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The Polo

Oh how I wish we had these here. I don't know how good they would be here given some of the reliability issues of the recently produced VW's, but they're just adorable and I love small cars. VW really had a pen for good looking cars in this era. Is the 1.4 a petrol engine or diesel?

I recently picked up a used 1991 Geo Metro (Swift) and it's in dire need of work. The one thing I like about them is that they are simple and economical as well as cute. Considering I paid only $300, it's a great project car, and everyone needs one of those.

-Tim
 
Mileage

I'm just curious what the power rating and fuel consumption is like on that little thing. Also would you have any more pics to post, either here or via e-mail?

Thanks

-Tim
 
I'm just curious what the power rating and fuel consumpt

Well it all depends on the engine specification...but the versions we get here are rated as follows....

1.2litre - 77 kilowatts (100hp approx.) Petrol 44mpg combined
1.4litre - 63 kilowatts (82hp approx. ) Petrol 38mpg combined
1.6litre - 66 kilowatts (86hp approx. ) Diesel 52mpg combined
 
Those are for the newer models, mine is an older model, this 1.4 has 55kw. I don't have any figures for the fuel consumption of the model with the automatic transmission. On average it uses 7.5 liters per 100km I think.

I don't have anymore pictures but if you do a Google search on Volkswagen Polo 2004 you'll find some.
 
Huge Polo fan here.....

VW should have brought them over, but I'm sure the decision was made not to compete with the Rabbit/Golf, even back in the 70's.

Chris, regarding the Morris transmission. I've got a good section on them in the Technical Advice pages of my Austin America website (www.austinamericausa.com) and you can see some of the steps to rebuilding. Basically, a loss of friction material and failing rubber o-rings and oil seals causes the transmissions to loose pressure internally and stop clamping down the way they should.

You might try adjusting the brake bands and that can be done in car:
-Drain the oil
-Remove the front transmission cover, including the oil filter assembly
-Inside the transmission on the driver's side, you'll see 3 adjustable brake bands. Loosen the lock nuts for each band and thread the domed nut upward until there is as little free-play as possible in the "jaw" of the brake band (you can try lifting the brake band jaw open). Ideally you only want about 1-2mm of play, but due to wear you may have more. But that's okay. Right now, you probably have a half inch of play!
-Generally the transmission cover gasket will stay completely attached to the cover, and you can re-use it by coating it with a gasket sealant like Hylomar, or Permatex Aviation Form-A-Gasket.
-Refill the transmission with 10w/40 and you should have a working Reverse and much less flare up between 3rd and 4th.

Your next job is to "shorten" the link rod between the carburetor and the transmission. Shorten it unil, under full throttle, the transmission holds itself in 3rd until about 50-55mph.

Following this adjustment, you'll be amazed at how the car performs.[this post was last edited: 11/19/2010-17:34]
 
Todd....

....that is one fantastic site - I've visited it several times before.

I was thinking about the brake bands actually....as I mentioned, it is only when the car is:

Hot - hates reverse
Cold - hates to change 3-4 automatically.

I tend to change manually until I've done a couple of miles and ease off completely when doing the 3/4 change until the oil is warm....mind, an oil change is due and I know that makes things a tad better....
 
It's great that you've been easy on it. They may be the saving grace.

Probably wouldn't take you (or a shop) more than an hour to adjust the brake bands and I think you'd be amazed at the results.
 
Thanks, Todd. It is not nearly as presentable now - the paint is terrible and I can no longer hide it with waxing. I want to try to paint it in the next year but things keep coming up and making me push the project back.
 
Zoom!Zoom!

I have a 2007 Mazda 3. His name is Max. I absolutely love my car. It's been nothing but wonderful and super fun to drive! My second Mazda in a row (I previously had a 2001 Protege, which also -- other than regular maintenance and a few repairs, also very problem-free).

hooverwheelaway++11-19-2010-21-20-26.jpg
 
David, all your vehicles are just gorgeous! The 58 limited is my absolute fav. Totally kills the 57 chevy in style. Such elegancy the chevy lacked. The tail lights are just awesome too.
 
Can't imagine the cost of painting the buick, even in a solid color. It would take me a month just to get all the trim off it, and 6mos to get it all back together after the respray!

I love the big sleds like that though. There is a car show here in SLO every July where a club from the SF Bay area and a club from the San Diego area meet to show off their big American Iron....the vast majority stuff on par with your Limited. Most everything either restored accurately to the most infinate detail, or still in amazing original condition. It continues to be my favorite car show.
 
The daily driver.... an oh so exciting (NOT!) Toyota Camry Hy-bird (hybrid). But since it averages 33 - 34 MPG for my daily, mostly city streets commuting duties, I'm not complaining!

I also have an older (1991) supercharged Mustang and a 2003 Ranger truck, for hauling appliances around, of course!

BTW Chris and Todd... I really like the Austins and LOVE the Citroens, especially the DS!!

Kevin

revvinkevin++11-20-2010-00-44-41.jpg
 
The Beast

A '50 GMC 100. It was a retired Pacific Telephone truck when my dad bought it in 1960. I'm guessing that Ma Bell mounted a box on the back, and that's why it has a '54 bed. The 228 engine is original but got a rebuild quite a while ago. It will start right up after sitting for a week or two or three, and is still used for hauling mulch and the occasional appliance.

I'm not inclined to paint it or restore it since I don't have garage space for it. Plus, it has more personality the way it looks now. My dad changed out the original round side view mirrors at some point, which I wish he hadn't done.

This is the first vehicle that was mine to drive after I got my license and before I bought a car of my own. Operating a three-speed on the column is second nature to me, there's nothing difficult about it, yet uninitiated passengers marvel as they watch me run through the gears. It's hard to believe that I've been driving this truck for almost 40 years. I know so well how it wants to be driven, it's like a part of me.

rp2813++11-20-2010-01-45-35.jpg
 
Cheers....

....Kevin....

Citroens are fantastic cars and basically bullet proof from an engineering point of view...

As for the Austin/Morris, they are lovely and far more practical than an old Mini...

BTW, Todd has the Austin MKII version and I have the Morris MK I version. Apart from looking a little different, my car was made in Zetland, Sydney, Australia rather than the UK and has a few key differences compared to the British built cars:

- Rotodip rust proofing
- Bench front seat
- Handbrake repositioned between the door and the seat
- better dust proofing
- Deeper foam in the seats
- No suspended headlining (just foam stuck to the roof)
- Moulded boot mat around the spare rather than 'floor above the spare'

...overall there were 37 changes that were deemed essential for the Australian market.



http://www.elevenhundred.com/index.php
 
1992 Chevrolet Caprice

I call her Clarisse. Smooth, safe, fast. And believe it or not, for a 305 cubic inch V-8 pushing around about 4,200 pounds, she gets great gas mileage especially on the highway, if I keep my foot out of it *wink* I've got over 274,000 miles on the original engine but did have to have the tranny rebuilt last April. Many were surprised that I got the 258,000 miles I got out of a 700R4, apparently that's unheard of, but I managed to do it somehow :)

strongenough78++11-20-2010-03-49-22.jpg
 
Love the Caprice/Impala!!!!

Honestly, one of the finest "modern" American cars ever made....along with the Buick Park Avenue and Ford Crown Vics.

I've logged a lot of hours in both the Caprice and the Impala. Love 'em. BTW, the original 700R4 went to 235k in our Suburban, which as you state, is simply unheard of. I did a lot of research and had it rebuilt with all the latest and greatest "pull a house off a foundation" parts. Sadly, it lasted only 34k and failed for no apparent reason this summer. So I've had it rebuilt yet again, with more improvements and even components that are used in the later 4L80E. We'll see how this one lasts.

The 1950 GMC is fantastic...100% fantastic. Especially that it's been in the family so long and you're still driving it. That is one of the happiest trucks in the free world.

Chris, I meant to comment on your newly purchased Citroen. Is there a sexier car on the entire planet? No, I don't think so. Gorgeous!

Also Chris, didn't your 1100's come with crazy low final drive ratio's? Our automatic Americas were 3.65:1. I have a 3.11:1 in my manual transmission version. What does your automatic have?
 
Austin America . . .

As with most Issigonis designs, the ADO16 sedan (marketed under the Austin, Morris, Wolseley, Riley, and MG brands) was a brilliant piece of conceptual engineering. It was light years ahead of most competition in terms of space use and handling, and might as well have been in another solar system when compared to the VW Beetle, the best selling import in the US during the '60s. The ADO16 was sold here by both Austin and MG, I'm not sure of the other brands. Unfortunately it wasn't particularly well developed or built and as a result sold poorly and had dreadful resale value.

In '75 a friend of my family took advantage of this when buying a car for his 16 year old daughter. Jim owned a Citroen DS and lived near us when both my parents were driving ID19s so it was inevitable that we should meet. He wanted an inexpensive car for Karen to drive to school, so he and my Dad began a search. My dad spotted the Austin America at a local used car lot. It was maybe 5 years old, not too many miles, and looked clean and well cared for inside and out. It didn't run but was really, really cheap. The plan was hatched: Jim would buy the Austin and my dad, who was an aerospace engineer and pretty good shadetree mechanic, would help him fix it. Karen was thrilled: in her eyes the America was a totally cute little car and at the time even the root-beer metallic paint was pretty modish.

Once the car was back at Jim's place we all messed around with it, and eventually the poor thing started but would only run on three cylinders. A compresson test showed no compression on one cylinder, but when Karen heard it running she came out of the house like a bullet: "Oh, is my car fixed? Can I drive it now? It's soooo cute!!!" When I broke the news to her that it only ran on three cylinders she looked straight at me and said "So what, is that like a problem? Does it mean I can't take it to school tomorrow?"

A tear down revealed that one piston, I believe no.2 or no.3, had split across the ring lands so the bottom of the piston was going up and down normally while the top was stationary. I recall that this was fixed but the car was sadly never very reliable and soon sold on, once again at a bargain price. Jim managed to find a Citroen 2CV, very rare in the US, which proved to be a neat third car for them and less troublesome than the poor Austin, albeit with significantly less performance and overall ability.

During the period from the end of WWII to the early '70s there were three British attempts to target the US market with cars named to appeal to Americans: the Austin Atlantic and Triumph Mayflower in the early '50s, and then the America in the very late '60s. All were decent or better cars in some respects but ironically they were all lead-sinker successes here.
 
....didn't your 1100's come with crazy low final dri

Todd,

I agree, it is hard to find a more glamourous looking car than a DS...

As for the final drive ratios, the handbook for 1969 states..

Morris 1100 - 4.267 - 14.4 mph per 1000rpm
Morris 1100s- 4.133/3.765 - 14.9/16.35 mph per 1000rpm
Morris 1100/s
automatic - 3.273 - 16.35 mph per 1000rpm

For me, that makes it about 4000rpm for 105kph in the 's' automatic....

Oh, and the one car that is missed from the list above, Hydraulic, is the Vanden Plas Princess 1100....
 
I did think of the Vanden Plas, but wasn't that sold through other BL dealerships? Was there actually a Vanden Plas dealership organization that treated it as a make of its own? Perhaps they sold it alongside the Princess 4-liter R . . . not exactly a desirable combination for any dealership trying to pay the rent as both were limited production vehicles.

The VdP is actually a very neat little car, what with its high quality plush interior and compact exterior dimensions, plus the comfort of Moulton's hydrolastic suspension shared by all the ADO 16 variants. A properly fettled VdP with the MG twin carb setup (on the Riley too I think) and manual trans would be lots of fun IMO. I seem to remember that at one point in the '90s a lot of VdPs went to Japan as they had a cult following there.
 
2007 Ford Falcon Futura Wagon

They've finally gone out of production as of June 2010, but this is my third one over 13 years. They'd been in production continuously from 1960.

Huge amounts of space, longer than our Landcruiser and with the current 4.0L I6 190kw engine, performs great and is economical for what it is, with 19mpg around town and almost 30mpg on the highway.

I've managed to squeeze one dishwasher and two full size washers in there at the same time :)

I'll have this one another 5 years or so, but since they no longer make them, I have no idea what I'll get next time.

The photo was taken back in July after some long runs through corrigated dirt roads in National parks down around Port Macquarie. The suspension is still a live axle with leaf springs at the rear, but they do an awesome job on really rough roads.

brisnat81++11-20-2010-15-02-55.jpg
 
Dealerships....

...unlike other country's where Austin, Morris, Wolseley, Riley, MG and Princess cars may have had distinct dealerships, here in Oz they had amalgamated them from the late 1950's or early 1960's...

This was made possible by the positioning of the respective brands in the 'pecking order' of desirability and by not offering too many competing models. By the time the 1960's came around, the following was true here:

Morris = small cars (Morris 850 (which was a mini), Mini Delux, Morris 1100)
Austin = family cars (Austin Freeway, Austin 1800)
Wolseley = executive cars (Wolsely 24/80 - upmarket version of Austin Freeway)
MG = Sports cars (MGB, Sprite)
Vanden Plas = luxury (3 litre and 4 litre R. Princess 1100 available to special order but cost double a Morris 1100)

With the exception of the VandenPlas cars, all, including the MG's, were either assembled or in full production at the Zetland factory in Sydney. This also means that they all had the 'Rotodip' rustproofing experience too....This was so effective, that apart from a couple of design weakspots in some cars where water doesn't drain, cars left in fields for decades are often restorable as the rust is often surface only...

http://www.elevenhundred.com/rotodip.php
 
For what it's worth, Issigonis was generally completely disinterested in both rustproofing and designing cars to reduce rust traps. I wasn't aware of the better rustproofing on Australian built BL cars, but from what little I know of the Aussie automotive industry through the years it does seem a shame that parent companies generally ignored its innovations and improvements. BL could certainly have profited from better rustproofing in many markets, and it would have been wonderful had American Valiants and Darts been available with the hemi head that Chrysler Australia designed for the slant six.

I have a friend who's first car was an MG 1100 back in the '60s. She went on to become a hard core Alfa junkie, but has such good memories of the MG that she's always ranked it among her favorite cars. She and her husband own Autobooks and Aerobooks, a great resource for all kinds of car publications.

http://www.autobooks-aerobooks.com/
 

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