1979 VAUXHALL CAVALIER SPORTS HATCH
Used car addict Keith looks back at his best – and worst – classic buys. This week’s subject was rare and wellbehaved, but it had one major, if indefinable drawback…
WHY DID YOU WANT ONE?
It was 2006 and I was looking to get myself an affordable classic in which to commute to the office. As I’d just started a new job as Deputy Editor at
Practical Classics I needed something more suitable than the tuned-up Saab 9000 Aero I was running then. Being my usual carefree self, conversation turned to what I should get and that maybe I should just buy something sight-unseen off the internet and see what happened. Fellow staffer Neil Campbell and I turned to an online auction site and started browsing the classic car section – and I clocked a lovely, low-mileage Vauxhall Cavalier Sports Hatch with a couple of hours to go almost as soon as we started. Given that I’d owned one before and still missed it, I set myself a maximum bid of £750 based on a couple of blurred pictures and a shockingly light description. But it was just up the road and was Bright Copper Metallic, the colour of my last Cavalier Sports Hatch. I mean – what could possibly go wrong?
WAS IT A JOY – OR A NIGHTMARE – TO LIVE WITH?
As it happened, I won the auction with a bid of £650. I was so chuffed that I punched the air and cheered – not always a good idea in the middle of the afternoon in the office. But then we were always seen as being a bit odd…
The Cavalier proved to be pretty good once I got my hands on it. It took six weeks for the logbook to turn up and the carburettor and fuel pump proved to be devilishly unreliable but it was an absolute joy to drive when it was running. Strangely, though, it never really lit my fire like the first Sports Hatch that I owned and I’ll never really understand why – I suspect because it wasn’t putting out all of its 100bhp, and although it looked good on the outside, it needed a fair bit of welding to return to the road. Once done, it was a fine car – although it proved to be a victim of my ever-growing fleet so I never really put the miles on it that it deserved and I ended up lending it long-term to Neil to see what my Triumph-loving mate made of it before selling it on for a tiny profit after I failed to bond with it properly.
WHAT’S YOUR ABIDING MEMORY OF IT?
Working on it at the Practical Classics workshop and fellow spanner-man Fuzz Townshend scoffing at my taste in cars – it wasn’t old enough for him, even though I thought it was a handsome thing and liked telling him that he was wrong. I remember travelling briskly in convoy with Fuzz on the way home from the workshop one evening – he had a Renault Mégane Scénic at the time (rock and roll, eh…) – and I simply couldn’t shake his people carrier off on a twisty B-road. Ah well. Another ‘fond’ memory was how much of a struggle it was to get it going sometimes – I blamed the fuel pump for that. I squirted a little fuel straight into the carburettor following one particularly fruitless afternoon of churning on the starter and it fired up straight away. I was lucky that I didn’t lose my eyebrows on that occasion…
WHAT ARE YOUR TOP TIPS FOR BUYING ONE?
The Vauxhall Cavalier Sports Hatch might have been more rust-resistant than its Griffin-badged predecessors, but it’s still an issue if you’re looking for one. If they haven’t been garaged and Waxoyl’d from new, expect them to have been welded extensively by now. If you’re looking at a repaired model, make sure that the quality of the repairs is good. Check the inner wings, front valance, seatbelt mounts, boot floor and pretty much anywhere else. The sills and jacking points are known weak spots. The camin-head engine is tough but needs regular oil changes and its carburettor struggles to stay in tune. Electrical issues are rare, but fragile wiring and fuse box problems aren’t unknown, so make sure that every button, switch and dial works.
ENGINE 1979cc/4-cyl/CIH POWER 100bhp@5400rpm TORQUE 100lb ft@3800rpm MAXIMUM SPEED 110mph 0-60MPH 9.9sec FUEL ECONOMY 25-30mpg TRANSMISSION RWD, four-speed manual