Budget/Eastern Bloc 80s cars
Discussion
Retros
te has a Riva estate with Saab turbo power up for auction…
https://retroste.com/2024/05/26/lada-riva-turbo/
Obvs PH swear filter in full effect so link won’t work directly…
te has a Riva estate with Saab turbo power up for auction…https://retros
te.com/2024/05/26/lada-riva-turbo/Obvs PH swear filter in full effect so link won’t work directly…
LimaDelta said:
Oh no, mine was the far more desirable 80s version, with faded red paint. I also removed the bumpers and taped the lights because racecar.
I remember I closed the door rather too positively one evening and the window just dropped down inside, never to be seen again. Afterwards I always had to park with the driver's door in a downwind lee to prevent the seat getting wet in the rain.
A flatmate of mine had one of these in a fetching shade of beige. I remember I closed the door rather too positively one evening and the window just dropped down inside, never to be seen again. Afterwards I always had to park with the driver's door in a downwind lee to prevent the seat getting wet in the rain.
He absolutely raved about it. Said it drove brilliantly. Used to drive it up and down the length of the country from the student flat up north to his girlfriend's down south. Never seemed to give up on him and kept going just fine when one of those trips saw him return with a front wing caved in...
Levin said:
CivicDuties said:
We had the Lonsdale from Australia trying to undercut and out-spec Cortinas, Cavaliers etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonsdale_(car)
A Lonsdale is the holy grail of automotive shttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonsdale_(car)
te. There's another motoring forum where there have been efforts to locate even a single Lonsdale in any condition in the UK. The thread has been running for something like a decade. Despite all their sleuthing the conclusions so far are that an incredibly small number of the cars were sold in the UK, and based on number plates known to have been issued to Lonsdale cars, it's possible every single one was scrapped before 2000.Edited by CivicDuties on Friday 31st May 09:44
dxg said:
A flatmate of mine had one of these in a fetching shade of beige.
He absolutely raved about it. Said it drove brilliantly. Used to drive it up and down the length of the country from the student flat up north to his girlfriend's down south. Never seemed to give up on him and kept going just fine when one of those trips saw him return with a front wing caved in...
My old man got hit on the rear wing by an HGV once. On the M8 at the section around Charing Cross where there’s various offside slip roads. HGV driver was from Wales somewhere and had probably never driven the road. Estelle was punted across 2 lanes of traffic but miraculously didn’t hit anything else. Drove it home and total repairs were basically the wing panel and nothing else. Those cars did appear to be remarkably resilient to accident damage.He absolutely raved about it. Said it drove brilliantly. Used to drive it up and down the length of the country from the student flat up north to his girlfriend's down south. Never seemed to give up on him and kept going just fine when one of those trips saw him return with a front wing caved in...
A school friend of mine was given his mum’s white Lada Riva, which didn’t get him any cool points. It was already rusting at a couple of years old.
A few years later, I was a member of the Group B Car Club. Top dogs were the members with pukka Group B supercars like Delta S4, 6R4, T16, quattro Sport, or RS200. The middle ground was the preserve of the Renault 5 Turbo 1 and 2 crowd. That left the budget members with Citroen Visa Mille Pistes, Skoda Estelle 130LR and two brothers with a Lada Riva VFTS. To be fair they seemed to have the most fun at track days.
A few years later, I was a member of the Group B Car Club. Top dogs were the members with pukka Group B supercars like Delta S4, 6R4, T16, quattro Sport, or RS200. The middle ground was the preserve of the Renault 5 Turbo 1 and 2 crowd. That left the budget members with Citroen Visa Mille Pistes, Skoda Estelle 130LR and two brothers with a Lada Riva VFTS. To be fair they seemed to have the most fun at track days.
Turbobanana said:
To correct an earlier point, the first Hyundais were licence-built Ford Cortina Mk2s. The Pony was their own effort and, while suspiciously similar to a Cortina, the Stellar also featured a lot of Mitsubishi components. Like engine, gearbox etc.
As a left-field choice, may I propose the Chrysler Neon? Always conspicuously cheap and definitely distinctive in appearance, most lived a relatively short life as a taxi before vanishing into oblivion.
I had a Neon as a company car when i worked for the local Jaguar dealer as they also had the Chrysler franchise in another part of the country. They were quite decent specification wise but the three-speed automatic gearbox made it rather thirsty! Luckily myself and two colleagues that had one also had access to unlimited fuel which was handy.As a left-field choice, may I propose the Chrysler Neon? Always conspicuously cheap and definitely distinctive in appearance, most lived a relatively short life as a taxi before vanishing into oblivion.
Speed 3 said:
Just shows you how the world has moved on:
This was when the Wanderers were a top flight team late 70's, first team had one each.
Funnily enough the Alex Riley column in the current Classic Cars magazine mentions this advert. Apparently Frank Worthington previously owned a Lotus Elan +2, followed by a Ford Mustang Mach 1 in 1972. Clearly his Bolton Wanderers Lada was a bit of a come-down.This was when the Wanderers were a top flight team late 70's, first team had one each.
Can we have an honorable mention of the Daewoo? Tired re-heated GM cars from a decade earlier, cheap plastics and zero image. Plus the added spice of colossal corporate failure into the mix - chairman of the board fled to Vietnam before being brought back to South Korea, tried and jailed for masterminding $44bn of accounting fraud (I think he was accused of trousering $2bn of it himself), before the whole ship went down.
And an FSO Polonez, parked in what was the Co-op but is currently Tesco at Inshes, Inverness
And a Yugo looking a bit frilly at only a few years old. This one used to live in Drakies opposite Raigmore Hospital, Inverness
And finally a not-eastern bloc but oddity, I think a Sao Penza, again somewhere in Inverness
And a Yugo looking a bit frilly at only a few years old. This one used to live in Drakies opposite Raigmore Hospital, Inverness
And finally a not-eastern bloc but oddity, I think a Sao Penza, again somewhere in Inverness
finlo said:
sjabrown said:
It looks like Crayford had a hand in that!It's based on the Fiat 125, but Fiat never built an estate version which may explain the looks.
I spun the big ends of my Lada Riva, C155HUS, 6 days in to ownership. That 55k must have been 155k... It limped to a college friend's parent's house awaiting transportation back home. They were in no rush to see it gone as at only 4 years old, there was kudos for having a C reg car on their drive!
Very unappealing drive, no Fiat dna left. The chap I lodged with was smitten though and bought one to replace his Dyane...mad!
I loved my pub/tip car though, Skoda Favorit estate in turquoise, alloys, the business. Proudly pre-VW. Never locked, always where we left it, borrowed by many. Dash curled up like an old cheese sandwich but it polished up very well. Just couldn't open the doors when I had it on axle stands while the wheels were off being powder coated. Sweet, sweet Skoda. Held the record for most recalls issued I believe.
Very unappealing drive, no Fiat dna left. The chap I lodged with was smitten though and bought one to replace his Dyane...mad!
I loved my pub/tip car though, Skoda Favorit estate in turquoise, alloys, the business. Proudly pre-VW. Never locked, always where we left it, borrowed by many. Dash curled up like an old cheese sandwich but it polished up very well. Just couldn't open the doors when I had it on axle stands while the wheels were off being powder coated. Sweet, sweet Skoda. Held the record for most recalls issued I believe.
MattsCar said:
Someone used to import Tatra 613s in to the UK. Probably the best Eastern Block car you could buy. V8, 220BHP, rear engined. They sold very few though over here, for reasons of cost and well, just look at it.
I went touring Eastern Europe (aged 18) a couple of years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, as I wanted to see it before it became Westernised. I took my then girlfriend and '73 Triumph Spitfire. Car related observations include:
A police Tatra 613 which looked great.
An FSO having a horrific lift oversteer moment on a Polish main road, leading to me immediately abort the unofficial race.
Looking at the yard of a Polski Fiat dealership which had about 20 brand new 126s awaiting collection, lined up in rows of the same colour. Presumably because they were made and delivered in batches of the same colour.
The Spitfire caused a stir where ever it went - sportscars not being part of the communal control system. In some countries it was the fastest vehicle on the road.
Out of the cities some fairly major roads were gravel.
In one country I discovered, too late, that they didn't fill in between the rails on level crossings, leading to a small jump (being 18 I may have approached the hump faster than I would now) and a landing on the opposite rail. The doors never opened, or closed, properly again.
There was also a machine point stop on the Slovak / Czech boarder which consisted of an army truck across the road who were spooked by a noisy sportscar traveling a speed on a midnight cross continent dash through an Eastern European pine forest while his driver thought he was James Bond.
Dapster said:
Can we have an honorable mention of the Daewoo? Tired re-heated GM cars from a decade earlier, cheap plastics and zero image. Plus the added spice of colossal corporate failure into the mix - chairman of the board fled to Vietnam before being brought back to South Korea, tried and jailed for masterminding $44bn of accounting fraud (I think he was accused of trousering $2bn of it himself), before the whole ship went down.
I’m sure Halfords were the dealers for those.Duke Caboom said:
I went touring Eastern Europe (aged 18) a couple of years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, as I wanted to see it before it became Westernised. I took my then girlfriend and '73 Triumph Spitfire.
Car related observations include:
A police Tatra 613 which looked great.
An FSO having a horrific lift oversteer moment on a Polish main road, leading to me immediately abort the unofficial race.
Looking at the yard of a Polski Fiat dealership which had about 20 brand new 126s awaiting collection, lined up in rows of the same colour. Presumably because they were made and delivered in batches of the same colour.
The Spitfire caused a stir where ever it went - sportscars not being part of the communal control system. In some countries it was the fastest vehicle on the road.
Out of the cities some fairly major roads were gravel.
In one country I discovered, too late, that they didn't fill in between the rails on level crossings, leading to a small jump (being 18 I may have approached the hump faster than I would now) and a landing on the opposite rail. The doors never opened, or closed, properly again.
There was also a machine point stop on the Slovak / Czech boarder which consisted of an army truck across the road who were spooked by a noisy sportscar traveling a speed on a midnight cross continent dash through an Eastern European pine forest while his driver thought he was James Bond.
Sounds like a fabulous experience. Tks for posting it. Onw.of my travel regrets is not getting to Belin before the wall came down. Car related observations include:
A police Tatra 613 which looked great.
An FSO having a horrific lift oversteer moment on a Polish main road, leading to me immediately abort the unofficial race.
Looking at the yard of a Polski Fiat dealership which had about 20 brand new 126s awaiting collection, lined up in rows of the same colour. Presumably because they were made and delivered in batches of the same colour.
The Spitfire caused a stir where ever it went - sportscars not being part of the communal control system. In some countries it was the fastest vehicle on the road.
Out of the cities some fairly major roads were gravel.
In one country I discovered, too late, that they didn't fill in between the rails on level crossings, leading to a small jump (being 18 I may have approached the hump faster than I would now) and a landing on the opposite rail. The doors never opened, or closed, properly again.
There was also a machine point stop on the Slovak / Czech boarder which consisted of an army truck across the road who were spooked by a noisy sportscar traveling a speed on a midnight cross continent dash through an Eastern European pine forest while his driver thought he was James Bond.
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