Bullseye TV Ford Fiesta Top Prize
Discussion
Watching Bullseye on Challenge and their Top Prize of a car brought to mind those absolute basic spec of cars in the 1970/80s.
Ford were the masters of the game of penny-pinch.
In the market for a Fiesta and on a tight budget?
How about: foot-operated windscreen washers? A rubber bulb screenwash which was from memory was next to the clutch pedal, but the single retaining self-tapping screw quickly sheared off, leaving the driver to find it by feel as it bounced around the footwell. It was a much like a miniature version of the foot-pump which you inflated one's 1976 mail order rubber dinghy.
Those needing an even cheaper Fiesta could have an electric cooling fan that operated continuously, saving the company the price of a sensor & relay.
Then there was the 850cc engine with tiny cylinder head ports and 1950s style three-bearing crankshaft (it was intended for the German market's strict insurance laws for younger drivers, also for some reason brand new engines had oversize crankshaft bearings, as though they cocked up, but couldn't bear to scrap the mismachined parts?) which drove from new like a Mk2 Escort 1100 with broken piston rings.
Finally, carpets: the rock bottom model made do with rubber mats which didn't even try to look tailored and showing a sparsely painted floorpan.
Vauxhall did quite well in being cheap, when they allowed the OHV Viva engine - or at least a version of it - to power their entry level Nova.
And VAG fitting the 1950s Skoda Estelle OHV motor in their quite brilliant Fabia must have been some sort of politically driven agreement to appease the Czech government when they bought the company?
Remarkably, the modern engine management made this one drive fairly okay.
One of the most crazy examples I have come across was from Mazda. A company I usually have high regard, but...
The clutch release mechanism on their RWD small hatch was designed to be done hydraulically. On one of their base models, they had the genius idea to save 38million Yen/car and substituted a thick clutch cable as a direct replacement for the master and slave cylinder.
The cable pushed the release arm on the gearbox as did the slave cylinder. As cables are very good at 'pulling' and rubbish when required to 'push' this design really beggars belief. I had a lovelly low mileage example in my workshop in 1984. The car was grinding gears when selecting reverse. I ordered a genuine cable as the old one was flexing, rather the pushing - as you would imagine would be the case and one would never, ever design this setup - the new cable was only a marginal improvement. It was almost an unfixable fault. As the clutch assy aged, the system was unable to cope with anything but new parts.
So, Mazda you tentatively win my award for Top Bean Counter of the World. Until I remember some more egrigious ones.
Does anyone else have other examples of car makers going the extra Km/Mls to be, well, very cheap?
Ford were the masters of the game of penny-pinch.
In the market for a Fiesta and on a tight budget?
How about: foot-operated windscreen washers? A rubber bulb screenwash which was from memory was next to the clutch pedal, but the single retaining self-tapping screw quickly sheared off, leaving the driver to find it by feel as it bounced around the footwell. It was a much like a miniature version of the foot-pump which you inflated one's 1976 mail order rubber dinghy.
Those needing an even cheaper Fiesta could have an electric cooling fan that operated continuously, saving the company the price of a sensor & relay.
Then there was the 850cc engine with tiny cylinder head ports and 1950s style three-bearing crankshaft (it was intended for the German market's strict insurance laws for younger drivers, also for some reason brand new engines had oversize crankshaft bearings, as though they cocked up, but couldn't bear to scrap the mismachined parts?) which drove from new like a Mk2 Escort 1100 with broken piston rings.
Finally, carpets: the rock bottom model made do with rubber mats which didn't even try to look tailored and showing a sparsely painted floorpan.
Vauxhall did quite well in being cheap, when they allowed the OHV Viva engine - or at least a version of it - to power their entry level Nova.
And VAG fitting the 1950s Skoda Estelle OHV motor in their quite brilliant Fabia must have been some sort of politically driven agreement to appease the Czech government when they bought the company?
Remarkably, the modern engine management made this one drive fairly okay.
One of the most crazy examples I have come across was from Mazda. A company I usually have high regard, but...
The clutch release mechanism on their RWD small hatch was designed to be done hydraulically. On one of their base models, they had the genius idea to save 38million Yen/car and substituted a thick clutch cable as a direct replacement for the master and slave cylinder.
The cable pushed the release arm on the gearbox as did the slave cylinder. As cables are very good at 'pulling' and rubbish when required to 'push' this design really beggars belief. I had a lovelly low mileage example in my workshop in 1984. The car was grinding gears when selecting reverse. I ordered a genuine cable as the old one was flexing, rather the pushing - as you would imagine would be the case and one would never, ever design this setup - the new cable was only a marginal improvement. It was almost an unfixable fault. As the clutch assy aged, the system was unable to cope with anything but new parts.
So, Mazda you tentatively win my award for Top Bean Counter of the World. Until I remember some more egrigious ones.
Does anyone else have other examples of car makers going the extra Km/Mls to be, well, very cheap?
With regards to the existence of an 850cc Fiesta engine, I did doubt my memory as the only reference in my mind was from an AE Bearing catalogue which also told of some Ford OHV engines having a 'reground' crankshaft from new. I'd ordered a heap of these trade catalogues from AE/Hepolite to make my business look 'professional' and having mild autism, I read them cover to cover. It was at the time I started my first garage business at the age of eighteen*. However, I just found this evidence:
https://picclick.co.uk/FORD-FIESTA-MK1-850cc-OHV-E...
If it's the company I think it is, they have been in business since at least the early 'seventies, I don't think it'll be an error. Very cheap too at £49.
I think the quoted power from this budget engine was 39bhp.
The Mk3 Fiesta 1.0 was hopelessly underpowered. I bought one to resell and can recall the speed dropping to 45mph on an uphill section of the M1. One can only wonder how asthmatic an 850cc one must've been?
I didn't think this topic would be so popular :-)
https://picclick.co.uk/FORD-FIESTA-MK1-850cc-OHV-E...
If it's the company I think it is, they have been in business since at least the early 'seventies, I don't think it'll be an error. Very cheap too at £49.
I think the quoted power from this budget engine was 39bhp.
The Mk3 Fiesta 1.0 was hopelessly underpowered. I bought one to resell and can recall the speed dropping to 45mph on an uphill section of the M1. One can only wonder how asthmatic an 850cc one must've been?
I didn't think this topic would be so popular :-)
- As a family, we were all made redundant in early 1983. As I'd only just passed my college exams and was still an apprentice, no garage would employ me. There were no jobs anyway, so I rented a lockup garage for £20/mth and bought a £19 trolley jack, £22 dwell meter & timing light and set up in business. I only did one job that with more experience, I'd have done it better. And just the one complaint, front pads on a Rover SD1 which started to squeal horribly: Unipart pads being the cure. It is still beyond me why customers would hand their keys over to an 18 year old, who looked more like 12. I did free collection/delivery as I was ashamed of my premises...
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