vito wrote:deano wrote:hmmm, good point .
but who is roger clark ?
Isn't he a crinkly faced hairdresser with shouilder length hair ...............
I thought he was a tv reporter that chased down rogue traders whether they were cowboy bulders, dodgy car dealers (stick anuvva 'nana in the sump John - that'll quieten 'er dahn) or whatever and was often chased away from his quarry by the quarrys henchmen and guard dogs.
Oops, no - got that wrong! I was thinking of Roger
Cook :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Coo ... rnalist%29
Oddly that was the first result when i searched for Roger Clark. Maybe Matt means
Jim Clark :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Clark
Regardless who he meant, i take his points though. Anything with a Ford badge now has the "value added blue oval tax" and most other marques from a similar era will always struggle to come close. When did you last see an HB or HC Viva sell for more than a similar Mk1 or Mk2 Escort? It just doesn't happen unless it's something like the Viva Sportshatch but that was a limited edition, droop-snoot Viva estate with the 2.3 slant four under the bonnet and a Carlos Fandango paint job. Sounds as if there's no real heritage to that model as well but Vauxhall had successfully campaigned the Firenza Sportshatch (basically a badge-engineered Viva 3-dr estate with the aforementioned droop-snoot and 2.3 slant four) in several rallys so the Viva Sportshatch was the "man in the streets" Firenza Sportshatch at an "affordable price". Much the same as Ford did after winning the Mexico 1966 World Cup Rally with amazingly the Escort Mexico or at least a "works" version of the car that became the Mexico.
Sadly, nothing like that applies to the 800 except possibly the one-off achievement of Tony Pond (RIP) on the TT circuit. Even the SD1 was raced in various forms as were several other models from the British Leyland/Austin Rover/Austin Rover Group/Rover group stable but for the 800 - diddly-squat!
One of the big problems is the car in general has been a victim of its own success. Go back to the time Steve mentions when 1 family in 5 actually owned a car and the Beatles had just been discovered. You could actually
drive a car then, rather than sit in the traffic jams we currently "enjoy" through now having 5 cars to every family in the street. As such, most cars post about 1975-80 won't ever achieve the following that older cars have because the memories attached to them don't evoke nostalgia in the same way.
Perhaps i'm looking at it too deeply but hopefully someone found my waffle even vaguely interesting!
