Irish motoring in the 1980’s

Philb76 · 09-07-2020 10:01am

Reading all the posts here has brought back a lot of memories about the reliability and quality of cars from that era and all i can say thank God they don't make them like they used to with the exception of BMW and Mercedes

John.G · 09-07-2020 10:02am

I remember that they (SDI engine) seemed popular with taxi drivers in some foreign country or other that I was in.

Jimmy Garlic · 09-07-2020 2:35pm

John.G wrote: »

I remember that they (SDI engine) seemed popular with taxi drivers in some foreign country or other that I was in.

They keep going I suppose but the chances of falling asleep at the wheel are much higher I’d imagine. Plenty of VWs that I like but I could never understand how that shoddy offering was as popular as it was in Ireland . Taxi drivers in Ireland never took to them.

swarlb · 09-07-2020 3:12pm

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Jimmy Garlic wrote: »

God awful car. Build quality was shocking bad especially in the interior. It was just a matter of time before the cheap plastic flap for opening the glovebox broke off and everything you had inside it was stuck there forever. A sea of cheap plastic. In terms of interior build quality it was almost as bad as a Renault 19, much much worse in terms of how it handled. Farmers loved it, pulling trailers at 30mph was all it was good for, closer to a tractor than a car.

Was the VW Vento not a 90's car.... I certainly don't remember too many of them driving around in the 80's.....
Maybe you're thinking of a VW Jetta....

swarlb · 09-07-2020 3:13pm

Philb76 wrote: »

Reading all the posts here has brought back a lot of memories about the reliability and quality of cars from that era and all i can say thank God they don't make them like they used to with the exception of BMW and Mercedes

Reading some of the posts, I'm wondering if any of the posters actually drove cars in 80's, or have a vague recollection of having their nappies changed in the back seats....

RandomViewer · 09-07-2020 4:27pm

alias no.9 wrote: »

I'm guessing they're talking about the Opel Rekord

Sorry when they said agricultural I assumed they were on about the Rekord

RandomViewer · 09-07-2020 4:29pm

My one memory of cars in the eighties is the smell of damp carpets, basic joint sealing seemed to be beyond most manufacturers

kdevitt · 09-07-2020 4:37pm

RandomViewer wrote: »

My one memory of cars in the eighties is the smell of damp carpets, basic joint sealing seemed to be beyond most manufacturers

A friend of my father told me about his Fiat Ritmo, which he bought brand new. It made a sloshing noise when closing the doors or when driving - apparently some of them sat down at Dublin Port awaiting an order from the Fiat dealer, but by the time they were bought the doors had rotted and filled up with rain water!

Mr Meanor · 09-07-2020 4:40pm

My memory is most cars not starting on the street on the first Autumn and Winter mornings.....

Except for the Datsuns and Toyotas.

Wishbone Ash · 09-07-2020 4:49pm

kdevitt wrote: »

A friend of my father told me about his Fiat Ritmo, which he bought brand new. It made a sloshing noise when closing the doors or when driving - apparently some of them sat down at Dublin Port awaiting an order from the Fiat dealer, but by the time they were bought the doors had rotted and filled up with rain water!

On a quiet night, you could hear them rusting.

RandomViewer · 09-07-2020 4:50pm

Mr Meanor wrote: »

My memory is most cars not starting on the street on the first Autumn and Winter mornings.....

Except for the Datsuns and Toyotas.

Opels and VWs started fine,

mondeoman2 · 09-07-2020 5:02pm

RandomViewer wrote: »

Opels and VWs started fine,

Our 1984 Opel Ascona 1.6s was Very Bad For Starting,Let Me Down A Lot,And Always Far From Home:mad:
(I Think The 'S' Stood For Slow)

AndrewJRenko · 09-07-2020 5:19pm

RandomViewer wrote: »

Opels and VWs started fine,

My Kadett went through phases of problems with the automatic choke - not the most reliable.

Mr Meanor · 09-07-2020 5:19pm

RandomViewer wrote: »

Opels and VWs started fine,

Our neighbour with a 1983 Mk1 Golf would have disagreed with you.

RandomViewer · 09-07-2020 7:14pm

Mr Meanor wrote: »

Our neighbour with a 1983 Mk1 Golf would have disagreed with you.

Faulty heater plug or the diesel running back from the pump, easy fix. . Compared to a York engined Transit he had a minor problem,
Anything with an auto choke started fine ,it was the art of control of the manual choke that caused the starting problems with petrol cars

RandomViewer · 09-07-2020 7:18pm

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

My Kadett went through phases of problems with the automatic choke - not the most reliable.

Thought they were all manual from memory, Ford was the worst offender in my experience, though Peugeots could be very temperamental hot or cold

John.G · 09-07-2020 7:20pm

Mr Meanor wrote: »

My memory is most cars not starting on the street on the first Autumn and Winter mornings.....

Except for the Datsuns and Toyotas.

I bought a new Formel E Golf in 1980, a superb car, never ever a starting problem and went on to do 270K miles by 2000. This was a 1098 cc car with a high CR (for its time) of 9.5:1 with a 3+E gearbox where you got the normal 4 speeds in 3 and the E gave around 20MPH/1000 RPM.
Fiats had a bad name for starting in the wet but this could be largely overcome if one changed the HT leads every two years or so. I think they had carbon cored HT leads for radio suppression? whereas VW and probably others had copper cored ones with the suppression done in the rotor arm.

RandomViewer · 09-07-2020 7:21pm

mondeoman2 wrote: »

Our 1984 Opel Ascona 1.6s was Very Bad For Starting,Let Me Down A Lot,And Always Far From Home:mad:
(I Think The 'S' Stood For Slow)

We'd Kadetts and Cavaliers ,never had any issues , diesels would spin a bit as they got older but eventually start,. Couple of Golfs, couldn't keep them in door handles but no starting problems.

John.G · 09-07-2020 7:30pm

RandomViewer wrote: »

Thought they were all manual from memory, Ford was the worst offender in my experience, though Peugeots could be very temperamental hot or cold

The VW Beetle had a automatic choke in the early 60s.

RandomViewer · 09-07-2020 7:40pm

John.G wrote: »

The VW Beetle had a automatic choke in the early 60s.

Poster said Kadett had auto choke,

AMGer · 09-07-2020 11:22pm

Child safety in cars was non existent in the 80s. I don’t ever remember having seats belts in the back until well into the 90s. My wife remembers being a child of four, where 3 of them got to sit in the back seat and 4th had to stand!

Voodoomelon · 09-07-2020 11:28pm

I still remember being in Rice & Roddy Renault dealership in Dundalk (probably around 1992 in fairness) as a wee fella with my dad, we had our Renault 21 in for whatever reason, service or some such. My dad was standing near the car chatting to the garage owner when he shouted over to me "what's the miles on the clock son"? I leaned in the driver window and stared at the clocks baffled. "120mph" I shouted back. He walked over to the car shaking his head.

I Was VB · 10-07-2020 1:40am

Voodoomelon wrote: »

I still remember being in Rice & Roddy Renault dealership in Dundalk (probably around 1992 in fairness) as a wee fella with my dad, we had our Renault 21 in for whatever reason, service or some such. My dad was standing near the car chatting to the garage owner when he shouted over to me "what's the miles on the clock son"? I leaned in the driver window and stared at the clocks baffled. "120mph" I shouted back. He walked over to the car shaking his head.

A neighbor of ours had jdm starlet, we were in awe of it because it could go 180 ‘miles’ a hour, only years later I realized the difference between Kilometers and miles.

beauf · 10-07-2020 1:54am

RandomViewer wrote: »

Poster said Kadett had auto choke,

Fiat Mirafior also.

zilog_jones · 10-07-2020 9:03am

I Was VB wrote: »

A neighbor of ours had jdm starlet, we were in awe of it because it could go 180 ‘miles’ a hour, only years later I realized the difference between Kilometers and miles.

I remember having an argument with another ~10 year old that just because the speedo on his dad's Montego went up to 150 MPH didn't mean it could actually go that fast.

AMGer wrote: »

Child safety in cars was non existent in the 80s. I don’t ever remember having seats belts in the back until well into the 90s. My wife remembers being a child of four, where 3 of them got to sit in the back seat and 4th had to stand!

Seat belts weren't required on rear seats in Ireland until 1992, and it was for new cars only (three point belts on outer seats, at least lap belt for centre). Before then you may have encountered just lap belts on the outer rear seats. A lot of '80s cars had the anchor points for three-point rear belts (probably because of requirements in Australia) so could have been retrofitted.

But being thrown in the back of a van with no seats (or light!) was acceptable throughout the '90s in my experience.

Mr Meanor · 12-07-2020 9:08pm

Car vans!

freshpopcorn · 12-07-2020 9:10pm

Some type of picnic blanket on the back seat!

Technique · 12-07-2020 10:49pm

I remember the diesel Jettas of the early eighties had a prominent rise in the bonnet compared to the petrol versions.

Mr Meanor wrote: »

Car vans!

There were a lot of Fiesta vans driven by young guys in the late eighties or early nineties, must have been some tax loophole making them cheap to buy new?

freshpopcorn · 12-07-2020 10:50pm

Mr Meanor wrote: »

Car vans!

We had a relative with a 205 one.
We used all sit in the back of it to go somewhere in the 90's!

Tea drinker · 12-07-2020 10:53pm

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

My Kadett went through phases of problems with the automatic choke - not the most reliable.

The auto choke Peugeot I had at the time was fairly bad, it was a twin choke with both chokes "being choked".
Flooding was an issue, same as friends Renault 18 or 20. Rust killed that car, had rebuilt the engine in it and it had lasted many years, but welding in bits of washing machine to hold the car together, eventually didn't cut it.
The family Renault 4, similarly went to the car graveyard with rust. But not before the brakes failed on it after we rounded a corner to a herd of cows. I thought "this is going to get messy, no way out" Pulling the ineffectual handbrake and blowing the horn meant we *skimmed* a few cows as they miraculously parted in front of us like the red sea.
Fun times

I Was VB · 13-07-2020 1:51am

Tea drinker wrote: »

The auto choke Peugeot I had at the time was fairly bad, it was a twin choke with both chokes "being choked".
Flooding was an issue, same as friends Renault 18 or 20. Rust killed that car, had rebuilt the engine in it and it had lasted many years, but welding in bits of washing machine to hold the car together, eventually didn't cut it.
The family Renault 4, similarly went to the car graveyard with rust. But not before the brakes failed on it after we rounded a corner to a herd of cows. I thought "this is going to get messy, no way out" Pulling the ineffectual handbrake and blowing the horn meant we *skimmed* a few cows as they miraculously parted in front of us like the red sea.
Fun times

That’s the type of stories I’ve heard from the people who were old enough to remember the 1980s! Brilliant!!!!

rn · 13-07-2020 2:09am

Toyota corollas, Toyota crowns, Toyota carina II, opel records and fiat ritmos. Main cars in my household and near neighbours.

All with towbars for pulling cattle trailers. Small trailers.

The record billowing black smoke, but huge inside.

Only the record and the carina 2 did not suffer significant rust IIRC. Filling, fibre glass repairs and resprays periodically.

Motorbikes. Lots of motorbikes.

California Dreamer · 13-07-2020 7:02am

Technique wrote: »

I remember the diesel Jettas of the early eighties had a prominent rise in the bonnet compared to the petrol versions.

As far as I remember there was a load of them sold to Dublin taxi drivers as Kiely motors in Donnybrook had gotten their hands on a load of them and they were fantastic value at the time.

RandomViewer · 13-07-2020 9:36am

Technique wrote: »

I remember the diesel Jettas of the early eighties had a prominent rise in the bonnet compared to the petrol versions.

There were a lot of Fiesta vans driven by young guys in the late eighties or early nineties, must have been some tax loophole making them cheap to buy new?

Early version of PCP, think about a grand down and 100 a month with a balloon payment at the end, don't think any of them were still going by then

13-07-2020 9:50am

Late 80s.......I remember my parents, myself and my sister going from Cork to Shannon airport to collect an aunt and uncle returning from a fortnight in Spain. We'd a Ritmo 70cl ......... I'd have been standing on the return trip happy out with life.

Roughly the same time about 12 of us being dropped home from a friend's birthday party in his Dad's R21 savanna with the seats down.

Neighbour had a few quid and an e30 320i .......... followed by an e30 316i.

Another neighbour had a Jag, likely an XJ-6 but I can't really remember.

At school a few classmates' older brothers were involved in joyriding ...... one or two of them graduated into hard crime in the 90s and beyond.

CoBo55 · 13-07-2020 10:18am

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

There was only one amnesty and that was in October 1979. Contrary to popular belief, you could only benefit if you were on a second provisional licence in category C (now category and had applied for a driving test by the cut off date which was six months before the announcement was made by Sylvie Barrett. There are so many myths and untruths told about that amnesty such as people rushing out to apply the day of the announcement. Bullshít. I'd say less than 1% of current drivers benefited.

Regarding HGV's - I'd say you are confusing the amnesty with the pre-test era. Prior to 1964 there was no driving test. You simply bought the licence and ticked the categories you required. My mother had all the categories even though she never drove.

Thank you. The amount of bull**** being spouted about that amnesty is unbelievable.

CoBo55 · 13-07-2020 10:24am

Technique wrote: »

I remember the diesel Jettas of the early eighties had a prominent rise in the bonnet compared to the petrol versions.

There were a lot of Fiesta vans driven by young guys in the late eighties or early nineties, must have been some tax loophole making them cheap to buy new?

One of the loopholes was that they didn't need to be tested, they were classed as commercial but were under the required weight needed to qualify for the then doe test. There was another dodge regarding road tax too but I can't remember what it was, and, of course they were cheaper than the car version.

CoBo55 · 13-07-2020 10:36am

My main memory is people keeping cars for years and years until they literally fell apart, many neighbours would have been driving late 60's early 70's cortinas, Hunter's, vauxhall Vivas etc into the mid 80's. A work colleague of my father's ambition was to have a car that was built in the same decade he was living in

Arthur Daley · 13-07-2020 10:42am

Fewer second cars. A second car would have been seen as a luxury. Without the motorways we tended to travel less and stay local, meaning 2 cars were not really required even if people could afford to run a second car.

It would be interesting to see how many miles are driven in Ireland in 2020 vs 1980, doubt anyone is measuring it. Would be an interesting take on the environmental arguments around cars.

Old diesel · 13-07-2020 1:23pm

Arthur Daley wrote: »

Fewer second cars. A second car would have been seen as a luxury. Without the motorways we tended to travel less and stay local, meaning 2 cars were not really required even if people could afford to run a second car.

It would be interesting to see how many miles are driven in Ireland in 2020 vs 1980, doubt anyone is measuring it. Would be an interesting take on the environmental arguments around cars.

2nd cars were starting to creep in around 1989 in my area - usually it was because of scenarios like the following.

1) a Farmers wife might be a nurse and have a new or fairly new car for going to work. Said car would be the "good family car". Meanwhile the farmer would have some old yoke for pulling a trailer or general runabout.

2) Parents didn't like giving the 17 year old young lad the nice new car to learn in. So you'd buy an older car that you didn't mind if it got a few dents on.

But yeah - so many families had only one car and would try to manage with it.

CoBo55 · 13-07-2020 2:09pm

Old diesel wrote: »

2nd cars were starting to creep in around 1989 in my area - usually it was because of scenarios like the following.

1) a Farmers wife might be a nurse and have a new or fairly new car for going to work. Said car would be the "good family car". Meanwhile the farmer would have some old yoke for pulling a trailer or general runabout.

2) Parents didn't like giving the 17 year old young lad the nice new car to learn in. So you'd buy an older car that you didn't mind if it got a few dents on.

But yeah - so many families had only one car and would try to manage with it.

Youngsters cycled to school/ summer job etc, didn't get chauffered everywhere by mammy and daddy. The scenario you describe with the farmers is still the same today.

RandomViewer · 13-07-2020 5:34pm

CoBo55 wrote: »

Youngsters cycled to school/ summer job etc, didn't get chauffered everywhere by mammy and daddy. The scenario you describe with the farmers is still the same today.

Bus for school, thumbed in to town for a year in first job

Break80 · 13-07-2020 8:02pm

This was my era of cars. Mate of mine had a fiat 127 special. Fast little car. The 127 sport was even faster.
All the small fiats of that time were quick Greyhound cars they were known as. ALL GO NO BODY.
That time insurance was almost impossible if you were under 25 so we all used to get named on the father,s insurance.
My Father had a fiat 131. The car was rusting before your eyes. Slam the door and there would be a pyramid of rust on the ground.
The passenger door had a dodgy lock which a mate of mine had to be hauled back in after a fast corner one time. To this day he never forgave me.
The best ever was 1986 one of my mates was lucky enough to hold an American passport so he had enough of the depression of the time and was heading to the States never to return. We drove him to Shannon for the send off. 6 of us in total. Of course he had to have his last few Irish pints before boarding the plane which we kept him company and of course we had to toast him luck when he left.
A few hours later back to the car to drive to Cork and the Heavens opened and of course the wiper motor packed up. So a string was tied to the driver wiper and another to the passenger side.
You can imagine the effort to co ordanate the pulling of the strings all the way home with heavy trucks coming at you and a drunk co pilot.
Happy days indeed.

CoBo55 · 13-07-2020 8:13pm

Break80 wrote: »

This was my era of cars. Mate of mine had a fiat 127 special. Fast little car. The 127 sport was even faster.
All the small fiats of that time were quick Greyhound cars they were known as. ALL GO NO BODY.
That time insurance was almost impossible if you were under 25 so we all used to get named on the father,s insurance.
My Father had a fiat 131. The car was rusting before your eyes. Slam the door and there would be a pyramid of rust on the ground.
The passenger door had a dodgy lock which a mate of mine had to be hauled back in after a fast corner one time. To this day he never forgave me.
The best ever was 1986 one of my mates was lucky enough to hold an American passport so he had enough of the depression of the time and was heading to the States never to return. We drove him to Shannon for the send off. 6 of us in total. Of course he had to have his last few Irish pints before boarding the plane which we kept him company and of course we had to toast him luck when he left.
A few hours later back to the car to drive to Cork and the Heavens opened and of course the wiper motor packed up. So a string was tied to the driver wiper and another to the passenger side.
You can imagine the effort to co ordanate the pulling of the strings all the way home with heavy trucks coming at you and a drunk co pilot.
Happy days indeed.

Yea yea yea, you do know there's a worm and pinion drive in a wiper motor which makes the pulling the strings scenario impossible unless you get up under the dash and disconnect the wiper linkage from the motor, not easy after a swift gallon of airport stout.

horseofstone · 13-07-2020 8:31pm

Isuzu had 2 saloon cars for sale here in Ireland in the 80's.One was called the gemini. Can anyone remember the name of the larger saloon?

horseofstone · 13-07-2020 8:31pm

Isuzu had 2 saloon cars for sale here in Ireland in the 80's.One was called the gemini. Can anyone remember the name of the larger saloon?

RandomViewer · 13-07-2020 8:32pm

horseofstone wrote: »

Isuzu had 2 saloon cars for sale here in Ireland in the 80's.One was called the gemini. Can anyone remember the name of the larger saloon?

The Aska

Arthur Daley · 13-07-2020 9:19pm

The piazza coupe was sold in the UK anyway. Limited numbers so probably didn't bother shipping it across. Think it might have been the Hino distributor who handled Isuzu.

Tea drinker · 13-07-2020 10:06pm

Arthur Daley wrote: »

The piazza coupe was sold in the UK anyway. Limited numbers so probably didn't bother shipping it across. Think it might have been the Hino distributor who handled Isuzu.

vaguely remember that. Lads used to rave about the isuzu diesels then I think Opel started throwing Isuzu engines in their cars for a while, kind of hollowing out Isuzu business.

freshpopcorn · 13-07-2020 10:10pm

In the 80's and 90's we had Kadett's with those metal bumpers that could fall off!

Irish motoring in the 1980’s

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