The good old days...

[330dcoupe]

VW-ONE.co.uk

I was just looking through some old reviews of the Mk1 Golf GTI convertible, as I have an itch for one, and came across this. Some of you might remember it, as if it were yesterday - I on the other hand was only 1 years old!

[Cuprabob]

Sadly, I'm old enough to remember this and it does make very interesting reading

[theduisbergkid]

Bit surprised to read "The Escort has a marker edge in handling and road holding over the Volkswagen" and unless I missed it, no mention of the crap brakes fitted on the Golf either.

[Tipex]

You obviously didn't read far enough, the Golf's rubbish brakes have a whole paragraph, and they put it down to the RHD conversion, as apparently the LHD cars were perfectly good.

I like this line-

while those 5.5 inch wide alloy wheels are shod with ultra low profile, 60 series tyres

"ultra low profile 60 series" lol, even 4X4's have lower profile than that now!

The XR3 and subsequent XR3i were always tidy handlers, they just lacked outright power.

When the RS Turbo sorted that, it brought it's own problems, the chassis just couldn't cope, and the thing torque steered into every ditch.

[theduisbergkid]

The XR3 and subsequent XR3i were always tidy handlers, they just lacked outright power.

When the RS Turbo sorted that, it brought it's own problems, the chassis just couldn't cope, and the thing torque steered into every ditch.

Never driven any of 'em, I was a Vauxhall boy back then, all engine and no handling, rust everywhere, happy days

[cruiser647]

Never driven any of 'em, I was a Vauxhall boy back then, all engine and no handling, rust everywhere, happy days

The Ford engines of those days were truly horrific. The Escort/Orion engines were so harsh, you needed ear defenders if revved over 3K - and that was inside the car.

My mate had a Golf GTi Convertible - lovely thing! Smooth engine

By contrast (and I mean contrast), another mate had the Orion iGhia.

How did the XR3(i) sell so well? Rust buckets too.

As TDK has mentioned, Vx's were all engine. And fab engines they were too!

[Tipex]

As cruiser says, the CVH engines in the Fords were bad, really bad, but they handled well, especially the fiesta XR2.

The Vauxhalls were the other way around, great engines in a crap chassis.

I've never been a 'fanboy' of any make, I've had everything from XR's to GTE's, to Integrale's to GTR's, the only make I've ever had a 'soft spot' for was Alfa, but after the RWD days, I lost interest in them, apart from my AlfaSud which was very heavily tuned, and would out handle and out pace any hot hatch, be it a GTi or GTE.

Recently I've got attached to Subaru's, as the sound of the flat four brings back memories of my AlfaSud and various other Alfa 33's etc, I just wish they weren't so common and ugly.

I very much doubt my next car will be a Subaru though, unless I find a newer than the bugeye shape one at a spiffing price, I just can't get on with those headlamps, even with the conversion things, they just look wrong.

[Tarmac_Terrorist]

Used to love the old Astra MK1's, especially in white.

A mate had one of these. Seemed to go well and handle neatly too - plenty of notice before things let go.

I also liked the MK1 Golf convertible's but I suspect it's hard to find a nice one still without paying silly money (ie collector's examples).

I recall the white GTI's with white interior! Not easy to keep clean!

[330dcoupe]

A family friend of ours bought a white Astra GTE with 160bhp. It was really quick - even by todays standards.

[330dcoupe]

How would you guys say the 106 GTi compares to the legendary 205 1.9 GTi?

[Scotty]

A family friend of ours bought a white Astra GTE with 160bhp. It was really quick - even by todays standards.

Coincidently enough, I looked up the performance figures on one over the weekend.

0-60 in 7.4 with 1/4 mile in 16 secs.

It was by far the fastest thing I'd been in. I remember entering the M25 tunnel under Epping at 120mph and thinking it was like warp speed - the tunnel lights I guess/

7.4 is no slouch but stick a similar sized engine with a turbo on a standard family car these days and you realise how much things have changed

e.g. my 2.0T Avant - 211bhp and 0-60 is 6.6 (I think)

p.s. I just looked up my first car (company pool car) : Mrk IV Escort 1.4 L.

"The 1.4 engine is rough, noisy and a bit sluggish, but once you build up some speed it cruises at 70-75mph comfortably."

I used to put Super Unleaded in at it would top out (given a big run and a dodgy speedo no doubt) at 106mph. Normal unleaded would only give 96mph. Since it was a company fuel card and back then you collected points with every £6 spent, the more expensive the fuel, the more goodies I got.

[theduisbergkid]

Anyone got fond memories of the (Sierra) Cosworth ? They seemed capable of time-travel back then, I finally got to drive a rally spec one a few years ago and was really disappointed.

[cruiser647]

I used to put Super Unleaded in at it would top out (given a big run and a dodgy speedo no doubt) at 106mph. Normal unleaded would only give 96mph. Since it was a company fuel card and back then you collected points with every £6 spent, the more expensive the fuel, the more goodies I got.

I had one of them for 5 years. Genius things. I forgot all about the cost of fuel and never really appreciated the price going up a lot in those 5 years.

I used to buy the Shell oil full synth, but my cars back then didn't appreciate it, and were a bit rattley on start-up as the stuff was/is so thin.

[Mac]

I had a White Astra GTE :D

I also had a Sierra Cosworth when I first started working in the City. I used to get pulled up by the police every 400 metres cos I looked about 12 :confused:

I used to think the Cossie was spaceship type performance

Also had a Fiesta RS Turbo in there uprated to about 200brake - that was fun.... Until the gearbox exploded.

Fave out of all of those though was the Astra. Easy to drive quickly, and sounded cool.

[Tipex]

Anyone got fond memories of the (Sierra) Cosworth ? They seemed capable of time-travel back then, I finally got to drive a rally spec one a few years ago and was really disappointed.

Yeah my dad briefly had one after the mk2 golf gti, then my uncle had it a few years, my girlfriends dad had one too, that got nicked!

At the time, it was just ridiculously fast, I also new someone who had one tuned to approx 500bhp, that was properly fast.

[330dcoupe]

Coincidently enough, I looked up the performance figures on one over the weekend.

0-60 in 7.4 with 1/4 mile in 16 secs.

It was by far the fastest thing I'd been in. I remember entering the M25 tunnel under Epping at 120mph and thinking it was like warp speed - the tunnel lights I guess/

7.4 is no slouch but stick a similar sized engine with a turbo on a standard family car these days and you realise how much things have changed

e.g. my 2.0T Avant - 211bhp and 0-60 is 6.6 (I think)

p.s. I just looked up my first car (company pool car) : Mrk IV Escort 1.4 L.

"The 1.4 engine is rough, noisy and a bit sluggish, but once you build up some speed it cruises at 70-75mph comfortably."

I used to put Super Unleaded in at it would top out (given a big run and a dodgy speedo no doubt) at 106mph. Normal unleaded would only give 96mph. Since it was a company fuel card and back then you collected points with every £6 spent, the more expensive the fuel, the more goodies I got.

Scotty - the family friend who had that car said his was a special edition. He said the book 0-60 time was actually 6.7 seconds. I looked it up yesterday and there was a couple of websites which confirmed this. I remember being 9-10 years old and thinking it's electronic speedo was the best thing since Knight rider. HAHA...

[330dcoupe]

Anyone got fond memories of the (Sierra) Cosworth ? They seemed capable of time-travel back then, I finally got to drive a rally spec one a few years ago and was really disappointed.

When I was 10 - my brother (10 years older than myself) had a Sierra 4x4 2.8 V6. At the time, it was considered the second best thing to a 'Cossy'. It had 7 attempts of theft in the 18 months he had it. He finally got rid of it after 3 guys pulled up next to it- broke into it - couldn't find the fuel cut off switch and smashed it up with baseball bats -

My dad and his cousins got one of them after he had fallen out of the 'get away car' - he got a taste of his own medicine with his own baseball bat. Fond memories.

[Tipex]

This sounds a bit 'my dads bigger than your dad' but it's true, honest -

My Cousin had a Sierra 4X4, but it had the full on Turbo Technics twin turbo conversion, on top of a 2.9 block out of a granada or something, feck that was fast, he sold it to a mate, who let his mrs drive it, and she put it on it's roof.

I also rear ended a 4X4 in a Sainsburys car park once!