Irish motoring in the 1980’s

John_Rambo

Some footage here of Dublin in 1982 of the new & significant traffic flow changes brought in. Nothing crazy, but nice to see the Fiat Ritmo at the start. A very concept like car in it's day.

https://www.rte.ie/archives/2017/0803/895025-dublin-traffic-reverses/

AndrewJRenko

John_Rambo wrote: »

Some footage here of Dublin in 1982 of the new & significant traffic flow changes brought in. Nothing crazy, but nice to see the Fiat Ritmo at the start. A very concept like car in it's day.

https://www.rte.ie/archives/2017/0803/895025-dublin-traffic-reverses/

Funny to see them all right. I remember cycling in that Sunday, around 6pm I think, but perhaps most of the traffic had gone by that stage.

Funny to see how motorists still see 'traffic' as something caused by other people, and nothing to do with their own behaviour.

AndrewJRenko

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Funny to see them all right. I remember cycling in that Sunday, around 6pm I think, but perhaps most of the traffic had gone by that stage.

Funny to see how motorists still see 'traffic' as something caused by other people, and nothing to do with their own behaviour.

You really can't help yourself. Cycling forum is that way >

John_Rambo

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Funny to see them all right. I remember cycling in that Sunday, around 6pm I think, but perhaps most of the traffic had gone by that stage.

Funny to see how motorists still see 'traffic' as something caused by other people, and nothing to do with their own behaviour.

Ah, it was the eighties when roads were perceived as just for cars. Even bus lanes were the work of the devil. Bikes were for "kids and poor people". It was actually the first move towards cycle friendly traffic. The people interviewed were complaining about the change that obviously caused confusion and tailbacks.

Please, don't turn this in to a cycle v car thread. It's a thread called motoring in the eighties in the motoring forum, the last thing we want is the usual tit for tat crap you like to get involved in with spook_ie and Seanw.

What's your car hero of the eighties? Mine's the Opel Manta.

Dual wheels

I Was VB wrote: »

For those who were of age back then what was it like?

What was the standard family car? What did the boy racers drive? What did the business people drive?

I’ve heard stories of motors being bought for £50 and being driven for years, was motor tax optional? How many drinks could ya have before the Barman took the keys off ya? Did Ireland have a motoring culture back then or were cars seen as a glorified horse? Was there a car that represented that you were “doing well”?

Remember 50 punts was a lot back then Ford was probably the most popular car all around cortina or Granada for the business people escort or Orion for the family and a fiesta for the boy racer although with no power steering it sometimes took two people to do a handbrake turn..people didn’t have much back then and getting a car loan was virtually unheard of so people generally drove older cars, Datsun was also popular back then, tax was optional and you could generally drink as much as you liked once you didn’t crash, the local guard knew you and waved you on, great auld times, anybody driving to Dublin always stopped in Kinnegad for a feed of pints, no nct or any of that nonsense

Arthur Daley

We're given a story that nobody had a pot to pi55 in pre Celtic tiger. But new cars sales were 106,000 in 1980. They have probably been double that in 2018 or 2019 but about half of those are imports from the UK.

The population in 1980 was about 70% of what it is now, so yes there are more cars per capita in Ireland today, no question, but its not quite the transformation we are sometimes told it is.
A fair few people could afford new in 1980 and a ten year old was more of a banger than compared to today, where we routinely see 15/16 year old perfectly servicable cars out on the road.

John_Rambo

Arthur Daley wrote: »

We're given a story that nobody had a pot to pi55 in pre Celtic tiger. But new cars sales were 106,000 in 1980. They have probably been double that in 2018 or 2019 but about half of those are imports from the UK.

The population in 1980 was about 70% of what it is now, so yes there are more cars per capita in Ireland today, no question, but its not quite the transformation we are sometimes told it is.
A fair few people could afford new in 1980 and a ten year old was more of a banger than compared to today, where we routinely see 15/16 year old perfectly servicable cars out on the road.

Post 90's build quality, proper warranties (that were stood over), rust proofing at production, people actually getting their cars properly serviced (brakes and oil) & the dreaded NCT has a lot to do with this!

richardsheil

John_Rambo wrote: »

Some footage here of Dublin in 1982 of the new & significant traffic flow changes brought in. Nothing crazy, but nice to see the Fiat Ritmo at the start. A very concept like car in it's day.

https://www.rte.ie/archives/2017/0803/895025-dublin-traffic-reverses/

Did you hear the Detroit Diesel in the Bombardier- GAC bus? Fab

Around 10 sec point

Dual wheels

Arthur Daley wrote: »

We're given a story that nobody had a pot to pi55 in pre Celtic tiger. But new cars sales were 106,000 in 1980. They have probably been double that in 2018 or 2019 but about half of those are imports from the UK.

The population in 1980 was about 70% of what it is now, so yes there are more cars per capita in Ireland today, no question, but its not quite the transformation we are sometimes told it is.
A fair few people could afford new in 1980 and a ten year old was more of a banger than compared to today, where we routinely see 15/16 year old perfectly servicable cars out on the road.

If you drill down on those figures for 1980 you will find a high percentage of them were company vehicles, sales reps were far more than there are today and more people had a company vehicle than have today

Arthur Daley

Here is a video of the choice in the supermini market in 1977. Just as the Fiesta was launched in the UK.

Note how the Fiat salesman pitches the benefit of a 2 year warranty on the Fiat 127 :eek:

I think I'd go for the rolly polly R5

Irish Steve

Hmm, a few memories there all right. Started working in Dublin in 86, company rented apartments in Rathfarnham for 12 months, then Goatstown, and eventually when we moved over in 90, a rented 3 bed semi in Cabinteely for 12 months until we moved into our own house in Ashbourne. Commuting into Baggot Street area back then wasn't a lot of fun, so the fact that I tended to work non standard hours was a big bonus.

Cars, in the UK, a 1.8 Injected cavalier, and over here, for a while a (company) Golf, which wasn't too bad, and when the family started coming over regularly, a Mazda 626, with a 1.6 engine, which was an evil bucket of sh1te, needed the choke out for the first 3 miles every day, summer or winter, no power steering, and horribly under powered. Got given a 2.0L 626 for a day when the regular one was in for a service, nearly wrote it off at the first roundabout on the Belgard road, it had power steering, and I'd heaved like I did in the 1.6, it nearly went over the central reservation, as it responded so fast.

The other outstanding memory was of the canal road on the South side, for at least 12 months, it was holes every 5 metres with unlit barrels marking the edges, Bord Gais were upgrading the network to Natural Gas, and some of the larger pipes along the canal were leaking like a seive, their "fix" was to open up a hole at each joint to allow the gas to disperse. As you walked past the holes you could see the gas bubbling up through the water in the holes.

It was rare to see a car with working lights on all four corners, and in some cases, there were no lights on some corners as a result of the impact damage they'd suffered, and it was a common sight to see cars going down the road sideways due to the wheel alignment being massively out of true as a result of accident damage.

When we moved over from the UK in 89, the Cavalier came with us, as it was VRT exempt, and my wife's Sunbeam came over, bright orange, nicknamed Jasper (as in Jasper Carrot), and they served well for a number of years.

Traffic lights, my boss warned me the first day over here that Irish lights, unlike the UK, had 2 colours, between midnight and 6 AM they were Green and advisory Green, and the rest of the time, Green was proceed with caution, as shore, t'other colour was only Pink.

In a lot of places, maintenance was optional, and the absence of any sort of MOT or NCT meant that there were often significant faults on a lot of older cars, and often dangerous corrosion.

The scrappage scheme that came with the introduction of the NCT testing system got rid of a lot of the scrap, and things started changing then, but then and now, there remains a very Irish attitude towards maintenance, way too many people only get things done as a result of failing the NCT, but that's the way things are, and even now, Covid is making things complicated.

alias no.9

John_Rambo wrote: »

Some footage here of Dublin in 1982 of the new & significant traffic flow changes brought in. Nothing crazy, but nice to see the Fiat Ritmo at the start. A very concept like car in it's day.

https://www.rte.ie/archives/2017/0803/895025-dublin-traffic-reverses/

The Ritmo didn't look all that different from the Hiace beside it

Was that Johnny Sextons dad being interviewed, bit of northside heritage in the Sexton family

coolbeans

Arthur Daley wrote: »

We're given a story that nobody had a pot to pi55 in pre Celtic tiger. But new cars sales were 106,000 in 1980. They have probably been double that in 2018 or 2019 but about half of those are imports from the UK.

The population in 1980 was about 70% of what it is now, so yes there are more cars per capita in Ireland today, no question, but its not quite the transformation we are sometimes told it is.
A fair few people could afford new in 1980 and a ten year old was more of a banger than compared to today, where we routinely see 15/16 year old perfectly servicable cars out on the road.

Do you have any source for the 1980 figure? This article below says 100k was passed for the first time in 1996.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/car-sales-speeding-towards-year-2000-levels-1.438348

XLR 8

swarlb wrote: »

I think this thread is beginning to get a bit weary..... stories of uncles who knew fellas who heard about some guy who reputedly did something to his car 'in the 80's' .....
I suppose a few major things happened, one in Dublin at least was the reversing of traffic flow on the quays, as well as side streets being made one way, Capel Street was one in particular I remember.
Datsun changed it's name to Nissan and sponsored a bicycle race to benefit from the publicity.
Bus conductors disappeared, along with the old 'green' busses where you jumped on and off at your peril.
Works on the M50 began, albeit at the end of the decade.

Datsun were always owned by Nissan. They just started using Nissan on more and more cars as they became more successful. The 260Z was called a Datsun Fairlady in the US sh1te name for a great car.

zilog_jones

XLR 8 wrote: »

Datsun were always owned by Nissan. They just started using Nissan on more and more cars as they became more successful. The 260Z was called a Datsun Fairlady in the US sh1te name for a great car.

No, it was a Datsun 260Z in the US. Nissan Fairlady Z in Japan (but they didn't get the 2.6). The Datsun brand was used in Japan but less consistently, only on certain models such as the Bluebird.

AndrewJRenko

John_Rambo wrote: »

Ah, it was the eighties when roads were perceived as just for cars. Even bus lanes were the work of the devil. Bikes were for "kids and poor people". It was actually the first move towards cycle friendly traffic. The people interviewed were complaining about the change that obviously caused confusion and tailbacks.

It was certainly noticeable that there was very few buses moving through the traffic, compared to today.

John_Rambo wrote: »

What's your car hero of the eighties? Mine's the Opel Manta.

It's got to be the boss's Granada 2.8 Ghia that I got to 'mind' for a couple of weeks - quite a change from my Fiat 127 at the time.

Pinch Flat

First car memory was a Volkswagen beetle around 1975. I can remember a scramble between me and my brother to get into the little box area under the rear windows when heading on a journey.

We mainly cycled to school back then, but on days when a lift was going I can remember maybe six kids in the car - two up front in the passenger seat and 4 or 5 in the back not unusual.

We had mainly Japanese cars as they were reliable but rusted like bejesus. One toyota corrolla had it's full front wheel arch exposedfrom rust. Also the floor pan under the passenger had completely rotted. You had to put your feet either side of the hole. We also had a datsun 140y. Only new car we ever had. It was relatively flash for the time. And a toyota cressida - the car in learned to drive in. Big old 2 litre twin cam yoke. We also had a Volkswagen Passat around 1988. Very reliable until you went out on a wet day - water fot thrown up in the engine and soaked the distributor cap, which stopped the engine instantly.

Then a nissan - can't remember the model. Looked like a vluebird but probably the model below. At one point my mum had a fiat 127. It was unreliable and I can remember as a 10 year old help her push start it.

As relative prosperity set in, there was a lot of ladas at one point - the ones built from the fiat 124 body. That was the late 80s/early 90s.

Muscles Schultz

Anyone ever find that RTÉ safety ad ‘John has a new car’ and a fat lad struggling with the seatbelt ?

colm_mcm

Pinch Flat wrote: »

First car memory was a Volkswagen beetle around 1975. I can remember a scramble between me and my brother to get into the little box area under the rear windows when heading on a journey.

We mainly cycled to school back then, but on days when a lift was going I can remember maybe six kids in the car - two up front in the passenger seat and 4 or 5 in the back not unusual.

We had mainly Japanese cars as they were reliable but rusted like bejesus. One toyota corrolla had it's full front wheel arch exposedfrom rust. Also the floor pan under the passenger had completely rotted. You had to put your feet either side of the hole. We also had a datsun 140y. Only new car we ever had. It was relatively flash for the time. And a toyota cressida - the car in learned to drive in. Big old 2 litre twin cam yoke. We also had a Volkswagen Passat around 1988. Very reliable until you went out on a wet day - water fot thrown up in the engine and soaked the distributor cap, which stopped the engine instantly.

Then a nissan - can't remember the model. Looked like a vluebird but probably the model below. At one point my mum had a fiat 127. It was unreliable and I can remember as a 10 year old help her push start it.

As relative prosperity set in, there was a lot of ladas at one point - the ones built from the fiat 124 body. That was the late 80s/early 90s.

Might be a Sunny or Stanza you’re thinking of

Duke O Smiley

colm_mcm wrote: »

Might be a Sunny or Stanza you’re thinking of

A Sentra too. Probably the most Bluebird-looking time of the three

NewbridgeIR

Muscles Schultz wrote: »

Anyone ever find that RTÉ safety ad ‘John has a new car’ and a fat lad struggling with the seatbelt ?

“Tim has a new car” where Tim lost the rag trying to “work” the seatbelt. Pretty sure that was also a Fiat 131. Not seen it since early 1980s.

Pinch Flat

Duke O Smiley wrote: »

A Sentra too. Probably the most Bluebird-looking time of the three

colm_mcm wrote: »

Might be a Sunny or Stanza you’re thinking of

Could remember the reg and popped it into cartell - it was a toyota carina on a GZG plate. So looks like we never had a Nissan.

Large bottle small glass

earlytobed wrote: »

My abiding memory of driving in the 80s was when I was in the army in Dublin. One of the lads had an old Datsun 120A which had a broken accelerator cable. He had the cable fed through the dash and wrapped around his left hand(which had a leather glove on it). He would revv the car with his hand and the front seat passenger would change gear on his command.
This went on for a couple of weeks until he got it fixed

It was 1999 but I was driving my 1988 sh1tbox VW Golf home from work when the accelerator cable went.

In the boot was some blue baling twine. Tied it up to throttle, left down bonnet but didn't lock it. Fed through window and drove home.

The first take off was tricky but I was getting handy at the gear changes if a bit cold 10 miles later when I got home.

A neighbour who liked a drink and often had a very full car between local pub and disco was stopped on way into Clonmel sometime in the late 80's. The guard at checkpoint said "do you realise you have 7 passengers in your car?"

"Jesus Christ guard two of them must be after falling out, we had 9 leaving the cross(location of pub)

Ash.J.Williams

RandomViewer wrote: »

Farmers didn't really buy jeeps in 80 s ,big Rekord could pull an trailer and take the family to mass as well

start of the 90's there was a pajero revolution in Ireland! before that it was sierra 2.5 litre diesels, rekords, Cortinas etc!

Ash.J.Williams

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

......... before that it was sierra 2.5 litre diesels.......

2.3 and the last of them were 1.8TD I think

RandomViewer

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

start of the 90's there was a pajero revolution in Ireland! before that it was sierra 2.5 litre diesels, rekords, Cortinas etc!

2.3 Peugeot engined Sierra was never a big seller , slow as f##k and boiled like a kettle, 18td came out in 1990, too little too late Carina had the market cornered by then

freshpopcorn

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

start of the 90's there was a pajero revolution in Ireland! before that it was sierra 2.5 litre diesels, rekords, Cortinas etc!

When ever I see a Pajero I think of armed robberies in the 90's for some reason!

RandomViewer

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

start of the 90's there was a pajero revolution in Ireland! before that it was sierra 2.5 litre diesels, rekords, Cortinas etc!

Trooper would have been as popular as Pajero

krissovo

My family emigrated to London in the late 70's but when we came back "home" to South Kerry it was the domain of Yellow and brown Escorts in the town/village. My uncle had a yellow one, it would fit 7 people no problem. When more capacity was needed he would stick the trailer on the back and me and my cousins were relegated to sit in the trailer.

I have a fond memory of going to mass one Sunday on the old ring of Kerry (like the Italian Job coach scene), we hit a bump and my cousin bounced on his arse twice in trailer and then bounced out onto the road. Of course our wailing from the back prompted my uncle to turn up the radio thinking we were fighting rather than stop the car. We got to church and had to explain where we lost my cousin but luckily he was picked up by a neighbour and turned up a few minutes later to church.

My posh uncle had a green cortina that was primarily used to get him to the pub and back 4 or 5 days a week. It was often found in a field or ditch after trying to drive home drunk and we would have to pull it out with a old David Brown tractor we had on the family farm. My aunt would blame it a mechanical failure usually. He was still drink driving home into his 70's until the local guards clamped down on the regular offenders a few years ago.

cml387

Large bottle small glass wrote: »

It was 1999 but I was driving my 1988 sh1tbox VW Golf home from work when the accelerator cable went.

In the boot was some blue baling twine. Tied it up to throttle, left down bonnet but didn't lock it. Fed through window and drove home.

The first take off was tricky but I was getting handy at the gear changes if a bit cold 10 miles later when I got home.

A neighbour who liked a drink and often had a very full car between local pub and disco was stopped on way into Clonmel sometime in the late 80's. The guard at checkpoint said "do you realise you have 7 passengers in your car?"

"Jesus Christ guard two of them must be after falling out, we had 9 leaving the cross(location of pub)

Would the location of the pub be Kilmanahan by any chance?