Bar Volvo, Saab and Mercedes, they were all rustbuckets in that era 
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I did know that she died only last week.
How sad.
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“Pre-recycled” by the factory? 
Not really worse than most cars of the day, and much better than something ordinary from Italy. I remember the Lancia Beta being on TV for rotting away in less than 5 years.
A fate shared by its cousin the fiat X19. My mates rotted away whilst we watched 
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Pretty little car that was also a death trap .Despite being only modestly powerful for a mid-engined Italian car, it still had a tendency to spin on wet roundabouts and in the snow.
Apparently in those days the low grade imported steel used by FIAT and its subsidiaries was often stored in the open for months and had started before the car was built.
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and the Ford Capri worst car I’ve ever driven in the snow
It was better with a couple of bags of sand in the boot. Especially the 3ltr.
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Better still was the 4WD 3l version - I’ve posted before about an old friend who had a highly tuned one of those; she was a former MI5 driver trained in defensive driving techniques who easily shook off a County Durham police chase by turning off her headlights, taking an off-ramp and parking behind some bushes till they’d passed. Though heaven forbid that I’m condoning such a course of action,…
She was also a good shot, an excellent horsewoman and had a degree in Chinese. What not to admire in a woman?
I never knew there was a 4wd version.
My friend had been a driver for a German sportscar racing team and when they went bust, I think she got the car in lieu of backpay. She’d have been excellent character in any US car movie from Burt Reynolds to Fast and Furious.
Even with a few hundredweight of artificial fertiliser in the boot wasn’t good even at slow speed especially on a corner slope, the best for driving in snow ‘n’ ice in our house wasn’t the Landrover or the Jag, but the Austin Mini, that was fun, go into corner bit of handbrake then accelerate out often leaving the mates following/chasing in their RWD cars behind or in the bank/ditch/field. But going to get a tractor late at night or early in the morning to pull them out wasn’t. Looking back it was all good fun.
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My mate rallied his capri, you wouldnt have wanted to make a mistake on a bend as was at Beddington sewage farm off the Purley Way.
Meanwhile I was in the CooperS and my stunt in the snow was leaving the handbrake on and full lock under power and it could turn out of any parking space barely moving forward an inch or 360’s in it was a car park. Ahh good times.
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It would be worth an absolute fortune nowadays, only around 16 made.
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Interesting - the car I mentioned was LHD, so don’t know if it was one of the sixteen in your article. Maybe there’s more, rusting away in German barns…
They were the only ones made, IIRC there were two LHD made as Ford toyed with the weight distribution and whether in a rally it was better for RHD or LHD for the driver.
Ford kept very good records about their rally teams so know exactly how many strengthen chassis were made.
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Or a kidnapped member of a rival criminal gang…
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They used Jags or Range rovers.
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& the Sweeney had Fords 
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That is true, I heard an interview once with a former Ford publicity man and he said a lot of money was paid to make sure that the gooddies had Grannies and the baddies had Jags.
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