Triumph Dolomite Sprint. Can still show the boy racers a clean pair of heels and still return mpg in the 30s. Decent parts supply. Your budget will easily find a decent one.
Only those females with class. Darren is out to chase chavettes, with huge gold-looped ear rings and alcopops. They are genuinely impressed by his 'driving'...
They're fantastically fast round twisty bits, that lack of power means nothing if you can drive one properly. Works like this. Drive in binary mode. Throttle wide open or shut (rarely shut though:-)Rev engine well past the gearchange marks on the speedo, and never, ever brake unless you really have to. Cornering needs nothing more than a tug on the wheel. If you understeer, tug it more, it WILL go round and it WON'T turn over! If it's a really sharp bend, a little lift or if it's really bad, a dab of brake and a flick of the wheel to get the body rolling first, then back on full throttle and turn in! It's fantastic because you can drive like a total lunatic and rarely break the speed limit. For the full effect, you need an uninitiated passenger though.. :-))) When my grandad was taken ill in Glasgow, I drove his Reliant Robin back to Lancs down the M6 . Not sure how accurate the speedo was, so I cruised most of the way down at 70ish, but I had to find out how fast it would go coming down shap in the dark and saw the wrong side of a ton. Not something I'd do again in a hurry!
There is not, according to the owners' club, a known top speed for the Reliant trikes, because nobody has ever had the courage to keep on accelerating. Ninety something would have been quite enough for me, if I ever did something so irresponsible and illegal, which of course I wouldn't.
The 2CV handling is better, but the Rialto is amazing fun - it's got excellent acceleration, feels very fast, and has by far the nicest gearchange of any car I have ever driven.
Ian
PS Alas the Rialto has to go. Anyone want one, with new MOT, for three hundred quid or so?
Possibly, if it's a 1800 and not a 1600. The latter figures in my list of "cars I never want to drive again"[1]. All top-end, no low-end and - as is traditional with VWs - no brakes.
[1] It is #5 in the list, above an early SAAB 99 turbo but below #4 Vauxhall Astra Mk2 GTE (sucked, generally), #3 Renault 21 turbo (power delivered apparently minutes after required), #2 joint: FIAT Panda and VW Polo Mk.2: I dislike cars which actively try to kill me, #1 Toyota Avensis: no redeeming features whatsoever.
I'd add that a Skoda Estella 105S is up there in the list of #5 favourites.
Much better than they were given credit for IMO; I had one as a student and his'n'hers models when first I married... A lot of fun if primitive, especially with Toyota high-back seats fitted!
In news:d9mh25$960o$ snipped-for-privacy@central.aber.ac.uk, Andrew Robert Breen decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows
Fun if you get a good one though. I had an early 4 speed GTi, that was quite amusing, but bloody noisy.
Nah, the 5 worst cars I've driven also include the Mk2 Ashtray GTE, but it's higher up the list.
Mine would be as following (in reverse order, naturally)
#5 Vauxhall Vectra #4 Morris Marina 1.3 Coupé #3 Mk2 Astras. All of them #2 Alfa 33 Sportwagen 4wd #1 MGB GT (rubber bumper)
I've got no problem with the Avensis, ok it's boring, but they're quiet, painless to drive, economical and always belong to someone else. The Avensis is the car to pick when you're very tired, very skint, and can do the drive home on auto pilot. If you're *very* tired and skint, you can challenge yourself to keep the little green "econ" light on while trying to get home at least within the week.
This was through Oxford City Centre, was it? I don't see how, since there are very few bits of road with two lanes in each direction - inside the ring road, at least. I can only think of the Botley Road, past the station and the Woodstock Road going out towards the Lemon Tree (one of the two lanes is a bus lane).
And I wouldn't regard either of those two places as Oxford City Centre.
I do this, because I don't like the unpleasant noise that it makes otherwise.
850cc Robin will just touch 90. Rialto 2 will exceed 100 if it has the high ratio back axle and the high compression engine. Aerodynamics are better on the Rialto although I don't think it is as pretty as the Robin Mk1/2.
Certainly, and handles well, provided you aren't trying to emulate Darren, who will turn it over on the first bend. Thankfully though Darren wouldn't be seen dead in one, so it keeps the stupidity level down. :-)
OK, the one I met might have been a bad one. Given their reputation I can't believe that they were all that bad.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.. What was that you said?
Ages since I drove a Marina (actually, I think the last one I drove was actually an Ital), but ISTR the small-engined ones as better than the big-engine examples - less understeer.
Had one on hire in .se a few years back. Clutch like a switch, n lw- end to the engine. Even after two weeks I was still stalling the (*^&%)_&. The only good thing about it was that at the end of the fortnight it stayed in .se . I've avoided them ever since.
The TG demo of a 2.2 Honda Accord blitzing a DB5 and E-Type pretty much demonstrated how any lesser classic will fare against a modern
1800/1600.
Do the same as they recommended, get an old car with duff leaky asthmatic engine and lucar non-connected electrics. Then put a proper DOHC 16v EFi engine and modern japanese electrics in it. Sort the floppy suspension and non retardant brakes while you are at it.
MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.