Buying in 8: is certainly a Ys move
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Stuary Bladen appraises the Ford Cortim Crusader, the Audi 80CD, the Colt Gallan Estate, the Rover SD turbo and the Alfasu SC. He explains a special dilemma that arises out of the impending Ford model changeover
EVEN AS early as next year, we may look back on 1982 as the golden opportunity to buy business cars — a time when you could order and take delivery without delay, be choosey about specifications, and turn the screw for the most favourable discounting. Many company buyers know this, and are ordering to the limit what the budget will stand, for delivery in August with the new Y registration — the last, incidentally, before the system reverses and the year letter A starts the registration in August 1983.
By then, the chance to buy in such favourable conditions may be long past. Cars do not last forever, and when people start buying, waiting lists soon build up and prices escalate. But a special dilemma arises over that most popular choice of all, the Ford Cortina.
Everyone knows that the Cortina is on the way out. Even the name goes when the new model, the Sierra, takes its place on September 21. Will a Cortina of the old series suffer a big depreciation when it is no longer a current model, and will purchase of one now mean depriving yourself of the benefits that the new one might bring — among them, no doubt, improved fuel economy?
It's an interesting dilemma, but one in which past experience of Ford model changovers gives some guidance. While redesign is sure to bring better use of space, a more modern shape, and pace-leading improvements, it is also a reasonable presumption that the new model will be very much more expensive.
It has long been Ford's practice to pitch the prices high to begin with, while the newcomer still has novelty value, and then let inflation catch up by keeping the prices unchanged at the next round of increases.
Against this, the Cortina is now a more attractive purchase than at any time since I first drove it as the Ford Taunus, at the Brussels Show in January 1976, eight months before it appeared in Britain.
In its final sales promotion form as the Crusader, the Cortina comes with extra equipment and better trim, and yet it is cheaper than it was a year ago. The Crusader 2.0 which I have been trying came with two-tone paint — brown above with beige below the door rubbing strip — and this boosts the price to £6,035. But in single-colour form, the Crusader costs £5,755. The comparable single-colour 2000GL was £5,902 last August, and then rose to £6,384 this year as a result of the 4.5 per cent increase that took place on 1 April.
Yet the Crusader is more appealing and far better furnished than the 2000GL which I ran in the first year of production in 1976-77. It has the same ease of driving with light, positive steering and excellent gear change which has characterised the original, does not suffer from the brake shimmy that was such a plague on early Cortinas, and proves a good deal quieter and more refined.
The seats are the same as those in the Ghia specification, and although this includes a rather false simulated suede effect on the centre panels of the back seats, they are both shaped and look much rr luxurious than the stand cloth seats. There are velour serts and adjustable headrest Comprehensive equipmeni cludes map pockets on the dc and on the backs of the se there is carpet on the lower p of the doors, and there wooden door sills and we effect trim for the facia. The d er's door has an exterior ml with internal adjuster, and th is an additional mirror with internal adjustment) for the g senger door.
Fuel consumption is a much better than it used to While my 1977 Cortina con tently returned only 24mpg, Crusader gave 26mpg in L don running and short-jour work, improving to 30 on a r The Sierra will no doubt do I ter, but an awful lot of fuel ha saved to compensate for it is likely to be the price difnce.
name, at least, Crusader is ilded as a special edition of Cortina, but with the intento build 30,000 of them, vit won't be the exclusivity this term normally implies. the credit side, at least there be sufficient of them built for become well known and un;toad — even sought after — m they come on to the used market in two or three years' 3.
vines of 1.3 or 1.6-litre cepaare offered in addition to the litre tried, for the saloon; the rte comes with choice of 1.6 '.0-litre. Prices start at £5,160 the cheapest of the Crusadthe 1.3 with single-tone It — to £6,645 for the 2-litre ite with two-tone finish.
t the price as tested, £6,035 uding the two-tone finish, Crusader 2-litre represents le that nothing else with an me of this size seems able to t. Even if there are some 1, like the Vauxhall Cavalier, can match it with a smaller me, many people still want a re engine and feel penalised ;ked to accept anything less. 's a fairly safe prediction that, before this time next year, value now offered by Ford's 'seder range will have med far and away better than )es at present.
DI SOCD
NOT surprising that the Ii 80CD impressed me. Al
ways left behind by the rate at which car prices escalate, I had been thinking in terms of it as an "over-£7,000" car. After all, the 80GL, previous top of the range, costs £6,680; this new version, with the 2-litre five-cylinder carburettor engine instead of the 1.6-litre, was bound to be a good bit more, wasn't it? Those were the sort of lines I was thinking along, until I looked up the price, so £8,267 came as a shock, to say the least.
However, there are many occasions when the business car buyer is seeking top quality — something specially refined and well-equipped — yet there has been a particular request that it should not be a big car. For such a definition, the Audi 8000 cannot fail to please. I enjoyed it so much that I regretted I could not make a longer journey in it; and the remarkable thing about it was the way in which the fuel lasted, in spite of making full use of the car's superbly eager performance. The 1,921c.c. ohc engine has a compression ratio of 10-to-1, and is evidently very efficient. In conjunction with the five-speed gearbox, with high ratio economy fifth, it makes the ideal formula for good mpg figures, and gave me 39mpg in mixed running conditions — a lot of main road at fairly high speeds when traffic allowed, with a small proportion of town running. A substantial help in getting such good economy out of the Audi 80CD is undoubtedly the fitting of the "Econ" gauge, which tells you, as a reading of vacuum depression, when your driving is economical and when it is wasting fuel. Once you start taking note of it, it is difficult not to ease the throttle back slightly on the many occasions when this can be done without losing speed.
The car itself is as refined as that very high price leads one to expect — with very comfortable suspension, low wind noise, and very smooth and quiet engine. Power steering is standard and gives accurate control without any over-sensitivity, while also pleasantly light at parking speeds.
Equipment is also in keeping with all the luxury fittings of today's more expensive cars: central locking, headlamp pressure jet washers, electric window lifts, and a manual sun roof.
Although the engine has a car burettor, the cold start response on its automatic choke, with instant driveaway from cold, and the cleanness of throttle response, are more comparable with what is expected from a fuel injection engine; and there is no trace of the hesitation and jerkiness that is tending to plague some of today's leanmixture cars.
At £8,267, the Audi 80CD is in the same price category as such cars as a Ford Granada 2000 GL, Ambassador Vanden Plas, and Rover 2300. If it is requested instead of one of these, then why not? It's bound to please, and it will consume a lot less fuel. COLT GALANT ESTATE 2000 Easy to Drive EACH time I drive a Japanese car, I wonder how long the artificial trade barriers which the SMMT gallantly maintain as a limit against their exports, will be able to survive. A car like the Galant Estate 2000, complete with power steering at £7,375, is such a well-planned, comfortable and easy to drive load carrier, that there will inevitably be stronger demand for it than the importers can satisfy out of their modest quotas.
In this 2-litre form, the car has a five-speed gearbox as standard, and runs to such refinements as velour upholstery, alloy wheels, and a stereo radio with separate stereo cassette player. It has such neat features as a footwell light for the rear compartment, coming on when any-door is opened, height adjustment for the steering, and no fewer than five adjustments for the driving seat. You can alter the height and rake of the cushion, the tension of the squab in the small of the back area, angle of backrest, and, of course, to-and-fro position. This could well be a car to allocate to a driver who complains of back discomfort.
Cargo space is generous and fully carpeted, and the spare wheel is carried on a wind-down tray beneath the floor, with jack and tools in a neat side compartment.
Although not in the high performance league of so many of the Colt range — more of them now seem to be turbocharged than not — the Galant Estate accelerates well, and the driver has the benefit of a very light and easy gear change with wellspaced ratios. The engine is a four-cylinder ohc unit and owes its outstanding smoothness to the arrangement of counter-balance shafts rotating in the opposite direction to that of the crankshaft. Fuel consumption is in the region of 26mpg, which is fair enough for a car of this carrying capacity with 2-litre engine, and the fuel tank holds just under 12 gallons.
There is a big difference between the prices of the 1600 Estate and the 2000 Estate — a gap in the region of £1,100 which is not fully accounted for by the extra fittings, better upholstery, and power assisted steering which are included with the 2000.
Accordingly, for business car use, the 1600 at £6,284 seems to offer better value. When assessing the Galant Estate against the Ford Crusader Estate, both in 2-litre form, allowance again has to be made for inclusion of power steering and five-speed gearbox as well as the extra equipment mentioned, in the Colt price; even then, Ford can claim to be offering better value in their Crusader package in these last few weeks before the Sierra arrives.
ROVER SD TURBO Good for a Diesel AS DIESELS go, when used as car power units, the new Rover SD Turbo with its Italian engine (CM, May 1) is outstandingly good. Turbocharging has eliminated the slight delay in response which is a characteristic weakness of many diesel power units, and careful mounting of the engine and work on noise suppression have ensured that the car retains the sort of quietness and smoothness to be expected of a Rover. It also has a very high fifth gear for effortless motorway cruising, and certainly wafts along in pleasantly relaxed style giving the impression that it would happily sustain 85mph for hour upon hour So slowly does the fuel gauge drop that stops are more likely to be made for rest, food, and comfort of the driver than exclusively to take on fuel.
Whether this means it will find a ready market in Britain remains to be seen. Inevitably it is no match for a 2600S in either refinement or performance. It has similar specification, including the sliding steel panel sunroof, and costs some £322 extra, at E10,499.88. The appeal of the diesel savings could be there for a high mileage executive making a lot of journeys in his car to the Continent; but for the majority of Rover buyers, with their being provided by the busin the choice seems likely to ste favour of the petrol models.
ALFASUD CLOVERLEAF FOR THE first time since it introduced, the Alfasud is available as a five-door. original hatchback released year was offered only with ti doors, and some ex strengthening and engineel changes have been necessar go to a five-door body shell.
With a 1.3-litre engine, the fasud SC costs £5,080; pa equipment and the twin-car rettor 1.5-litre engine are cluded in a dearer version ca the Cloverleaf, at £5,550. Tl. is also a new special equiprr version of the three-door 1.5 be known as the TiX, at £5,E Of these three new models, Cloverleaf in particular has peal as a compact, purposi and sporting hatchback. A suds are now better protec against corrosion, and co with a five-year anti-corros warranty.
AN INTERESTING successior new model announcements on the way, with the new sn Vauxhall to be announced sc after the Ford Sierra, the 1! Jaguar MY models to follov% October, and then the new IV cedes (call it "smaller" rat than "small") and BMW Serie replacement all before the of the year.