So Nissan are bring back the Datsun after 30 years

[MarkF]

My late father had a Datsun 120Y delivered 1st august 1975, all the neighbours came to look at it, it was like spaceship compared to the dismal BL offerings of the time.

IMO all a modern cars are poo, about 15 years ago they started getting fat & bloated, god knows how wide they'll end up, Peugeot were, for a long time, the worst offender. Now they are all as bad and look the same, with the only bit of "style" being provided by the big plastic bits that bolt on, front & rear, a "bumper" used to be 2% of the car now it's 25%, it's a swizz! The VW Scirocco, from behind, looks like a big plastic bumper with a bit of car tagged on top.

Anyway.........I saw some vintage cars last week in Saltaire, a 1973 Capri looked beautiful, it sure didn't look beautiful to me at the time, but now compared to today's duffers, it does. My wife saw one of these there, a Fiat Multipla, and fell in love.

 

[Fnaar]

The Ford Pubic - made of old corsairs.

My dad had a white Corsair (not a Pubic ) . I have a model one on my desk at work. I love them. Ours was always breaking down. but to me as a kid, it was the height of cool!

 

[Fnaar]

I actually LIKE the modern Mini. It isn't the old mini, but it's a great looking car.*

*I know feck all about how cars work, and I have little interest. But I DO see then as potential objects of beauty

 

[martint235]

Vinyl-roofed Talbot Sunbeam for me. Or the Fiat 127.

Wasn't one of the Sunbeams produced with a truly ridiculous engine in it, a Lotus or a Cosworth or something?

 

[Fnaar]

Remember that Specials song about the imprisoned Nissan car salesman?
Free Nissan Main Dealer?

(*originally heard in slightly dubious 'accent' joke about Chinese man; shoehorned into this context by moi)

 

[MarkF]

Is there a "pretty" new car on the market? One without enormous plastic ends, bloated body panels and gigantic window pillars?

 

[Boris Bajic]

My dad had a white Corsair (not a Pubic ) . I have a model one on my desk at work. I love them. Ours was always breaking down. but to me as a kid, it was the height of cool!

I too like the Corsair (also for a childhood link). We always had dull GM estates, but the pool car when ours was in for service or repair was a Corsair during those important childhood years when it was important to a boy what was in the drive.

I recall my father saying I'd never find the petrol cap, but I'd spied one at a petrol station... I thought it was totally space-age.

Because we always had estates, I think I also thought the saloon body was somehow more 'classy'.

I have to go to the kitchen for some nostalgia on toast.... Mmm....

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

 

[Panter]

Wasn't one of the Sunbeams produced with a truly ridiculous engine in it, a Lotus or a Cosworth or something?

Indeed! The Lotus Sunbeam. Not insanely powerful, but lighter than a packet of pork scratchings http://www.sunbeamlotus.com/

 

[perplexed]

Vauxhall Viva.

With horizontal speedometer.

 

[Over The Hill]

Triumph Dolomite 1850 - 9-speaker stereo (with BIG bass) - windows down - Whitesnake blasting away ... them was the days ...

NOOOO!

Triumph Dolomite Sprint (2 litres with 16 valve engine miles ahead of its time) Overdrive on 3rd and 4th Gears, Full Webasto cloth sunroof.

Also contender must be Granada Coupe. Someone on here has got one IIRC.

 

[MarkF]

Vauxhall Viva.

With horizontal speedometer.

I raise you the Citroen CX "cylinders"

 

[Shaun]

I raise you the Citroen CX "cylinders"

They were truly awful speedos ... urghh!!

I counter with the strange experience of driving a Citroen 2CV with its dash-mounted gear lever (the green bobble on the right of the steering wheel):

 

[tyred]

VW Golf MK1 GTI

 

[Boris Bajic]

The 2cv is the most perfect thing that Man has ever devised. It is without peer and it is the only object permitted to qualify the unqualifiable adjective 'perfect'. It is the most perfect thing.

In a consumer test alongside the most beautiful diamond ever cut, the most excellent aeroplane ever flown, the most gorgeous bicycle ever ridden and the most beautiful piece of music ever written (and also that smiley lady from the Louvre), a panel of experts judged the 2cv the most perfect thing ever built and more perfect even than anything that would ever be built.

The Corsair, the Volvo 164, the BMW 3.0si saloon, the Fiat Abarth Nuova 500 SS and the DS Chapron cabriolet are all lovely, but the 2cv is perfect.

Anyone who disagrees ought to drive a 2cv flat-out in the Alps. Although you will barely get out of second where the air is thin and you will want to administer Ventolin about 1500 metres, the descents will give you a new appreciation of life and all its joys. Tyre pressure is critical.

As the above is fact, this thread can now be closed.