Does anyone remember the VW K70, the first water-cooled front-engined VW? It was a relation of the NSU RO80 which it resembled physically, but very soon disappeared and was replaced by the Passat which in its original form was grossly inferior to the K70 aesthetically and, I suspect, dynamically.
Drove one a bit in Accra, Ghana, in 1977. Not only was it in perfect tune for a non-military vehicle in West Africa and a very nice drive, despite what looked like two fat twin-choke sidedraught Dellortos or similar (might have been injected though, some throttle bodies look like that), but it had a supplementary horn. This was a sort of bell push hanging from behind the facia on two wires. When operated it played the opening bars of La Cucaracha very loudly with a device under the bonnet.
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Musical air horn-still available.
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Ah yes the K70 also
Austin 3 litre
Rover 600 did'nt last long
MGC
Maybe we should start a post cars that SHOULD have been axed prematurely
That would have written off most of Austin Rover production
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Smart
Coupe/Roadster & the 4 door Smart are being phased out now and will leave only the original Smart as the sole model
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smart should concentrate on getting the fortwo back to what it orginally was and priced so people are once again interested.
BTW if you want a smart MB are doing some tempting deals at the mo.
Roadsters for £10k, cabrio fortwos for same price as coupes, less than 1% finance rate on PCP contracts. Forfour Brabus (177bhp) £199 a month for 36 months with £1500 deposit.
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Yes, the Rover 600 wasn't a bad car (being largely Honda), but BMW wanted to get rid of it after they took over, partly because of the Honda-sourced engines.
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The K70, yes that?s a good example Lud. Quite technically advanced from what I understand, initially developed by NSU and the refined further by VW when they bought out NSU. 21,000 units were made from '70-'75 but only 800 were imported into the UK. Volkswagen Audi Car magazine did an article on it some time ago, which is where most of this info comes from. Foreign examples breathed through a twin-choke attached to a long manifold for maximum ram effect.
Although not sold in the UK, the Leyland P76 from Australia was supposed to be a roaring success for BL in their foreign markets, but for a variety of reasons, the car was stopped after just 2 years.
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