have you seen a mk4/5 coupe dents?

Its someone's idea of a sporty coupe in the 70s and while not pretty (esp. the high roofline) deserves to be preserved

shmoodiver wrote:have you seen a mk4/5 coupe dents?

I have. The worst looking of all 2 door 'Tinas.

talking of sporty coupes from the 70's....here's a classic of the time....must make for hard racing constantly having to look up to avoid falling pianos!

marina = no!

sorry, but just no.

shmoodiver wrote:have you seen a mk4/5 coupe dents?

No. Unfortunately Im not an authority on all british made cars.

cooper770 wrote:talking of sporty coupes from the 70's....here's a classic of the time....must make for hard racing constantly having to look up to avoid falling pianos!

I have never seen a two door one before.

but still, yeah, but nah but yeah but nah NAH

cooper770 wrote:talking of sporty coupes from the 70's....here's a classic of the time....must make for hard racing constantly having to look up to avoid falling pianos!

My first ‘car’ was a Morrie Marina Van. It had been a one owner – biscuit delivery and well looked after. I never had a problem with it – apart from having the front suspension joints replaced (common) and the bonnet flying up on me one night(11pm) as I was doing about 70kph in a 50 zone between parked cars and traffic island (yek!)

It was a panel van – no side windows – which made it all the nicer to hump my girlfriend at Dunedin’s beauty spots late at night

Plenty of room to put my bike in it too.

shmoodiver wrote:marina = no!

sorry, but just no.

and yet in its day the Abingdon prepare rally cars driven by Cowan and co were bloody quick....but then its like comparing a WRC Focus with what my dad drives

The Marina gets a bad rep 25-30 years after the fact, but when you look at the history of the times in reality what where the other choices? Cortina....at 20% more money or Italian at vastly more money which dissolved before your eyes in the rain, or Japanese which were probably better....but we'd only just got over the war so know one wanted to buy them and they cost more.... As a basic no frills rear wheel drive car they did what they were designed to do. Its easy to measure something from the past based on today's expectations. After all BMW are today's darlings of the genre, yet in 1970 they were no better than today's base model Corrolla yet cost equivalent to 5 times more.

The engines and drive train were up to standard for the period, after all they were only the basic B series that had been shoe horned into Brit cars for the previous 40 years with no major issues (for the time) What really let them down was mainly decrotive aspect such as trim...but again they came from the period when people 'garnished' their homes with fluffy orange and purple carpet, worn Vinyl acetate jackets...so what would you really expect? .....all that being said I'd not own one unless I was given it to use as a autocross car and was allowed to drive it off the quarry pit wall afterwards

nuff said!

marina or any one of the japanese coupes of the time, i know what i woulda picked.

shmoodiver wrote:marina or any one of the japanese coupes of the time, i know what i woulda picked.

So do I, indeed I had a Mitsi GTO from the period in the early 80's 2L of raw power but the handling needed work. How ever when new the Marina was with in price range of the average family whilst a lot of the Jap cars were still very pricey....which is the point I was trying to make. when comparing apples and apples...

Like I also mentioned at the time the average car buyer was of the age that WW2 was fresh in the memory of the generation.After all it was only 20-25 odd years for many which ment the old soldiers of the era where the new car buyers of the time I can still remember my first part time employer in 1974 saying he'd never buy a Jap car becuase of what they'd done in the Islands etc... don't know if you would recall but to buy a new car in NZ up until the early 70's you had to have overseas funds, and those funds where usually in Pounds.( Kirk Motors in Porrirua assembled the first of the CKD jap kits in NZ, prior to then they where Routes group primarily.)

Special Tuning Abingdon UK prepared rally cars where still the ones to beat, and they used British Leyland based cars. It wasn't until Stewart Turner left ST and joined Ford and helped develop the RS and Mexico series that any other non European manufacturer really made any in roads into taking everyday production family style cars and winning. Excepting maybe Saab and Volvo who had success with variants based on main stream cars who focused on rally.

cough

Ford Escort RS2000 or DEATH