My experience of Fords of the period, and I ran a series of Fords from about 1970 to 1985 including two marks of both Cortina and Escort, is that they were very reliable, reasonably comfortable, cheap to service and fairly fast.
My experience of BL cars owned by friends is that they didn't work and people laughed at them...
I tried that once with a new laptop. Took 3 DVDs and no guarantee it will work. After that I just cloned a drive for the lot. Fortunately they were all the same make of laptop.
Best take an image if you can get the software. It will be smaller than a recovery set but you would only have the image of the drive as it is now. If you can get hold of a copy of Acronis true image that works well with windows.
I'm going to make some supper, open a bottle of Rioja and watch the new seies of primeval
An appropriate response to gallows humour!
Francis
On Sat, 01 Jan 2011 07:40:29 -0800, harry boggled us with:
No, it wasn't really that great.
It also never, ever made a profit. If they'd priced it so it did, then no one would have bought it.
No, the cars were s**te.
Mini, Marina ,Maxi, Allaggro, Princess, Austin Landcrah, Austin 1100/1300.
All s**te rotboxes.
What made it even worse for them was models competing for the same share of the market - Triumph Shitfire, MG Midget and the Sprite for example - all made by the same company, all competing for your money. Same with the Marina, Allegro and Dolomite.
Total and utter madness.
The fact that Fords of the same period were better cars, VW introduced the Golf, Renault the 5, and others came along during the 70s with vastly superior products just finished them off. By that stage it really didn't matter who owned them.
On Sat, 01 Jan 2011 18:31:20 +0000, alang boggled us with:
No, they really weren't. I started helping out after school at a small garage owned by a friend of my gran in about 1982. Most of the stuff that needed welding up, or serious repairs was 70s British tat.
My grandad had an Austin 1100, a Marina, a Riley Elf and a Maxi. They were all unreliable and all rotted at the first sniff of rain. The 1100 was so rotten at just 5 years of age he scrapped it.
On Sat, 01 Jan 2011 18:44:45 +0000, JNugent boggled us with:
A few years ago I got made redundant and got a good pay-off. I'd always wanted a Mini, so I went to look at a very nice condition late model 1996 Cooper with the sports pack and all the toys. It was, IIRC up for about £5250.
I test drove it.
I've never wanted one since. It was a bloody awful thing. I can't see what all the fuss was about. It's awful to be in, pretty awful to drive unless on the ragged edge all the time, so impractical as to be almost useless and not even economical. Awful machine. I'd rather have a Beetle, and they're bloody horrible too.
Actually, the unions were a nightmare, the cars were s**te, the mangement couldn't find their arses with both hands and the Government would neither leave them alone nor provide sufficient funding.
No wonder the whole enterprise was a joke.
That cost the taxpayer billions of pounds.
The principles of monopoly vary, depending upon state or private I'd have thought? One is motivated by profit, the other not?
There will never be a purely 'good thing' in such methods of production and allocation - but give me nationalised over private monopoly, even regulated, any day
Rob
I found them all as reliable as the servicing they got. The only problem was Fords. Finding which particular part they had fitted that week was always an adventure especially on the ignition system. Apart from that they were much better than French cars of the period.
I won a mini in 1984. It was delivered and I drove it 2 miles and then was convinced that the only thing to do was flog it. The first bit of awfulness, I discovered before even driving it, was that the driver's seat wouldn't tip far enough forward to get into the rear seat because the driver's seat headrest hit the steering wheel! Wonderful!
The other thing about the Fords of the period is that they were, for want of a better term, cool...
BL cars were never cool...
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Typically almost impossible to drive within the urban speed limit in top (4th) gear
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I drove a company Cortina that was rotting through the wing tops after
18 months. And then there was the alarming behaviour of the suspension ...
I have two, and never pay any interest on either of them. I just like the goodies that come with the cards and the freedom of not having to carry cash.
I told my kids years ago, never buy anything on a credit card that you could not pay for with cash upfront. Then you won't run into trouble.
To knock credit cards is like knocking cars because they occasionally get wrapped round lampposts. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Rob Graham
I believe the new ones are quite good. However, as a bloke I'd never own one!!
Nah, the Maxi was great, apart from the gearbox linkage.
Marina, MAxi, Princess and 1800 were all good motors but the 1500cc Maxi was definitely underpowered with 4 passengers and luggage
On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 17:14:11 +0000, mechanic boggled us with:
That'd be why my grandad scrapped his P reg one in 1980 because it had fallen apart from rot would it? Yes. Great car...
On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 17:20:19 +0000, alang boggled us with:
I'm sorry, are you living in some weird parallel universe where BL made good cars?
Yes, I have fond memories of my Ford Fiasco Mark II.
Francis
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