Posts Tagged ‘cheap’
Nova – the little better car indeed!
Bit bizarre, I guess, reviewing a car that went out of production 17 years ago, but I am doing this to see how the driving experience stacks up compared to a supermini of this era. And because I have owned this 1989 1-litre ‘Jet Black’ (decals added by me) example for 3 weeks now.
The Nova was launched in the UK a year after its Opel counterpart, the Corsa went on sale. Built by GM Espana in Zaragoza, Spain, there was a plethora of trim levels and specifications available, from the 1.0 basic (like mine) to the rapid 1.6-litre GTE. Styling was remarkably restrained yet neat, and looks pure comapred to the overstyled and bloated Corsa of today. The 3-door models, unlike the 5-doors, had Audi Quattro-esque blistered wheelarches. The Nova’s tiny dimensions mean that parking is easy and visibility is in myriad supply. However there are styling cues which mark this is as a supermini from another era – square and orange blinkers, solid black plastic bumpers and grille, and small, skinny steel wheels.
The Nova was a huge seller in its day, but getting inside you wonder why. The interior, although solidly screwed-together, light and airy, is full of hard plastic and angular designs – very dated. The poverty-spec model really is that – The wipers have only two settings, no rear wiper, a manual choke control (remember them?). No ABS, central locking or any opf your silly modern computer gadgets that cost a fortune to fix when they break. No crappy i-Drive system here. You drive this car using the wheel, stick and pedals, and use your prowess behind the wheel to keep it on the road. The baby Vauxhall has no power-steering but thankfully the diminutive size and feather weight (760kg approx) mean it is easy to manouevre, although the turning circle resembles that of a double-decker bus. Don’t expect sportscar handling, though.
Engines available were 1.0, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5 diesel and 1.6 injected. The petrol units, except for the 1.0, are OHC and of the Family II 8v series of GM engines. The 1.2 develops 55bhp (same as a modern Volkswagen supermini) but this is enough to shift the light little car about town fairly swiftly. In fact, the acceleration is nothing to be sniffed at, and the Nova can easily keep up with modern traffic. The 1.0, is a different kettle of fish. It is a rattly pushrod engine designed in the late 1950s and first saw service in the 1962 Opel Kadett, only to be brought out of retirement for the Corsa/Nova’s 1982 launch. The 1-litre is noisy and very unrefined, but again, the light weight means that despite a paltry 45bhp, you won’t be stuck behind mopeds and tractors. However the engine needs to be worked hard to keep up with modern traffic, and those used to modern superminis will find this tiring to drive.
Despite having a four-speed manual gearbox (yeah, times have changed since 1989) the Nova will cruise competently at 60 and 70mph, albeit makes a hell of a loud job doing so. Ride is a little harsh, but long journeys won’t break your spine. My previous Nova was a 1.2 merit and it performed a 5-hour drive from Buckingham to Cornwall without a hitch and remained reasonably comfortable. Handling is below-par, the soft suspension leads to horrendous body roll at speed around corners, but the quick ‘power delivery’ and low-gearing ensures a nippy driving experience.
Overall, in comparison to modern superminis, the Nova doesn’t measure up. It is cramped, a little tinny,noisy, unrefined, and not that fuel efficient (having said that, at current petrol prices a full tank can cost £32 max). Dated and unpleasant interior, lack of kit and a 5th gear make this car better suited to city life, though the boxy styling and raucous engine won’t endear you to the Joneses on Acacia Avenue. However the light weight, excellent visibility simple engine and construction, and no complicated computer systems to break down is bliss for the more frugal driver, although younger drivers may have to get used to the old-school manual choke. The simple values of the little car delivers a remarkable pure driving experience where everything can be reassuringly felt and responses are instantaneous, and in a time where superminis are the size of Sierras and everything has to be controlled by some computer, this is such a breath of fresh air.
Verdict:-
Vauxhall’s top-seller in Thatcher’s day still makes sense for a buyer on a budget, though the boyracer image can still put some off. The relationship between car and driver is much closer than in today’s Corsa, albeit can be too spartan for some. Willing, if noisy engines, roomy interior and great visibility make this a decent car to live with in town. But standards have moved on so much since the 1980s.
Car tested: Vauxhall Nova 1.0
Engine: 993cc, four cylinders
Power: 47bhp
Transmission: Four-speed manual
Fuel: 40mpg (approx)
Performance: 0-62mph: 15 sec
Price: £10-£1,000
Verdict: Simple values make this a refreshing change from the bloated, sanitised, so-called modern “small” cars.
Rating: 4/5
Came across a rather wonderful podcast the other day entitled just that – two charming Northern lasses, Mia and Gloria, who discuss some of the more despicable food items on sale today. Worth a look.
As someone who likes to think he knows a thing or two about what’s good eating and what’s just plain shite, here’s what I feel whose invention or consumption should be considered a hanging offence. These are my top ten crimes against gastronomy.
1) Tinned Meatballs
Or most particularly value-branded ones. Seriously, does anyone enjoy eating what’s basically pet food in a gloopy substance masquerading as ‘gravy’ or ‘tomato sauce’? They have all the richness and texture of loft insulation and about as much natural ingredients as a vat of arsenic. I think personally a tin of Pedigree Chum mixed with some ketchup will have more flavour and nutritional value.
2) Nouveau Cuisine
Ooh I say! Controversial much? Anyone who enjoys food will know that extorting hundreds of pounds of patrons’ hard-earned cash for a small square of whale blubber sandwiched between pastry squares using bluebell-seed flour and butter gathered from cows with First Class Oxbridge degrees is just as bad as smushing a chicken carcass through some wire mesh so it resembles Strawberry Angel Delight then sold as the aforementioned meatballs in a can. My main beef with nouveau-cuisine is the supreme level of snobbery that’s attached to it. I recently stayed in a very nice four-star hotel, which offered an NC menu (easy to spot by the poncey Fanny Craddock-esque French names, high prices and odd ingredients combos) and the dishes that I sampled were….bland and salty. Give me a fry-up from a motorway-side greasy spoon any day of the week, thanks.
3) Ready-made pasta sauce in a jar.
Go on, accuse me of being a snob. I dare you. As a student who had to learn how to cook from scratch (it’s actually cheaper in most cases and better for you) I fail to see how letting a factory in Bridlington heating up some tomatoes with some herbs, onions and garlic for you (while pouring buckets of salt and chemicals in for shits and giggles) is quicker than doing so at home. Okay, so busy mums simply don’t have the time what with getting home from the office and picking Jemima and Theo from ballet and judo to slave over making a scratch-made pasta sauce for dinner. But surely, just chucking some garlic and onion with some tinned tomatoes (30p a tin, hello!!!) with some mixed herbs (20p a pot) in about half the time it takes to ‘simmer’ said jarred sauce. Plus, have you seen how much oil floats on top of these so-called kitchen miracles.
4) Doner Kebabs
Pages and pages have been written on how shit they are. Yes, at one point in my life I used to enjoy them. But as a newly-converted vegetarian the thought of one makes me want to to dive headfirst into a mincer. In a nutshell, the doner sounds rather appetizing: Grilled lamb with fresh, crunchy salad in a small pitta bread. Something you’d perhaps get in a bistro on Cherbourg high street, perhaps. The reality is that the doner is a 1600 calorie piece of junk, made with eyebrows, earholes and arseholes, possibly from the local morgue, mixed with fat, and served up with some soggy lettuce and ‘chilli sauce’, stuff which blows your head off but tastes like chemicals. It has about as much class as a backstreet abortion clinic.
5) Cheap white bread
Take a look at the ingredients list of a 30p loaf next time you’re in the shops. Bread is literally flour, yeast, water and sugar combined and proved. The list of chemical additives as long as your arm is worrying – why do you think these loaves are so cheap? With the texture of a wet sponge and the malleability of Silly Putty, is this really what we want when most of us cite the aroma of fresh-baked bread as our favourite? Doesn’t make bad toasties though.
6) Caesar Salads – particularly ones tipped as the “healthy option”
What does ‘salad’ mean to you? I found out that the average calorie count for a Caesar Salad served in a restaurant is 1100 calories. Yes. For a fucking salad. Why? Because they are larded with hydrogenated-mayo dressings and sprinkled liberally with deep-fried croutons. While they aren’t the worst item out there to eat, the calorie count alone is worth mentioning here.
7) McDonald’s Fries
All the food served by McDonalds is wank, but their fries take the biscuit, even above all the staff who wank into McFlurrys. A chip or fry is a stick-cut of potato. McDonalds are made of reconstituted mash and, wait for it, coated in a plastic substance in order to retain crispness. Not that they are. Greasy plastic-coated sticks of reconstituted mashed potato. Nice.
8 ) Pizza Hut Salad Bar – particularly the tomato pasta.
Pizza Hut, like any other globalised, franchised-to-hell food joint, stacks it high and flogs it cheap, without considering the quality of the ingredients or the taste, as long as its cheap and feeds the gluttonous gobs of the British. The salads are harmless enough, albeit clearly using veg that was rejected by supermarket packhouses, but my real gripe is the cold pasta in tomato sauce. For starters, this ‘tomato sauce’ has never seen a tomato, it is bright orange wallpaper paste, perhaps flavoured with some tomato puree and flecks of murky green masquerading as herbs, but its main component is modified starch, made in enormous batches on an industrial estate, splattered out of a hopper and sent to Pizza Huts nationwide.
9) EAMAYL Chinese buffets
Eat. As. Much. As. You. Like. How’s that for a bash up? You pay about a fiver and you can eat as many plates of Chinese takeaway-style food as you want until you’re literally bursting at the seams. It is good value, but some of the food is dire. The less you pay, the more likely you are to encounter appalling food. Bear in mind when you go to serve yourself, the food has been sat on a hotplate for god knows how long, under those big heat lamps, and its occasionally you see a member of staff ‘refilling’ some grease-saturated prawn toasts. Luckily, the likes of Ching-He Huang are stamping out these insults to the cuisine of China and showing us all that there is a world beyond luminous gloopy sauces and MSG.
And Finally, the MOTHER of all food crimes, number 10:
10) Pot Noodles.
Perhaps a surprising addition to this list, seeing as the Daily Mail and the generally uninformed assume that all students such as myself life off these. Well, wake up, some of actually bothered to learn to cook and be able to do more in the kitchen than just pierce a few holes in a plastic sheeted ready meal lasagne or just open up a tin of spagetti hoops. Pot Noodles are simply the bottom of the gastronomy barrel, in any culture. First hitting our shelves in 1978-9 by Golden Wonder (who now have launched their own Pot Noodle rip off after flogging the brand to Unilever sometime in the 1990s), some deep-fried noodles in a plastic cup, with a handful coloured sand for the flavouring ‘broth’ and a few dried peas, along with a sachet of sauce. Add boiling water, stir once or twice and get your fork and dive in! Laden with fat, salt and calories, and zero nutritional value of any kind, these are simply disgusting and its a miracle they are still on sale. To sum up their nastiness, there’s now a doner kebab flavoured one….Classy.
A few that didn’t make the list but worth a mention:
Vesta meals – The predecessor to the Pot Noodle (similar set up, just add boiling water to rehydrate) and was the first taste of the exotic for many kids in the 1970s. But still, a rehydrated meal? Come on.
Heinz Toast Toppers – Tins of gloopy ‘cheese’ with tiny cubes of ham to put on your toast, perhaps appeals to those who are too lazy to grate a bit of cheese.
Wetherspoons food, in general - You pay through the nose for a cheap frozen ready meal, microwaved about 3 times over.
