Left-field choices for young drivers

Funny you should post a link to a FIAT X1/9. I was up at the tea rooms on the Cat & Fiddle yesterday and there was a Jensen Incerceptor FF being 'filmed'. And just before we were leaving it was joined by a FIAT X1/9. The hail stones were coming down a bit then so they were hurriedly putting the roof on it (stored in the the front)... I take it was a 1985 car because that's what the private plate ended with. Seemed in good shape.

Anyway I asked what they were filiming the cars for and the answer was Car SOS. Presumably both were not in quite such good shape earlier in the programme??

And here it is. In beige, with a brown interior. Gnnnn.

www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202008303108289

If this really is a 70 ES, it was the first car I was aware of to have a stop/start system. However there are no boot badges to confirm, so maybe it's had a respray. in fact I can't remember any beige ones, so that might well be it. Could be a rear end collision of course, or could just debadging (sacrilege).

Yes those VWs were pretty much contemporaneous come to think of it, but the Regata 70 ES was the first one I was aware of (personally). The Golf's gear lever was marked as 1-2-3-E if I recall correctly. What was the point of that? My Mum's Mitsubishi Colt - hang on, no, it was badged Colt Mirage - had an ordinary 4-speed lever, with an extra level next to it with 2 positions - P and E, power and economy. You could pull the secondary lever to either position in any gear. Mum used to put it in P for 1-2-3-4, then if entering a motorway select E once in 4th, as a kind of 5th gear. Daft, really. A gimmick.

I expect red haired ladies who go baldy would choose a ginger wig, to match skin tone and create the impression that nothing changed.

Ah yes, ‘the 83mpg Metro’. which I think they got from driving all day at 30mph. ‘Never have so many gone so far on so little.’

I think an HLE Maestro came later. That was available in Clove Brown, if I can mention that without Vić running out to buy one.

Have you thought about seeking some psychiatric help? Or, is it like that dreadful coat, an attempt to wind us up?
😉

Those Mk3 Escorts were great — for the 1980s. I learned to drive in one — all those straight edges and sharp corners made it wonderfully easy to position and park — and bought one new (in light blue) in 1989. It wore the convertible conversion well too — although I don’t know how that was to drive.

But remember that this discussion began, a year ago now, with the idea of putting my young drivers in a car with at least a little of the crash protection we take for granted in modern machines. My 1989 Escort weighed 830kg empty, but the roads weren’t then full of texting mummies in their Stelvio SUVs. Old is OK, but it must be old and solid.