to emulate. Its ratios, meanwhile, are spaced to make absolutely the most of the grunty slant-four, which despite only providing 145lb ft of torque, feels a lot stronger than that in the mid-range.
The steering is as lovely as the pretty three-spoke wheel leads you to believe it might be, too. It feels direct, accurate and faithful to your inputs. And even though the flat seats mean you have to brace yourself against it a little if you plan to take a corner enthusiastically it really doesn't matter, because it feels fully sturdy enough to do so.
Allied to the steering feel is a crisp turn-in that actually has overtones of a mid- or rear-engined handling. You feel a sense of mass at the rear helping to swing the back around as you turn in, presumably a mixture of the live rear axle and the fact that there's simply quite a lot of boot hanging out behind it. It's never scary - it doesn't feel like it's going to go all the way around the way a contemporary 911 might. If you time it well and catch the throttle at the right moment you can use the throttle to adjust the car's attitude post-apex, taking advantage of the movement already started by the swinging rear. It's a very satisfying way to go through corners.
Encouraging over-exuberance?
The pedal positioning feels just so, too, and soon you find yourself attacking bends with gusto and suffering delusional Gerry Marshall daydreams. Curiously it's not grip that inspires confidence in the Firenza, it's the exact opposite. It has relatively low dynamic limits, but it telegraphs so clearly at what point these start to apply - and the transitional phase is so gradual - that even a ham-fisted and footed fellow like myself starts to feel just a little bit of a hand.
In fact it was probably a rather good thing that our time with the Firenza was brief-ish, as the road on which we found ourselves (the gloriously mountainous and empty D900C on the edge of the Alpes de Haute Provence, if you were wondering) was goading us into driving ever more enthusiastically. And this Firenza, which has undergone a ground-up restoration by the good folks at the Vauxhall heritage centre, has had so much time and care lavished on it that any damage done to it would probably have caused heartfelt weeping in Luton.
In many ways it's a shame that the whims of OPEC so severely constricted sales of the Droopsnoot, but if Firenza HPs had sold in their thousands perhaps it wouldn't have become the collectable classic it is today, and perhaps we wouldn't be venerating it as a PH Hero. Then again, it is such a pleasure to barrel down a twisty road in that I suspect its place in history would have been assured, whether Vauxhall had sold 200 or 200,000 of them.
VAUXHALL FIRENZA HP
Engine:2,279cc four-cylinder
Transmission:5-speed manual
Power (hp):133@5,500rpm
Torque (lb ft):145@3,500rpm
0-60mph:9.4sec
Top speed:120mph
Weight: 1,040kg
On sale: 1973-1975
Price now: £5,000 for a good one
http://www.droopsnoot.co.uk/
The Droop Snoot Group for all things Vauxhall and droopy.
http://www.droopsnoot.co.uk/
The Droop Snoot Group for all things Vauxhall and droopy.
Always thought the capri and even manta were far better proportioned though. Looks too tall, or too short or something, the firenza.
Wikipedia says it influenced the Mad max car. Obviously the nose is similar, but is there an actual proven connection or is this just more (unreferenced) wikipedia Bullcrap?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_Firenza#Othe...
My first car, given to me by my dad, was a 1800 Viva estate, great car lots of power and a few tweeks thanks to Magard. Wanted to get a droop for it but could afford it at the time.
But what I really wanted was the coupe so that I could add the 'Old Nail' bodykit from the Magard catalogue.
Magnum covered a lot of Viva based metal. There was a Magnum which was a top end version of the humble Viva with crushed velour and 1800/2300 engines instead of the 1256.
They also used a lot of old Firenza shells to make the Viva E which was a horrible base spec 1179 engined (Post Office HB Viva van engine) shed with no redeeming features.
The usual haters obviously have never driven something like this. Go back to your Saxo/clio/ Novas etc and leave the decent stuff to those that know....
The Droop Snoot is my all-time working class hero. Vauxhall were always Ford's bh in the 70s so when they launched the Chevette, it was a good kick to Ford's corporately successful groin (they hadn't yet thought of the Fiesta).
My father was always a Ford man but changed his Cortina 1500GT for a Frenzy 2000SL as they were cheap and plentiful up Ellesmere Port way. I had previously thought the Frenzy somewhat ungainly as the short nose/long tail was the polar opposite of the long nose/short-tailed Capri but the bright red 2000SL changed my view a little as I loved the swooping tail and the Chevelle-esque lights and it was much faster than the Cortina and a coupe to boot. My father didn't like his Firenza though and went back to the Ford.
When I saw the Droop Snoot in 1973, in a world of Mk 1 Escorts and fuddy old Dolomites, my jaw hit the floor. The droop snoot had given the car unbeatable proportions and film star elegance and the road tests were top notch and Ford were about to lose their crown - at least had it not been so expensive to start with and had Ford not copied it with the Mk 2 RS2000.
I saw my first Droop on a school coach trip. Idly looking out of the window, a historically-styled Capri 3.0 passed by. In an instant, a silver flash appeared from the inside lane ahead and gunned it and a stunningly beautiful HP Firenza went blasting after the Capri at a rate of knots. I never witnessed the conclusion but it was hauling it in despite the Capri squatting in response.
I subsequently saw Old Nail and Big Bertha race at Oulton and later went on to own a Viva 1800 (while wishing for a never to be realised Firenza 2300SL). The Viva was a far better handling car than the Escort or Cortina (assuming you didn't want to go sideways all the time) but was worse styled and rusted more and many simply hadn't got over the shocking rust reputation Vauxhall had from the 50s and 60s.
I still love the Droop Snoot. It still looks fresh and relevant today in a way old Fords could only dream about. What a shame it was launched at the wrong time, at too high a price and at a time when rallying favoured development of the Chevette. The Chevette HS was great compensation but was no Firenza.
You might think that would spawn an allegiance to Vauxhalls but their move to FWD pretty much ended that for me and it's the RWD HC Vauxhalls that I will always remember as best.
Used to deal with a guy that sold them new and used to laugh that under a particularly wild pull-off the torque would shift the motor in its mounts so much that the cooling fan would lunch the rad. Sounds about right.
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