Family Favourites
We fall for three autumn-hued mainstream models that ushered British families into the Seventies
Which of these 50-year-old family favourites should you buy now?
No-one seems to buy yellow cars any more, nor yellowy-gold ones.
But they certainly did in the Seventies. Tastes have changed over half a century, and that, astonishingly, is how long ago the three cars you see here were launched. When they were new, a 50-year-old car had a wooden body frame, cart springs and no brakes on the front wheels. But, 50 years later, these three aren’t so very far off being modern. This was Britain’s new breed of family cars – company fleet cars, too – for the new decade of bold colours and mainstream psychedelia. While British Leyland continued with its transverse-engined front-drivers, though, the three big Us-owned
manufacturers kept to conventionality with rear-wheel drive and a live back axle. But it was conventionality with a twist; in all three cars, that solid rear axle now used coil springs and was properly located by four arms. Steering was by rack-and-pinion, too. Meet the new normal.
More obvious to most buyers was the showy styling, a taste of Americana resized for Britain. That applies to two of our cars, anyway, but less to the Vauxhall which had already moved ahead of that trend (which its HB Viva predecessor had started, along with that less unsophisticated new rear suspension) and on to a new direction. It was a look and a style that nobody else followed, but full marks for trying.
First of the new wave for 1970, arriving in February of that year, was the Hillman Avenger. Here was a car midway in size between, say, an Escort and a Cortina on the outside but as big as the latter on the inside. Which meant it was also as roomy as the older, longer cars above it in the Chrysler UK range, the Hillman Hunter and its badge-engineered siblings.
The Avenger was that rare thing, an entirely new car sharing no components with anything else its maker made. Its styling, by Roy
Axe (later to head Austin Rover’s design department) featured a high tail with the rear window curving into the short, sloping boot, and unusual L-shaped tail-lights. Motor magazine
described it as a ‘semi-coupé’ look, and it was clearly influenced by US ‘pony cars’ such as the Mustang and Camaro. It could be had as a 1250 or a 1500 and in various trim levels; our Aztec Gold car here is a 1500 Super, bang in the middle of the range – which, in 1973, saw engines grow to 1.3 and 1.6 litres.
The Ford Cortina MKIII and the HC generation of the Vauxhall Viva both arrived in time for 1970’s Earls Court motor show.
‘New Cortina is more Cortina’, proclaimed Ford’s advertisements, and it certainly looked a bigger, more muscular and much curvier machine than the straight-laced MKII even though it was actually no longer. It, too, featured the ‘semi-coupé’ look, and its move upmarket – for it also replaced the Corsair – was demonstrated by the plush and glitzy 2000 GXL at the top of the range. That featured the new-to-europe Pinto overhead-camshaft engine, but our Daytona Yellow Cortina here is the sales rep’s staple, the 1600 L with Ford’s faithful Kent motor.
And the Viva? Gone was the Coke-bottle styling just as Ford embraced it with the Cortina. The HC’S new body offered more room than the HB’S thanks to an inch more wheelbase and length and double that increase for width. The new waistline might have been dead straight, but the cross-section was anything but, with lower body sides curving far inwards between wheels an inch bigger in diameter than the HB’S diminutive 12-inchers.
The engine continued at 1159cc but now had more weight to haul, so the performance was pretty feeble. The remedy came two years later with a boost to 1256cc, and another small power hike – involving the fitment of a new Stromberg carburettor, like the Avenger’s – for 1974. That’s how the volume-selling Vivas stayed until the end of production, which makes our 1979 example little different from one built five years earlier. So, it fits our test, Jamaica Yellow finish included, even though by the time it was made the Cortina had become a squarer MKIV and the Avenger had suffered a ruinous facelift.
Our three cars have gathered together not for a reps’ conference but so I can try them all, stirring distant memories of when such cars were still new (I’m just about old enough to have sampled them all back then, in one way or another).
First off, because it was launched first, the Avenger. Apart from the colour, it’s identical to the Midnight Blue one my father sometimes drove when his regular company car was in for service, and I drove it too. But Avengers were never this shiny when new. I’ve seen this one before, on the Pride of Ownership stand at the NEC Classic Motor Show. I was blown away then and I’m blown away again now. Owner Howard Hargate bought the then
‘The steering was by rack-and-pinion, too. Meet the new normal’
35,000-miler unseen from Northern Ireland in 2012 and set about making it beautiful again, without spoiling its authenticity. That meant keeping the paint runs on the inside of the bonnet and the wiggle of excess seam sealer on the left-hand inner front wing, just as it left the factory after Chrysler UK’S famously sketchy quality check.
Nearly all the metalwork is original, as are the mechanicals apart from hardened valve seats. Howard, from Yorkshire, took the Avenger on holiday to Cornwall earlier in the year; he’s not precious about using it. As I open the driver’s door I’m greeted by green – yes, green – vinyl trim and the Avenger’s key ergonomic set piece, the two giant, cylindrical, rotating switch-barrels sprouting from the steering column, one for wipers and washers, the other lights. It’s so avant-garde, it could almost be something from a Citroën.
The markings on the dials, semi-strip speedo included (straight scale, needle moving in an arc) are surprisingly small, but I’ll discover that to be the case in the other two cars too. I fire up the engine and head off, hearing a busy engine and plenty of wind noise, feeling quite a lively pace from the pushrod, iron-head motor and a gearchange precise but a touch stiff in its action. The brakes are a surprise; they have no servo and thus need a very firm push to give their best.
Avengers were praised for their crisp, vice-free handling when new and nothing has changed there, but the taut ride gets quite busy when the road gets ripply. Here, overall, is a fine example of a Seventies compact family car which deserves greater recognition today. But people don’t remember the cars of Chrysler UK as they do those of Ford. Such as our yellow Cortina with yellow cloth seats and orange vinyl door trims.
Ford had already embraced rack-and-pinion steering with the Escort and Capri in place of the old fashioned steering box, but for the Cortina another former Ford fixture was booted out: Macpherson strut front suspension. In its place came another popular arrangement, double wishbones as used also on the Viva. The aim was to improve refinement by isolating the engine and suspension on a rubber-mounted subframe, and it must be said that the Ford feels a smoother, more substantial car than the Hillman.
What surprises me, given criticism in magazine road tests in 1970, is that the Cortina also has a softer, more absorbent ride while still steering sweetly via its flattened, elliptical steering wheel with its downward-vee spokes. The super-sweet gearchange is not a surprise, though; the smaller Ford gearboxes of this era always feel good.
The venerable but versatile Ford motor, the only one here with the nowadays-usual crossflow
‘It’s so avant-garde, it could almost be like something from a Citroën’
cylinderhead layout, normally feels energetic enough, so we can overlook this one’s frustrating misfire. Instead we can wonder at the amazing fall-away dashboard with its paired cowls and deep dial tunnels featuring, in this low-spec model, speedo-size faces for the separate fuel and temperature gauges. It’s all very Detroit. And would you believe that the windscreen washers are triggered by your left foot?
After the Cortina the Viva does feel a size smaller, the impression heightened in this case by its two-door body. All three cars had a choice of door-counts, though, albeit not until 1973 in the case of the two-door Avenger, and by its HC generation the Viva had grown to be the same length as the Avenger even if it’s still six inches shorter than the Cortina.
This Viva 1300L belongs to Vauxhall’s own heritage collection and has covered just 17,000 miles. Its yellowness is toned down by beige vinyl on the roof and throughout the cabin, where the rectinlinear dashboard is fronted by a steering wheel whose centre bears the reassuring message of ‘Vauxhall Energy Absorbing’. The stubby gear lever is offset to the right, as are the pedals, and there’s painted metal on the doors where the others are fully trimmed.
The Viva moves off with the characteristic whine of Vauxhall’s smallest gearbox, its shift very precise, and quickly proves to have the speediest steering response of the three cars. It turns instantly, generating hardly any body roll, but the downside of that tautness is a choppy ride. Nor does the engine have an eagerness to match, although it sharpens up considerably if you leave the choke out a little. Clearly some mixture adjustment is needed.
With the smallest, least powerful engine here, albeit a very smooth one despite only three main bearings, the Viva is rather less dashing than its Coke-bottled competitors, but it does have a clean-cut charm. The Cortina comes across as a more complete, more confident, more grown-up car, though, while the Avenger is intriguing for doing things a bit differently, design-wise. And for representing a vanished UK automotive empire… which, for me, makes it the most interesting ownership proposition of all.