Old cars that just depress you.

[Ferg]

Richieboy3008 said:

I just find them bland to look at, bland to be in, they do nothing for me.

Maybe, but not in 1998! That's the thing about car design.

[traffman]

Anything from the jelly mould era circa 1990 to 1995 ish.

All mass produced cars seemed to have the same sad blobby jelly face look.

hate em.

[NHK244V]

Timberwolf said:

A friend of mine at school had (or, to satisfy the pedants, his parents had) a Space Cruiser. From watching it drive off numerous times, I can only surmise that there was no conventional transmission connecting engine to wheels; instead when the engine was started the car would start rocking on its suspension with increasingly violent movements back and forth, until the ferocity of oscillation was such that it started trundling down the road as a result.

I service 2 identical ones for a customer (both E reg in gold but no moon roofs), if you stop hard enough the rear wheels lift off the ground! i st you not ! THE softest springs evar!!! lol i fitted spring assisters all round the year before last as simply putting the dog in the rear made the steering go light and wander all over the road

[anonymous-user]

Whoever approved this on the hyundai board should be shot for creating the most depressing car ever. Mostly seen nowadays in sun faded maroon or red.


ETA

[CraigyMc]

Someone thought the following was a good idea:

[Alx323]

bulldong said:

Whoever approved this on the hyundai board should be shot for creating the most depressing car ever. Mostly seen nowadays in sun faded maroon or red.


ETA

There is a stripped out yellow one of these near me. Black wheels, yellow fogs. I'll admit to quite liking it, just a bit different.

[New POD]

strangehighways said:

I'll defend the MK3 Astra. It looks st, I'll give you that. But at this time, Vauxhall engines were wonderful and torquey. The 2 litre 8v engine was an absolute gem (the 115bhp one). So flexible.

Their petrol engines these days are totally st.

Cracking vauxhall 8V's included the 1.4 Mk3 astra MPI with a whopping 82 BHP, which was so much better than the 1.6 8V SPI with 75 BHP and higher insurance. I owned 2 of the former and one of the later.

Also the 1.8E as put into the Mk1 GTE and the early Mk2 cavalier CDi and SRi . Which I think is the best engine I've owned making a mk2 cavalier so much less depressing. The 2.0 130 BHP SEH is apparently bullet proof, but I can catagorically state that it's not.

[martin84]

s m said:

You could still get the Fiesta RS1800 in late 94 - extra 40 bhp over the Fiesta Si.

Ford were also selling the 150bhp Escort RS2000 in 2wd and 4wd at the end of 95 as well as the Cosworth.

Also doing the big Scorpio with the 200bhp V6

Yes I did say most Fords then were pretty tragic. Personally I liked the Scorpio which puts me in a very small minority. The Ka came out in 1996 but I still think the ten years before the Focus were pretty poor from Ford.

[trackerjack]

It is not so much the car but the fanatic following for what is to me the worst auto junk ever to crawl ours and others roads this car has poor handling, poor roadholding, poor performance, poor comfort, poor brakes, is noisy and wsounds like a series of farts when running! Any way in which you judge a car it falls short. However many people love the VW Beetle, a car that depresses me greatly.

[s m]

martin84 said:

s m said:

You could still get the Fiesta RS1800 in late 94 - extra 40 bhp over the Fiesta Si.

Ford were also selling the 150bhp Escort RS2000 in 2wd and 4wd at the end of 95 as well as the Cosworth.

Also doing the big Scorpio with the 200bhp V6

Yes I did say most Fords then were pretty tragic. Personally I liked the Scorpio which puts me in a very small minority. The Ka came out in 1996 but I still think the ten years before the Focus were pretty poor from Ford.

It was more to answer ejenner's rhetorical question

[Perd Hapley]

CraigyMc said:

Someone thought the following was a good idea:

They make me smile, they're funny. If I had one it would need to have the optional separate rear seats.

[TorqueWench]

The old Citroen DS gives me the creeps, It looks like the kind of car a murderer would drive.

[benjj]

TorqueWench said:

The old Citroen DS gives me the creeps, It looks like the kind of car a murderer would drive.

Hmm, I think we should go for a drink. In a secluded forest

[J4CKO]

I dont get the hatred for the Montego, I drove a few and had one for a while and always found them to be alright, despite the Sierra being RWD it didnt handle that well in standard form and had wheezy engines as a rule, the MK2 Cavalier was nippy but the handling was scrappy but the Montego managed to be comfy, handle better than it had any right to and had a decent turn of speed, the 1.6 did 0-60 in ten and a bit second, my "GTI" model was about nine. They werent perfect, for example they rusted but then everything else did then, nothing was Galvanised really until Fiat got sick of the stick and made the Tipo which was galvanised.

I think with some cars it is just the done thing to knock them as they were familiar and not that sought after, like any mass market saloon is, they end up effectively worthless but I am glad someone keeps the odd one going, it is a no brainer that E30 M3's and MK2 Escorts are kept going but really, as a car how much is actual capability to do its job and how much is PH/Evo/Market Hype ?

There is an element of Emporers New Clothes about cars, now I am sure a E30 M3 is a far far better drivers tool than a Montego but one is going for 50 grand and the other 500 quid, the M3 is not 100 times better, 100 times faster but you would think it reading about them.

[mat205125]

Triumph Man said:

Oh God, I forgot about the Allegro! Too depressing!

I'm sorry, but the following BMC/BL/Austin cars aren't actually as bad as our brown tinted glasses remember. Allegro, Maxi, Montego, Maestro

Sure, they all used engines decades past their best, and lived for far too long, however compared to their Ford, Vauxhall and european counterparts, they were good cars. The British have an annoying habit of putting home industry down. We'd be a lot stronger economocially if we'd been half as loyal as the French, Italians and Germans have remained throughout the years

[Riley Blue]

Fiat Strada - an awful car in every respect, absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever.

[J4CKO]

mat205125 said:

Triumph Man said:

Oh God, I forgot about the Allegro! Too depressing!

I'm sorry, but the following BMC/BL/Austin cars aren't actually as bad as our brown tinted glasses remember. Allegro, Maxi, Montego, Maestro

Sure, they all used engines decades past their best, and lived for far too long, however compared to their Ford, Vauxhall and european counterparts, they were good cars. The British have an annoying habit of putting home industry down. We'd be a lot stronger economocially if we'd been half as loyal as the French, Italians and Germans have remained throughout the years

There are a lot of people that were loyal to the British Motor's, I think a lot of people however avoided them due to having their heads turned by german stuff which was perceived as better, we had a MK3 Golf bought new and I drove the Company Rover 214's which was streets ahead of the frumpy, dumpy, dull, and wheezy Golf, ok the Rover was a bit old mannish but it was much faster for a 1.4 than the 1.8 Golf (Never mind the tragic 1.4) and had more kit, the 214 was quicker than a MK3 GTI, you needed a 16 valve GTI to be significantly quicker but the VW had that aloof, minimalistic, germanic image that the Middle Classes go mad for, even though frankly, the MK3 was a bit crap. What people did know is that old men bought Rovers and they were a bit tweedy and not cool, that was the main problem, they werent cool and then people hang all sorts of justification for not buying one on them when it is actually ego, just the opposite when the Mini came out I am sure a lot of people would have one if it had a K series engine or you sat on a spike, such an object of desire it was, whether it was any good or reliable was immaterial.

I do think a lot of this is marketing, the German stuff got a reputation as being solid and dependable and the Rovers woefully unreliable, that wasnt my impression but then I suppose if you do stick an iron block 8 valve dollop with 90 bhp in a car it is hardly going to destroy itself with the power.

I have seen BMW sixes destroy headgaskets more than the K series, I have seen Montego and Metro diesels with 200k on, we had a Metro diese car for the kids to rag round the field and it had 120k on, pity the poor sod that suffered that as it wasnt exactly fun

[deltashad]

J4CKO said:

There is an element of Emporers New Clothes about cars, now I am sure a E30 M3 is a far far better drivers tool than a Montego but one is going for 50 grand and the other 500 quid, the M3 is not 100 times better, 100 times faster but you would think it reading about them.

But would you have wanted a Montego in your drive 20 years ago?
I like them more now, but that's only for nostalgia and respect to someone loving it.

Back in the day I looked at a montego as a maestro with a boot, which it was, and the maestro was ugly, an ugly replacement to an ugly allegro.

I could own any of these cars now as in a quirky kind of way they're cool.

[otolith]

deltashad said:

But would you have wanted a Montego in your drive 20 years ago?

My dad had assorted Montegos, Cavaliers and Sierras as company cars, and reckoned that the Montego was the best of the three.

[s m]

J4CKO said:

I dont get the hatred for the Montego, I drove a few and had one for a while and always found them to be alright, despite the Sierra being RWD it didnt handle that well in standard form and had wheezy engines as a rule, the MK2 Cavalier was nippy but the handling was scrappy but the Montego managed to be comfy, handle better than it had any right to and had a decent turn of speed, the 1.6 did 0-60 in ten and a bit second, my "GTI" model was about nine. They werent perfect, for example they rusted but then everything else did then, nothing was Galvanised really until Fiat got sick of the stick and made the Tipo which was galvanised.

I think with some cars it is just the done thing to knock them as they were familiar and not that sought after, like any mass market saloon is, they end up effectively worthless but I am glad someone keeps the odd one going, it is a no brainer that E30 M3's and MK2 Escorts are kept going but really, as a car how much is actual capability to do its job and how much is PH/Evo/Market Hype ?

There is an element of Emporers New Clothes about cars, now I am sure a E30 M3 is a far far better drivers tool than a Montego but one is going for 50 grand and the other 500 quid, the M3 is not 100 times better, 100 times faster but you would think it reading about them.

Jacko, you know some cars' handling/dynamics improves from original with the passing of time whereas others becomes much worse - that thread about 205 Gti 1.6/1.9 handling sort of illustrates it doesn't it?