Hhehe
I might get a sticker
"I may be driving a poverty spec banger, but I do have a top of the range Cambridge Audio amplifer worth more than this car"
I thought all cars have them now anyway, there isn't really such thing as poverty spec anymore is there?
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"I may be driving a poverty spec banger but I do have a top of the range Cambridge Audio amplifer worth more than this car"
That made me remember the fad for having a massive transfer across the rear window with the name of their ICE system emblazoned for every thief to see.
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hehe yeah, the HIFI system is in my bedroom (don't really listen to music in my car) I have a knack of buying HIFI cheaply in clearence sales and it actually ends up going up in value, the Cambridge amp is now worth twice what I paid for it.
The stickers were pathetic though, you used to see a lot of Pionneer and Kenwood ones. Also do you remember then orange stickers you often got on Fords which would say "Orion" or something.
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I thought all cars have them now anyway there isn't really such thing as poverty spec anymore is there?
I suppose the phrase 'poverty-spec' can nowadays be viewed in terms of relative poverty. I may have the kind of kit that would only be found in an S-class 20 years ago, but when the man next door has rain sensing wipers and here I am operating mine manually like a peasant, grrrrrrr!
I'd say most entry-level sub £20k cars don't have front fogs. They have to be reserved to make the higher-end, higher-profit stuff look more appealing. If you look at the current range of Mondeo/Insigia, the base models look suitably miserable and devoid of any cosmetic niceties, ready to undermine a poor sale-rep's self-worth :-)
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I guess it does show how high speced my dads 11 year old Fiesta actually is, it has front fog lights, front heated screen, rear head rests, low profile tyres etc etc. Mine has manual locking, manual windows, no power steering, no rev counter, no split rear fold, it is true porvery spec. At least my wipers are electric though :D.
Electric windows is now standard isn't it? Every car I see now seems to have alloys, low profile tryes etc.
Incidently I was looking through an old What Car Magazine the other day on the standard equipment of a 1994 Merc C class entry level was nothing. Everything was an option, a radio cassete was £800! Electric windows £1500, central locking another £1k please., it is nice that we have come along with since then.
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Poverty spec?
..... adopts Pythonesque "Four Yorkshiremen" pose.....
We used to DREAM of 'avin' an Escort Popular Plus! :)
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Hehe I had a friend who had one fo the first MK3s, it was a G ref Fiesta Popular Plus. We spent an hour trying to work out what plus meant, and then we discovered when you turned the ignition on the ABS warning light came on and went out again! That was an optional extra but the Popular Plus we discovered meant it had a glovebox!!
Rather like my dads Lada Riva 1200L, the L meant you got carpets although in some ways it was quite high spec, it had lights in the glovebox, in the boot etc, had no radio though.
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>> We used to DREAM of 'avin' an Escort Popular Plus! :)
Yes, what Ford used to do was offer the base 'L' model with absolutely nothing, then they would use their imagination to create an even lower spec model which would be stripped out beyond belief. After creating the truly poverty-spec 'popular', they would have the audacity to create a 'plus' pack to try to pass it off as a luxury option. Thus, it made the extremely basic 'L' look like the third model up and supposedly luxurious option.
I'd love to know what kind of kit you didn't get in a popular. Presumably stuff that is taken for granted on anything this side of a rickshaw...
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I seem to recall the "Plus" got you such heady luxuries as cloth trim, a push button radio, a clock, and a heated rear window, which means the standard Popular didn't get any of this stuff.
I was having a sort out recently and found a Ford brochure from the late 80's. It is truly amazing what comes as standard on cars now, that you paid (handsomely) for less than 20 yrs ago. The only car in the entire Ford range to come with air-con as standard back then was the Granada Scorpio, and if you bought a Sierra GL, four models from the bottom of the range, you still had to pay extra for electric front windows and power steering! But they did chuck in central locking and a rev counter. Woohoo....
Edited by DP on 21/12/2008 at 19:56
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I seem to recall the Fiesta MkII Popular Plus had a rear-wash wipe... the Popular did not. A black plastic plug where the wiper should come out of!
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Didn't you just love those blanking plugs on the dash to remind you of the missing electrical goodies on your base model? Not ;-)
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I have the top spec Mazda6 (Mk I) but because I do not have fitted sat nav it has one button that does not move or do anything (it raise the sat nav screen up)
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My mates Fiesta MK3 (1995 vintage) also has a blanking plate where the wiper should be, his is an Azura. It does not have a cig lighter either.
I have the Povery spec MK4, but Ford have been very clever as parts of the dash are unique to my model so there is only two blanking plates. Mines so basic it dosn't even have a proper gear stick gaitor, so it looks like its striaght out of a 1958 Morris Minor but thats all part of the charm of basic Fords.
I do have a 4 speed heater and a 4 speed wiper though, which seems like luxery.
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Mines so basic it dosn't even have a proper gear stick gaitor
Should have gone for the Ghia if you wanted the crocodile trim, Rattle ;-)
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I always thought that big Fords were particularly well specified for their time. A top spec Granada would offer pretty much every electrical gadget we have available now, at a time when a rear wash-wipe was considered decadent.
The amount of blanking plugs on the dash of entry level cars used to be comical, before designers thought of more intelligent solutions for the impoverished masses who could only lust after that coveted 'Ghia' badging!!!
I think it's funny how manufacturers give their boggo models names to try and hide the shame; 'studio', 'life' etc. In the olden days it was 'L' for loser!!! :-)
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Rattle, i can't wait to hear you in about 25 years time grumbling about all this electrickery that will still be going constantly wrong.
You'll be like many of us, wishing we'd never bought that sooper dooper fully automated thing that's at some sort of garage being repaired constantly, being completely untouchable by home mechs by then, and wishing we still had that poverty spec motor that only needed a spot of oil or WD40 to fix the window winders or door locks.
'' i remember when it only took the fitter an hour to change my headlamp bulb, and reset the computer''
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Aye, they should've stopped at electronic ignition. All this computer controlled emissions malarkey is a major expensive headache when it goes wrong :-(
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eeeeehh, now then, we used to dream of electronic ignition.....
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The best we could manage was to wipe t'dizzy cap wi' a piece of cloth...
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Cloth?.....Cloth?..........
some dry grass were all we 'ad, and a drop of oil nicked from yer ma's sewing machine, and we thought ourselves lucky..........
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I am only 26 but have been interested in cars from a young age so before the age of 10, I know the difference between a MK2 Escort and a Datsun 120Y (these were very common even in the early 90's).
I remember when my old friend got his 1990 G reg Fiesta back in 2001, I asked him where is the dizzy was, he explained it didn't have one, I knew modern cars at the time had electronic ignitions but I was amazed his 11 year old banger had one.
I think electronic ignitions are brilliant, so much more reliable than a dizzy cap, but my poverty spec car does have a fairly modern ECU system with all the problems that go with multipoint injection systems. I still think I would rather have an electronic fuel delivery system than the crude carberators we used to have, and of course carbs would need constant adjusting.
My dad has the Ghia and it is a world away from my car in terms of spec as I mentioned above.
If modern cars get too complicated though I can see myself being one of these people that has a 30 year old car just because its easy to repair.
I do believe with the advance of fuel cell technologies in the future all we will need to worry about is batteries and motors and we will laugh about how complicated 2000 era cars were.
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We used to DREAM of 'avin' an Escort Popular Plus! :)
I had two ~ 1.1 Daytona Yellow followed by 1.3 Signal Yellow.
Edited by L'escargot on 22/12/2008 at 07:06
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