Elstro

Fast Fords are a British institution – Fiesta XR2, Capri 2.8 Injection, Escort XR3i and of course the mentalist Sierra Cosworth. For almost 50 years now, Essex’s finest have been the wet dream of many a boy racer. This is where it all began – in the early Sixties, perhaps the first ‘homologation special’.

1966 Lotus Cortina Mk1 (European Car Magazine)

The Ford Cortina is somewhat of an icon in itself – the de rigeur three-box saloon that spawned generations of imitators – whose dad from 1962 to 1982 didn’t lust after one?  For starters, it has one of the most unmistakeable back ends of any car ever made (those pie-chart rear lights…) The car had an early claim to fame as Hatti Jacques’  ’Glamcabs’  in Carry On Cabby, for example.

However the Consul Cortina, as it was initially monikered, was really seen as nothing more than your bog-standard family car, no matter how modern and sharp-looking it may have been.

The car’s screaming 1558cc twincam engine was based upon the 1.5 litre Ford 116E engine, and was a result of Lotus founder Colin Chapman wishing to build his own engine design for Lotus cars. The engine debuted in the 1962 Lotus Elan.

Ford’s Walter Hayes asked Chapman if he would fit the engine to 1,000 Ford saloons for Group 2 homologation. Chapman quickly accepted. Marketing, selling and of course, the two-door Cortina bodies were all handled and supplied by Ford, whilst Lotus did all the mechanical and cosmetic changes, including the 105bhp twincam engine, together with the Elan’s close-ratio gearbox. The rear suspension was drastically altered and lightweight alloy panels were used for doors, bonnet and boot.  The only hints of the Cortina’s prowess were skinny bumpers, wider steel wheels, lowered suspension and the now-iconic white-and-green paintjob. The sleek image was finished by discreet Lotus badges on the rear overhangs and the front grille.

Grainy period footage shot of Jim Clark in a 1963 Cortina, competing against big bore sports cars at the 1964 Sebring 12 hours.

There really is no need to waffle too much about the success the Lotus Cortina enjoyed in touring car racing – that speaks for itself. Back in the 1960s F1 drivers weren’t the overpaid egomaniacs they are today and had no qualms about hopping behind the wheel of a tin-top between championship races – Lotus ace Jim Clark was particularly awesome in a Cortina in 1964. Apart from blitzkreiging BTCC races, he put the cat amongst the pigeons at the 1964 Sebring 12 Hours by sharing a Cortina with ‘Digger’ Parsons and battling Ferraris and Cobras – bringing the 1.6 litre sedan to a credible 21st spot by the end.

So why would I want one? Do you really need to ask?

It is the world’s first homologation special and perhaps also the first high-performance saloon, from a time when the 3-box cars were strictly for the family man and absolutely not sporty. Before forests echoed to the scream of hard-pressed BDA Escorts and tracks lit up by howling GT40s, Ford were strictly bread-and-butter white good cars for the masses – the Lotus Cortina made Ford cool. A stroke of genius as it spawned a whole flotilla of fast Fords, including a somewhat underwhelming Mk2 Lotus Cortina.

The Lotus Type 28's natural habitat. Even in the 2010s, almost 50 years after its birth, the Cortina is still a hot track performer. Red and gold of Alan Mann Racing are the other iconic colours of the car.

Of course, in modern terms, the Cortina isn’t particularly quick. Just 105bhp from a 1.6 four-banger in a four-seater saloon? Even a mid-range supermini these days has it licked on paper. But of course it came with zero fripperies and rear-wheel-drive…and weighed less than 800kg – not even a city car weighs that little these days.Driving one is pure simplicity and lots of fun – hell, even a rusty1.2 Consul Cortina would be a hoot to drive in this day and age.  Despite its scintillating performance and huge motorsport pedigree, the Cortina was a family car first and it is still able to swallow two adults, three kids and the weekly Tesco shop as well as being a scream to drive.

I have a huge fondness for all the mad Lotus-tuned family cars-on-MDMA – the 1970s Talbot Lotus Sunbeam and of course the world’s fastest (at the time) saloon – the Lotus Carlton – simply because of their huge talent for performing all the mundane duties required of their bread-and-butter sisters but with a huge dose of supercar urge and verve. Just at home on the North Circular and in Tesco’s car park as tearing up Brands Hatch, fighting off Minis, Imps and BMWs. What’s not to love?

1989 Audi Quattro 2.2 20v

Fire up the Quattro. Yawn. What a predictable opening line.

Like the original E30 BMW M3, the quattro (meant to spelled with a lower-case q) is one of the most iconic Teutonic cars of the Eighties. Astonishing to believe that it is now 31 years since the blister-arched coupe made its fiery debut and was unleashed upon the rallying world, annihilating everything in its path. It may not be the most beautiful car ever made, but there is no denying its pedigree: it made stars of Walter Rohrl, Stig Blomqvist, Hannu Mikkola and of course, one of the most successful ladies to ever set foot in motorsport, Michele Mouton. If it wasn’t for the quattro, none of the other rally-bred turbo nutters, such as the Lancia Integrale, Mitsubishi Evolution and of course, the Scooby would have been born. It made four-wheel-drive possible in regular cars. Most manufacturers now offer a 4WD version of their regular models in their range.

A curious fact about the quattro – Its’ 4WD system was actually based closely upon a British setup designed by Ferguson in the 1960s, which of course was utilised in the 1966 Jensen FF.

The quattro was heavily based on the  B2 (second generation) Audi 80 Coupe, a handsome machine designed by Giorgetto Giugario.  Back then, most of Audi’s models were powered by 5-scylinder engines, and of course, one of the many desirable assets of the quattro is of course that savage metallic howl at full song.  The 2WD Coupes can picked up for peanuts nowadays and have all the looks and 5-cylinder thrum of the quattro but at a much cheaper price.

Second-generation Audi 80 Coupe GT - the car that gave birth to an icon. Not as menacing and front-wheel-drive but still has that 5-cylinder engine....

The quattro’s distinctive styling cue, those arches, were styled by Martin Smith, giving the gangling coupe a real menacing edge and the looks of the car were changed very little during its eleven-year production run. The nose was facelifted to feature one-piece headlights similar to the B3 generation 80, and the rear lights were smoked to give it a much more purposeful backside. If you take a look at a Series 2 quattro from the late Eighties/early Nineties, you will struggle to see its relationship with the original 80 model that spawned it. Interestingly it was sold alongside the next generation 80 and still managed to look modern despite being based on a car first launched in 1978. Another example of the quattro’s influence – look at the three-door example of the rather more prosaic Vauxhall Nova, which also has those blistered arches and no doubt helped sales.

The quattro of course became even meaner as it continued to piss over the rallying competition….in 1985 the legendary Sport Quattro was born.

1985 Audi Sport Quattro. The most desirable of all quattros. You now have to look very hard to spot the original Audi 80 DNA here.

The Sport, featuring many bespoke styling features, and most notably, a shorter wheelbase, was the ultimate roadgoing Audi at the time – a fire-breathing 305bhp monster that could easily crack 155mph in stock form. This put it into supercar territory – even the Sierra Cosworth, launched a year later, came with just 204 horses and certainly had more show than the reasonably subtle Sport. Even the much later Japanese rally-bred nutters inspired by the car, such as the Subaru Impreza Turbo, weren’t as quick.

The Sport, with its squatter, more compact stance had improved handling and continued to keep Audi at the top of the rallying game, especially as Group B began to hit its stride. The Sport could make 400 plus bhp in Group B trim and by 1986, Audi were admitting to over 500 horses in the most fearsome of all, the bewinged S1 that took Walter Rorhl to Pikes Peak.

The closed-car record at Shelsley Walsh for example, was held by a quattro for almost twenty years…in the late Eighties rallying maestro Hannu Mikkola smashed it to under 30 seconds (29.51) in a works Sport Quattro, and in 1992 the mark was lowered to 28.58 seconds by the legendary Tom Hammonds, a furniture shop owner from Hinckley who owned a 700bhp Pikes Peak S1 replica. This stood for fifteen years. Not that it was completely unreachable – Audi tuning specialist Keith Murray came pretty close in his 650bhp Sport replica on numerous occasions in the early 2000s.

The ultimate Quattro - 600bhp 1985 S1 Sport, built to conquer Pikes Peak. Photo by Alex Cleland who also took the video below..

Still not convinced. Just watch these videos. That sound alone is enough to stir up hormones in any worthy petrolhead.

:The late Tom Hammonds\’ S1 replica, Prescott 1991

Keith Edwards\’ 800bhp Sport replica, also at Prescott,:

The ex-Keith Murray replica Sport now in the hands of Mick Harriman, still as spectacular as ever, Shelsley 2010

The interweb brings many things. Free porn, expanding of the general knowledge, new friends, life partners, seeing old programmes and films again….and of course, the fanfic AKA Fan Fiction, or original fiction written by fans of a particular media text.

Ah, the fanfic. Most people know what they are, even if they’ve never read one. Usually (but not exclusively) the work of young female fans, they offer up a myriad of new takes on an existing source. There is a whole world within, full of jargon and conventions. In fact, fan fiction could be recognised as a form of media in its own right.

I myself love a bit of fanfic. As an aspirational writer, taking an exisiting setup and offering one’s own spin on it can be a fun challenge, but pretty much all attempts have been unfinished and later abanadoned – original fiction is my first love. I am unashamed in admitting that to pass otherwise dull days and evenings, I have spent too long hooked on pages of fanfic.

Mostly I see it as simply harmless fun, and often offers me a new perspective on, and greater appreciation of,  the source material. I have read Real Person, Literature, Movie and TV Series fictions, all with varying degrees of quality. The most notorious being the slashfic – (gay-themed fan fiction for those not clued-up) AKA the ultimate guilty pleasure. Done right, it makes for some hilarious (and occasionally rather sexy) reading. Done badly….it borders on the truly obscene.

Take any popular-with-the-masses media text, for example Harry Potter, and you will find reams of fan fiction. The creativity of some fans really knows no bounds. Sci-Fi tends to be the most popular subject, but Fantasy is close behind it. Some things however, should be left as they are and never fan-ficked. God only knows how I found it, but once stumbled across a SLASH fic of….Keeping Up Appearances. Yes, I mean the very same show. High Octane Nightmare Fuel (no offence to any of the actors, please!) indeed! If ever there was a “pass me the brain bleach” moment, it was that.

As with any form of media, Fan Fiction has its own set of conventions . I won’t be boring and list them all (partly because I don’t know them all) but the most common ones are:

The “Mary Sue”
A curious convention with a complicated explanation; so this is merely how I understand the term. A Mary Sue or Marty Stu is an original character, most common in fan fiction that is the main protagonist of the story, and is usually depicted as a ridiculously flawed/flawless hero or heroine whom all the existing canon characters relate to. Harry Potter fanfiction is the best (easiest) way to spot the Mary Sue. Usually something along the lines of “Beautiful Brianna Snyder, from Burbank, Cali, is the new girl at Hogwarts….she manages to break many hearts along the way before she finally hooks up with Harry and helps him defeat Voldemort.” There’s a fanfic right there waiting to be written. The other type of Mary Sue would be something like “Hogwarts has a new DADA teacher with a mysterious past.”  A sub-form of this is putting oneself in as the lead, another popular convention. I did this twice, once in a piece of A-level coursework (I became a rock band frontman’s boyf. Yeah. I wasn’t getting laid much at either of the times and I was overweight with low self-esteem. Go figure. I’m amazed my teacher didn’t have me sectioned.)

The AU-Fic (Alternate Universe)
A common interpration of fan fiction is the lifting of the characters from the original canon/premise and placing them somewhere totally alien. Most obvious – the High School AU for stuff like Star Trek, Twilight etc. Usually the setting is the author’s own school environment and features their friends plus their desired characters. For example “Trekkie Marnie has a shock when she sees her new science teacher has pointy ears”). I can’t speculate, but I imagine that if you’re expanding on someone else’s creation, in order to produce a decent piece of writing it is probably easier to write in more detail about a setting you are more familiar with?

Catherine Tate parodied this wonderfully when she invited David Tennant to play Lauren Cooper’s screwdriver-toting, Scotch-accented English teacher. The AU is a double-edged sword. I know a Bad Girls fanfic called Aisles, where characters from right across the series have been placed as staff in a fictional supermarket.  What appealed to me was the inventive integration of existing canon characters  (for example prisoner Nikki Wade [series 1-3] is a close work friend of PO Selena Geeson [series 5-6] when in BG itself, they never crossed paths). And it still works. I don’t read AU-fics that often (I think they miss the point really) but hats off to the writer of this one for a) her good-quality writing, b) her excellent grasp of the characters and c) original setting.

Done well, this offers a completely new spin on the source material. Done badly (insert many High School AU Twilight fics here) it makes a mockery of the material, or just simply is LAME.

See examples of how NOT to do either of the above conventions in quite possibly the worst piece of fanfiction ever written. Read at your own peril.

Real Person Fic: Do’s and Don’ts
You are basically free (within reason) to shape fictional source material to suit your own ends as long as it doesn’t make a mockery of the original creator’s work. When you come to fiction involving people, there’s a different kettle of fish. Slashfiction involving real people, on the most part, is silly fun if you accept it for what it is. As an ex-writer of UNPUBLISHED real-person fic, it is fun to write, but I always remembered my conscience. Some fangirls, though, take it beyond the realms of taste. Death!fics are particulary distasteful – just imagine how you would feel, finding some stranger gleefully writing about your death for their own pleasure? Anything regarding the personal lives (read wives/husbands and kids) of the people involved is a case of knowing a little too much. Not to mention libellous as they are innocent parties. Would you want a stranger writing god-knows-what about your loved ones? An alarmingly common trend is making male celebrities rape victims. Perhaps due to the high proportion of female authors this appeals to the traditionally female need to nurture? I don’t know.

However, the majority of real person fan fiction utilises Mary Sues, usually self-insertion (I know mine did… cringe-worthily so) as these are often the authors fulfilling a fantasy, and mostly, if the test subject is married, their wife or husband is relegated to the Evil Ex/jealous harpy role (not in mine). The Mary Sue angle is in some ways appealing to read, because the Celeb/Joe Bloggs pairing is quite an interesting tale to explore.

I know far too much about this type of fiction really.

Basically, do make it funny and inventive et al. Don’t involve the subject’s family, kill or rape them! Simple.

M-Preg: Male pregnancy….
Exactly as it sounds. For some bizarre reason, some obsessed fans like to impregnate male characters as part of slashfiction, usually as a common result of some impromptu bumfun. I don’t need to go any further… especially when it comes to the ‘inventive’ means writers go about overcoming the biology involving the birth of said character’s baby….yeah. I think that’s all you need to know.

Lemon/PWP/Fluff/Drabbles
Porn Without Plot. Usually appallingly written, full of gratuitous swearing and cringeworthy descriptions of sex acts. For example:

“harry put his 10inch wand inside rons asshole.

“OMG ur sooo tight” moaned Ron.”

Yeah. Facepalm inducing or what?

A drabble is an ultra-short fanfic, usually under 250 words. Often makes use of PWP or Fluff. Fluff , if you’re feeling uncharitable, is saccharine-sweet scenes of love between the characters, usually without sex. Fluff is actually quite effective if well-written as it does create a warm fuzzy feeling inside, but done badly just appears full of terrible cliches.

“OOC”/Character Derailment. Also known as the ‘Draco In Leather Pants’/'Death Eater Ron’ convention
The biggest freedom of making your own spin on existing material is playing with the characters, which yields itneresting results, and in some cases, fans like to completely reverse their personalities. Most common in Harry Potter fan fiction again, hence the given names for these. “Draco In Leather Pants” implies a baddie in the original source material has been turned into a goodie/desirable in fan fic. Especially common with Draco Malfoy from the HP series, again, hence the name. “Death Eater Ron” is obviously the opposite: a good character gone bad. Whilst this isn’t the worst crime against fiction you can commit, a lot of character changing is completely irrational. Another classic example is a female protagonist turning into the jealous, mean-spirited harpy once the “pairing” get it together. For example, say with a Torchwood-based fic  - “Jack starts sleeping with Owen. Tosh doesn’t’ like this and feeds them to a couple of Weevils.” Or our old favourites: “Harry and Ron discover their undying love in sixth year, upsetting Hermione who swears revenge.”

These are just some of the many conventions that are used in generating fanfiction. These are just my opinions on how they usually manifest themselves. Some writers are more competent than others so I cannot produce a definitive argument whether it is good or bad. I arrive at the same hypothesis I began with. It depends on the content and./or the writer. Some things shouldn’t be fanfictionalised at all, whilst others should never go down the sex route. Period. I have read attempts at depicting cars having sex before. Talk about surreal. Real people is acceptable as long as it is in reasonable taste. Yes, even slash. It is noted  that the writing of, and to a lesser extent, reading fan fiction is seen as bordering on obsessive-fan territory, but really, it isn’t harming anyone. If you or your work is in the public eye, be flattered that people appreciate you enough to be creative. Creativity is always good. However I always maintain that there should be a limit. I have come across stories regarding rock band members children dying of cancer before now – nothing can justify this kind of ‘story’. It is invasive, immoral and it makes you wonder whether the writers of such material are wired in the head correctly. Put it this way – should any of my work get out there or get published, I’d be quite happy to read fan fiction, seeing how others interpret my own invention is part of the craft of creating original fiction, surely? As long as they don’t lace it with questionable morals that is. Or produce badly-written pastiche that is so insulting to the original material.

January:

Started '10 off with snow..

February:

February was all about me attempting to improve my (terrible) singing voice, with the aid of Singstar..

March:

April:

Lost most of my hair in a fire...

May:

No contest - May was when this little boy became mine (and was reborn from Nico to JB)

June:

I waited all my life to see this lady in action!

July:

August:

September:

Finally realised long hair was doing absolutely nothing for my youthful appeal so had it all willingly chopped off this time..

October:

At Wood Green Animal Shelter - this adorable dog just begged me to take her home :'(

Major humiliation - breaking down 3 weeks after forking out for major service...turned out to be a 21 year old ignition coil finally crying enough.

November:

First credit card...

Spent the fall foraging for wild fruit: here we have rowan berry, sloe and rosehip jellies

December:

Gran Turismo 5....woohoo

Spent Xmas '10 with my family This was our Boxing Day Feast

Lots of seasonal baking too - slices of homemade stollen, mince pies, lebkuchen and Nigella's black beer gingerbread...

...plus chilli jam...VERY tasty and popular...thanks Nigella!

1993 Vauxhall Senator CD 24v

It’s amazing how fast these rear-wheel-driven saloons have vanished from our roads. Fifteen years ago, these were everywhere. I know I recently expressed my desire to own the Senator’s predecessor,  Royale,  so yeah, a bit of a lack of originality there. The Senator came out in 1987, replacing the Royale. The Senator was built on a stretched Carlton chassis and probably shared a few panels as well. It was Vauxhall’s luxury car, so of course you had many options to choose from, such as leather seats, heated seats both front and rear, electronic air conditioning, digital dashboard, and the still-pretty today BBS sourced, multispoke alloy wheels.

If you do see one, they are almost always in this lovely pale gold..have you noticed?

The Senator, for an early-90s saloon beloved of the middle management, is still a surprisingly attractive car; nicely proportioned, not too boxy and that chip-cutter grill gives it a distinctive face. Most examples came in that champagne gold colour (see above). Also, the Bristol Blenheim, very obscure Brit luxury GT, inherited the Senator’s rear lights. Like the Royale, the Senator was also sold in modified form as the VN Holden Commodore. The most popular Senator was the CD, powered by a beefy 3-litre, 24 valve straight-six, producing 204bhp (same as a Sierra Cosworth) driving the rear wheels. Capable of 140mph plus and came with squashy velour seats and a dash full of gadgetry, this was a cheap way of cossetting yourself and drifting round corners too.

As an executive car, the Senator doesn’t make sense – simply because it wears Griffin badges, and like its cheif rival the Ford Granada, was seen as lacking pedigree and somewhat of a pretender. If you can find one these days it’ll be firmly ensconced in banger territory. Plus, the Senator was popular with another line of drivers….

This is how most of you will recall the Senator ...

The Senator’s cheap price, rapid performance and relatively non-showy styling made the perfect jam sandwich candidate. Any 1990s cop show will no doubt feature a Senator in hot pursuit of stolen Cosworths and GTis across the UK. So if a high-mileage example in white with worn front seats turns up dirt cheap in Auto Trader…you’ve got an old filth-wagon. But does that really matter these days? The Volvo V70 T5 took over the Senator’s mantle as Plod’s favourite chaser car in the 2000s…about the same time they realised that white ex-cop cars were hard to sell and now you can get police cars in all colours.

As a cheap posh banger, the Senator is a great choice. The populist image associated with the griffin logo means that parts and running costs will be kept down, and being mostly K or L reg places it firmly in old-banger territory. However, these days, I think, the scrappage scheme and its obscurity have killed off a large number, which to be honest, is a crying shame. They are a product of a bygone era (the early Nineties are almost 20 years ago now, folks!) and represent old-school Vauxhall in their rebadged-Opel infancy. I think this was the same six-cylinder that was twin-turbocharged in the Lotus Carlton, which was built on the same the RWD platform.

The main attraction for me to the Senator, apart from being an icon of my childhood is the bang-for-your-buck, especially with the 3-litre CD model. Like a BMW it has the aforementioned snarling, smooth six up front with old-fashioned rear drive, rapid acceleration, excellent roadholding and high top speed, plus all the luxuries inside you could ever need. And it will swallow a family and all their paraphernalia with effortless ease. It’s reign as the old Bill’s darling for a decade can’t be a bad thing either – police cars take a barrel load of abuse and the Senator took it all and went back for more…so it must be reliable. Lest we forget, it originated as a luxurious Opel designed for pounding the autobahns. No wonder most ended up hooning up the M6 with blue beacons flashing. If you have a Senator, hang on to it! These will be a classic soon, give it time.

So here we are, already at the end of November and the end of NaPoBloMo. I have to say, it’s not been as fun as I thought.

Writing a blog every day for 30 days is actually rather tough – keeping things fresh, interesting and diverse have been a struggle. I think I made a bit of a cop-out  by adding two regular themes each week – the Cars I’d Like To Own and Cars I would Never Own threads are rather the like the blogging equivalent of a Pot Noodle. And about as sastisfying to the discerning blog reader. However I intend to keep these threads going, just to motivate me to post more on here if nothing else.

A fair bit has happened this month – war in Korea, another cold snap, students rioting across the country, XFactor, I’m A Celebrity has started up again, Christmas is coming, everyone’s shopping earlier…however I tended to fall into my safety blanket of rambling on about cars. I haven’t even begun to reveal more about my life or my interests. So much potential has been lost. Oh well. The 1st of November marked my first Twitterversary for example.

The main reason why I agreed to do NaPoBloMo was to beef up the content – my blogging has always erred on the side of irregular, and everyone knows that to keep people keen, you need to update regularly. The lack of comments this month despite the influx of new content speaks a great deal to me. For instance, I market myself (or attempt to) as a gay blogger. So maybe the lack of typical ‘gay’ content was a failing. Should I have done a Stud Of The Week? No is the answer. Because I’ve got better things (I think) to talk about rather than some airhead hunk whom I’ll never meet and who wouldn’t attempt to lay me if I paid him a million quid. I detest being thought of as shallow, as well. But then again, shoving musings about obscure cars every week doesn’t seem to be the answer either. I could have written some thought-provoking and intellectual posts about sensitive issues. Or attempted some catharsis with my inner demons (touched upon in the post ‘The Sodding Sisterhood’). I have never considered myself a typical gay blogger, because I don’t hold with gay stereotypes. But jsut read my thinly veiled rants at 4×4 and MPV drivers in the CIWNO threads…..stereotyping again.

Andrew Marr got hot under the collar recently and branded all bloggers angry virgins who rant at the world from their mothers’ basements (paraphrasing a bit here). So I’ve decided to hold back on rant-type blogs because that’s not the kind of image I am attempting to cultivate.

I also have found Project 365 a chore recently too, my picture content is deteriorating, but this may have had to do with working more hours this month and finding less time to do more interesting things. And on the 12th, my Flickr Pro account expired and I am yet to renew this, so even my most active bit of cyberspace is starting to go stale.

I don’t know where I intend to go from here. It’s December tomorrow, I have completed all my Christmas shopping, (plus wrapping) and it’s officially 7 days until I am no longer a youthful 21 but a frightfully elderly 22.

1982 Talbot Tagora SX

The much-maligned Tagora is a popular “rubbish car” choice – i’ve seen it published in countless books and on numerous blogs, condemning it. It was a catastrophic failure at its 1980 launch, and looking at it, you do wonder why..

In terms of engineering, the Tagora had no major flaws, and it’s boxy, drawn-with-an-Etch-a-Sketch styling was actually cutting-edge at the time.  Well for starters, there was the Talbot brand itself, which was not established in the marketplace and had a questionable pedigree – plus the rattlebox-engined Horizon and reasonably crude Sunbeam hatchbacks didn’t make it an aspirational marque. Ask anyone today what Talbot symbolises….and the latter is what most will come up with. Not the glamorous Lago and 105 roadsters of the 1930s. The Tagora was offered with two engines – the rickety 2.2 litre 4-cylinder ex-Chrysler 180 engine, and the more powerful V6 ‘Douvrin’ unit, shared with the Peugeot 604 and other big cars. And therein stems another problem – the Chrysler 180 was considered the world’s dullest car when it was inproduction, so picking up such a poisoned chalice didn;’t help Talbot to begin with,

I don’t even think it has enough charm to endear it to my love of 1980s cars either to be honest. Partly because nobody would know what it is, and partly because its flimsiness and rarity would give me no end of headaches. Big French cars have always suffered in the UK, even after the Tagora faced the axe, cars such as the Renault Safrane, Peugeot 605 and later Renault Vel Satis have all bombed here. The Germans have the posh car market sewn up and have for the last 25 years. Peugeot, Renault, Talbot – all made cars for the masses. Which is surprising considering what a big seller the Ford Granada always was!

The Tagora inspired the design of another forgettable car too – anyone remember the Hyundai Stellar? You could probably stack a load of Tagoras on top of each other and hey presto, you’ve built a block of council flats.

NaPoBloMo is coming to an end, so the latest entry in the first of my two mini series are coming early this week.

1985 MG Metro Turbo

I hear a collective groan and see a huge eye-roll. I’m a Brummie, born, bred and proud of my roots. And yeah, another Longbridge product is on my automotive wishlist.

When the Metro was launched to an eager (even Mrs Thatcher was enthusiastic!) British public 30 years ago (!!!) in 1980, the ad campaign was as memorable as Lord Stokes’ numerous cockups throughout BL’s day – the supermini was designed, developed and built in Britain, and was billed as the British Car To Beat The World – showing villages covered in bunting and Union Jack flags, and the rivals such as the Fiat 127 and Renault 5 being ‘deported’ back to their respective countries. If you bought one of these little cars, you’d be doing Britain proud!

The Metro was a big seller, look at any contemporary TV show from 1980-1995 and Metros always play street scenery or minor action roles in some form. Even the Band Aid video (the 1984 original), a black early MG Turbo was glimpsed for a few seconds. Hard to beleive what a rare sight the original A-series-engined model is these days. A sad sight for a once-proud national motor industry. The only British mass-market badge still on sale is Vauxhall, but seeing as the cars are German-designed under American ownership, I wouldn’t say Vauxhall is 100% British. As the majority of the models are built in Cheshire, though, and the griffin only appears in the UK on cars, they remain the patriot’s choice these days now Rover have gone.

In 1982, the first hot Metro hit the market, complete with tuned engine, spoilers, alloys, and of course, the unintentional signature, its red seatbelts. MG octagons were stamped on everywhere you could see – MG was back after a 2-year hiatus with a new product, modern and in tune with the times. Britain had finally made a proper hot hatch. Soon after, the range was hotted up further, with the Turbo variant being released with 93bhp, 0-60 mph in 8.9 seconds, and top speed of 115 mph (185 km/h). Just bear in mind this was 1983 and 1.3 engines weren’t the fizzballs they are today – not bad for an engine based on a 1948 design and with pushrods. This model had a great many modifications over the standard MG model. Aside from the turbocharger and exhaust system itself, and what was (at the time) a relatively sophisticated boost delivery and control system, the MG Turbo variant incorporated stiffer suspension (apparently with tuning by Lotus – also claimed 15 years later by Proton with their Satria model), including a rear anti-rollbar plus uprated crankshaft and uprated gearbox. The Metro, with its innovative Hydragas suspension is considered a fine-handling car today, many comparisons being made to go-karts..

Later examples of MG Metros were further emblazoned with the MG logo both inside and out, which only served to fuel claims of “badge-engineering”* from some of the purist MG enthusiasts (read:old farts). Cobblers, particularly in the case of the Turbo, and its bigger Maestro brother, which had a top speed of 130 mph and an 0–60 of 6.7 seconds – not bad for a car that’s associated with old gits.

A later Turbo - in red, BBS-esque alloys: If I had a Turbo it would look like this.

I suppose I have always had a big place in my heart for the Metro, both hot and cold.  Growing up in Kings Heath, Birmingham meant there was thousands around when I was a kid; my auntie had an F-reg  ’Jet Black’ example that I loved – hence why my car, albeit Spanish-built and a different marque, is also sporting the red vinyls.  Jet Black permeated my being so much – I asked for a Mighty Metro Scalextric for Christmas and proudly claimed I would “only drive the black one” because it was of similar colour combos to Jet Black! And I got it….I was so happy. I remember seeing the 6R4s on the TV rallycross in the hands of Will Gollop on BBC Grandstand…I could wax lyrical about these underrated little hatchbacks for hours – at the tender age of 12 I was adamant my first car would be a Metro…A Nova, of similar square styling was close enough, I guess!

Why the Turbo  - why not a proper off-the-shelf Jet Black rather than my Griffin-badged pretender? Because the Turbo has the Noddy Holder charm of the little car combined with a big shot of testosterone. And red seatbelts, a little Eighties flourish that only add character!