Cars that are never seen any more.

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fhpottery, Feb 16, 10:55am
Ford sierra wagons? I had one. All the dsh cracked and it had an outdates cortina engine. But it did handle well.
Also toyota SR coupes, valiant safari wagons. Had those too.

fhpottery, Feb 16, 10:58am
Oh yes . Outdated pig with facelift. I must admit it was kind of different however.

tgray, Feb 16, 11:01am
Ford Anglia? My first car as a 17 year old in 1980. It was a 1961 model and I paid $300 for it. My mum wanted me to buy a Simca but I thought a Ford would be cooler.
Worst car I ever owned.

meow_mix, Feb 16, 11:23am
It's been a long time since I've seen an old mid-'80s Mazda RX-7 series 4 or 5. They were once quite popular, nice cars with the 13B turbo, factory adjustable suspension. I suppose they would be on their second reconditioned engine by now and who's going to pay to keep one going? Better to buy a later Batmobile which have a nicer shape.

sw20, Feb 16, 12:08pm
Had a silver ‘86 Ghia wagon back in 1999? Only bought it cos it was $400 off my old boss, she wanted a new car and cheekily offered her $400 for the Sierra. She accepted. Drove it for a couple of months and on sold it for more.

dublo, Feb 16, 1:37pm
I don't think anyone has mentioned the first generation Holden Commodores. They sold like hot cakes, good performance with the 3.3 litre engine, but haven't seen one for ages. Have they all gone to the great garage in the sky and, if so, why?

franc123, Feb 16, 2:15pm
They were mentioned much earlier in the thread. Anyway, the answer to that is simple. The vast majority of those sold here actually had Holdens wheezy, uneconomical and bodged 1900cc engine, these had to be worked hard to even get a Commodore to move off the line. Most of those engines wore out and/or threw a leg out of bed generally before 150k was up and even if the engine was salvageable very few people bothered to recondition them. Converting them PROPERLY to a 186 or 202/3.3 was more difficult than it seemed due to many silly and unnecessary chassis and running gear changes like different wheel stud patterns for goodness sake that made it uneconomic unless you were able to buy a wrecked factory 6 cheaply that had everything you need. The 5spd manual used in VH upwards used on the 4cyl model wasnt up to having much more torque through it and naturally the diffs were too low for a 6. After the VL came out all those VC-VK models plummeted in value and made conversions even less economic. They weren't rust prone as such except for around the windscreens boot floors etc but naturally that got expensive to fix if it was left too long. It is really only top examples of factory 6 and 8's and of course anything labelled HDT that people have preserved although there are a few bodged up ones about with shiny paint but are otherwise not in great condition still around that are recycled around the same few people who seem to be fans of these things.

mantagsi, Feb 16, 4:19pm
I used to own a Heron! woohoo

extrayda, Feb 16, 5:00pm
LOL, went down to Wellington way (from Auckland) ~650ks in the 2003 Estima. I STILL had the jumper leads, chose some basic tools, checked the spare, took a bottle of water. Didn't need any of it of course, but why wouldn't you?

cabrio1, Feb 17, 3:04am
I remember growing up In the seventies.
The morning chorus of urg, urggg, urggggg. Damn it.
Flat battery, or wet points.
Was always touch and go with mums car.
Most of the touch was pushing the thing to start it.

bill-robinson, Feb 17, 3:44am
so did i, mine had a v8 in it.

nice_lady, Feb 17, 4:10am
Quote of the day!

franc123, Feb 17, 5:13am
Well they weren't. It's not often you saw one with rotten guards, quarters,doors or sills like you saw with the H series Holdens or earlier.

daves01, Feb 17, 5:22am
My cousin has one of those, he bought it when was in his teens so that must be 40 years ago.
Few months ago saw a nice capri, all of us older guys stopped talking and turned our heads as we slowly drove past, the young fellas couldn't understand the fuss and had no idea about the conversation that followed as it turned into what the The Professionals drove lol

kingfisher21, Feb 17, 10:17am
Mitsubishi Starion, actually owned one of these, was a factory intercooled one, at the time it was a pretty good car, I think they were something like $60000 new.

rbd, Feb 17, 11:32am
Saw one last week. Also saw a Piazza, was even driving on the road not rusted on a lawn.

nesta129, Feb 17, 1:32pm
another one rarely seen is the pulsar gtir. Only seen one in the last 6 years!

yz490, Feb 18, 4:06pm
Isuzu Bellett , hell i had 4 at once. Towed one to the Feilding dump & the bulldozer guy was heading to bury the tow car [much arm waving] NOOO, that's the good one [tow car] lol. Had a lot of fun with those cars. Independent at the rear. Reasonably high geared in top. Even had 25/8/12 quad tyres on one on std suzuki ST90 van rims @ nearly Zero pressure & couldn't stop it in the mud with a trailer of firewood--no locked diff.

sw20, Feb 18, 4:08pm
Saw one last week. First one I’d seen in some time.

Haven’t seen any EF CRX’s for quite a while.

smallwoods, Feb 18, 4:15pm
Lol, one too many zeros?

franc123, Feb 19, 11:23am
Hell no, to go and buy one brand new through a NZ franchise dealer cost about that. The price of those fully imported NZ new coupes like Starions, RX7, Prelude etc was horrific in the early mid 80's, it was double to triple what a typical midsize NZ assembled car like a Corona, Sigma, Accord etc was. Even when used ones started coming in a few years later complete with wing mirrors and dodgy odometer they were still a $15-20k purchase from a dealer.

tgray, Aug 14, 1:48pm
1991 Mazda Sentia/MS9/929
Yes, the same car had three different names.

hkjoe, Aug 14, 2:08pm
And carrying the mandatory jumper leads, a few tools, rags, petrol can, in the boot, permanently.

hkjoe, Aug 14, 2:11pm
There was also an Austin 3 litre. sort of a stretched 1800

hkjoe, Aug 14, 2:12pm
Fiats, some assembled here. 125, 128, 1500, 132.
Corona RT40.