Forgotten hot hatches...

[davymead]

Same as my old Corrado, red with the 1.8 16V lump, except my car was unmodified. H442JRF RIP. Prior to that car i had a VW Scirocco Scala 1.8 injection. Another great fast-ish VW but a challenge to keep clean as everything was white.

View attachment 134172

Scala, in the best colour. Lovely.

 

[Stratman]

I must be wired differently. When my contemporaries were squeaking their tyres in hot hatches (some with wider wheels on the rear!), I was wafting around in Jags, Daimlers and the like. Cheaper to buy because I bought old ones and ran them until they needed money spending, cheaper to insure believe it or not, and a far nicer experience based on lifts in friends hot hatches.

 

[ChrisHGTV]

Spot on - quite understeery, especially in wet corners, but so predictable that I used to enjoy provoking it. With my current cars I'm too scared to even turn off the traction control!

I found a bit of trailing brake always seemed to control the understeer on the way in then you could control it on the throttle. But exactly - wouldn't dream of trying that technique in anything modern!

 

[davymead]

I had a Lupo GTI. I liked that car.

Worth decent money now

View attachment 134163


I also had an EK9 Civic Type R with a DC2 Integra engine and S80 LSD box if anybody knows Honda's

Super little car and a hoot to drive. Can be pricey, but residuals knocked by Japanese imports.

 

[JHS]

I had a CRX VTEC 1.6 transtop. Cracking crazy high revving engine. Great fun.

That would have been the Del Sol, the 2 seat version of the CRX. Had a JDM version with the manual roof. Lovely car, beautiful Vtec engine went like a rocket. SWMBO put it into a ditch after being T Boned by a BMW.

 

[alabbasi]

How about a Charade GTti

 

[rockits]

That would have been the Del Sol, the 2 seat version of the CRX. Had a JDM version with the manual roof. Lovely car, beautiful Vtec engine went like a rocket. SWMBO put it into a ditch after being T Boned by a BMW.

Could well have been. It was an import as my brother worked at a Jap Import place at the time. The top was electric which was more of a novelty than useful as I normally kept it up. Hope SWMBO was OK after the accident.

 

[Londonscottish]

Spot on - quite understeery, especially in wet corners, but so predictable that I used to enjoy provoking it. With my current cars I'm too scared to even turn off the traction control!

I used to love a wet roundabout so I could left foot brake and either get it into a four wheel drift or get the tail out. So easy.

 

[ChrisHGTV]

How about a Charade GTti

Were they 3 cylinder? Seem to remember my uncle had one and it sounded nice and warbly! Like it was a bit angry…

 

[ChrisHGTV]

I used to love a wet roundabout so I could left foot brake and either get it into a four wheel drift or get the tail out. So easy.

Those were the days! There was nice roundabout just over the Walton Bridge on the way to my girlfriends of the time. It had a kink first so the perfect setup for a kind of Scandinavian flick with some trailing brake! Glorious!

 

[alabbasi]

Were they 3 cylinder? Seem to remember my uncle had one and it sounded nice and warbly! Like it was a bit angry…

Yep, 1 liter 3 cyl

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I had the earlier 1.5 Green Cloverleaf. It was an 86 car and I bought it in 1989, not long after I started my career in London. It replaced a 1.5 Sud and felt a lot more modern although it lacked a lot of the steering and braking sharpness of the original.

Still, I went all over the place in that car inc several trips to the Scottish Highlands and one memorable drive to the south of France.

Two mates had identical (red) Green Cloverleafs, another had a Gold Cloverleaf and another had a 1.7 facelift. These were on top of the numerous Suds, Sprints and GTV's we ran around that time along with various other Alfas, Lancias and Fiats.

I never did get round to that GTV 2.5…..

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[Bobby Dazzler]

One of my favourites.

 

[Londonscottish]

I never did get round to that GTV 2.5…..

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OMG. My mate had one in the early 80's. I drove it from Edinburgh to Mull via Glencoe and the sound of that Busso was glorious. I've driven up to the Highlands many many times but this was the ONLY time the music stayed off all the way.

Ian Tyrell's view is that an internal combustion engine is a wind instrument and a Busso has to be one of the finest wind instruments ever.

Utterly fantastic.

The car was also beautifully composed through the sweepers and the first car in which I cracked 130.

But that sound...........

 

[ChrisPDuck]

I never did get round to that GTV 2.5…..

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The Alfetta GTV was the car that first sparked my interest in Alfas. As a young postgrad I was walking towards a conference venue in Luxembourg when a Rosso Red one (501 ) came screaming down a hill towards a T-junction and slid round the corner in a cloud of tyre smoke, engine wailing. I stood and watched with my jaw on the floor - it was glorious. It's an image that's stayed with me for 40+ years. I never did own one, but shortly after that I bought my first Alfa - a 1.3ti 'sud.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

The Alfetta GTV was the car that first sparked my interest in Alfas. As a young postgrad I was walking towards a conference venue in Luxembourg when a Rosso Red one (501 ) came screaming down a hill towards a T-junction and slid round the corner in a cloud of tyre smoke, engine wailing. I stood and watched with my jaw on the floor - it was glorious. It's an image that's stayed with me for 40+ years. I never did own one, but shortly after that I bought my first Alfa - a 1.3ti 'sud.

That’s the baby!

Now, please don’t forget that the new, more rigorous, Euro7 emission requirements include pollution from tyre smoke, and that we’ve all voted for an EV future which includes zero engine noise and more demanding 20mph speed limits in towns.

Ommmmmmmm

 

[ChrisHGTV]

Without wishing to turn this thread into an Alfa love-in this is my favourite image of a GTV6 in full flight, literally. This one’s in Australia I think but they’re really popular in South Africa. There’s a few running more than 600bhp from the Busso. It’s a wonderful engine, Cosworth wanted to buy it after Alfa dropped production. Busso died within a couple of days of the last engine being built.


My Busso is a keeper as long as I can buy fuel!

 

[poormansporsche]

One of my favourites.

Corker

I had the SRs spiritual successor





(Not my actual car but looked identical)


Killed it at 30k by taking 5 tonnes of old driveway down the tip because I was too tight to pay for skips !!!

 

[poormansporsche]

Same as my old Corrado, red with the 1.8 16V lump, except my car was unmodified. H442JRF RIP. Prior to that car i had a VW Scirocco Scala 1.8 injection. Another great fast-ish VW but a challenge to keep clean as everything was white.

View attachment 134172

That's lovely.

My corrado was hopefully "tastefully" modified but not ott compared to a lot of them. I managed to source a set of Corrado "Jet" 2 tone door cards from Germany, were the only set in the country which was cool. I swapped the fronts out for Recaro Speeds and had the rear bench trimmed to match. Ended up selling the interior to a person with a Scirocco Storm and he was going to bodge it too fit ! Never did find out if he managed it !

 

[SpikyMikey]

One of my favourites.

Loved my little Novas. I think it was the Quattro wannabe wheel arches that did it for me . I had 2 SRs, a red C reg and a white E plate bought brand new with factory alloys and sunroof. Pretty much identical to this one: